EverydayOrdinary

Tomorrow, it will have been one week since my last login.

That’s because of Thanksgiving, and then I spent most of the weekend working on my seemingly endless redesign of my site, and then …

and then …

On Sunday, Sparky died.

That was my computer’s name. Until it died.

It started when I decided to install a new video capture card. Fine, easy. Worked like a charm.

Except that then one of my video cards wasn’t sending a signal to one of the monitors. Windows told me there weren’t enough resources to run the device.

And then there were the little things I noticed while I was trying to fix the situation. Like the NVidia controller popping up a message saying that SLI was disabled because one of my cards was removed. Yeah, it would think that one of the cards was removed, because windows disabled it because there weren’t enough resources … except that it wasn’t an SLI card. I’d never had SLI enabled … it was always disabled, even at the *hardware* level.

And then whenever I would reboot my machine, it wouldn’t turn on right away. I’d have to wait a minute after plugging it in.

And then windows just stopped booting. I could boot into BIOS, or into a Knoppix Linux CD I had lying around, but I got a BSoD every time I tried to boot Windows … even safe mode and last known good configuration.

And when I tried to repair windows, I got oddness on my windows folder name (but I think that may have been because it was trying to pull it off of the secondary HD that was in there scavenged from my mom’s old PC).

So I reinstalled Windows (had a bit of trouble finding my product key, had to recover that first). And (after waiting again), I was able to boot up into Windows again.

Then I decided to try and install the capture card again.

So I shut down, turned off the PSU, and unplugged. I installed the card, and plugged in, turned on the PSU, and pressed the power switch, and … nothing.

Wouldn’t even power up. The little green LED on the MoBo came on, but no booting.
With or without the card, same thing; just MoBo & HD, nothing. I tried different sockets, a different power cord, still nothing. I even thought maybe it was the power switch, so I swapped the power switch & reset switch inputs on the MoBo, and still got nothing.

I checked the power supply by disconnecting it from everything & jumping pins 14 & 15 (not recommended for long periods of time or frequently), and then plugged it in & turned it on (with something non-conductive ) … and the fan came on. The LED on it seemed dim, but I couldn’t remember how bright it was before.

So I got out another computer that I just had sitting around (what?), and swapped put the PSU from Sparky into the other PC, and it booted fine.

So I powered it down, unplugged, etc., and installed the video capture card in it, and it booted fine. Left it running all throught dinner, still working. Powered it down, turned it off, unplugged, waited a few seconds & reconnected & rebooted … started fine.

So yeah. Sparky is dead for the moment. I’m typing this on my laptop. I do have the “new” computer, but …

… I’m gonna go check the specs to see if it will run WoW.

I *did* just get a bonus check, so it looks like if I can’t resurrect Sparky, I may have to spend it on new PC guts, instead of that Wii I want.

Oh well, everyone’s sold out of Wiis anyway.