As The World Turns

Me attacking the computer......

A quick recap, as some might recall, my desktop computer, which has been lonely for the last 9 months or so, decided enough was enough and departed for the blue yonder. Or I thought. Being the brilliant Brain Surgeon I was (ahem), I decided to rescusitate the little bugger and breathe life back into it. So I started off with minor surgery, replacing the Spleen a.k.a. CMOS coin sized back up battery. However, he continued to play Possum, although I could still detect a heart beat. After various time consuming prods, threats and sometimes meaningless tests (isn't this Standard Practice at hospitals?) I diagnosed a case of a faulty hard disk. So last week ( 4 hr drive, to and fro Calgary) I got me a brand new Liver ($65) ... oops I mean the HD, and it still didn't want to jump up. Damn. Further tests ensued and I came to the conclusion the Central Nervous System (a.k.a. The Motherboard itself, horrors) needed to be replaced because of a faulty Hypothallamus in its brain (a.k.a. IDE controller, the bit that makes your harddisk readable). So today, I hopped into my trusty 1964 Land Rover Mk III Wannabe and creaked and rattled my way into a very very snowy Calgary, (sheesh, just last week it was so dry and brown, last few days and today it got buried by a blizzard) and got me a brand new motherboard ($75 cheap, i had expected to pay double the amount). At the same time I also upgraded my 7 year video card to 128MB ($50 cheap, brand names in a box minimum $80). So got home earlier this everning, after a very yummy take home dinner of Kentucky Fried Chicken (amazing how good it tastes after 3 months of not having any and sitting 2 hrs in a cold car), started operating on the little bugger. Ripped everything out, put everything back together and guess what, it still doesn't work, sheesh! Then a gnawing suspicion which I had earlier manifested itself, began to gather pace, finally I admitted, its gotta be the veins (a.k.a. ribbon cable) so I pulled the old one out and put in a brand one new one and voila!!!! ITS ALIVE!!! (This also means it probably was just that cable all along that was faulty only *slaps head, spend so much time and money*)

The Culprit, faulty cable only arrrggghhhhhh

It's Alive!!! (btw this a brand new flat screen CRT (old style) 17" monitor, I noe marnee to get LCD screens....($139, LCD double the price) can someone tell me how much I burned, I lost count. The good news is that I basically have a brand new pc, except for the CDRom 48x (5 years old) and Celeron 1.7Ghz processor (4 years) I'm gonna leave the rest of its recovery for tomorrow, still have the modem card, CD Writer and old HD to reinstall plus the various software bits.

I'm pooped, its 3am, now going to bed....zzzzz