Final Diagnosis

While diagnosing my computer last night, the real problem revealed itself.  My motherboard is cracked, or broken in some way.

I was testing my 4 RAM chips individually, to ensure my RAM was the problem when something happened.  The computer just quit.  It wouldn’t turn on, nothing.

Since I’ve had many power supply failures, I thought it was worth a shot to test it.  I found a thread on how to test a power supply by running a jumper between the green and a black wire on a power supply.  If it is good, the power supply will turn on, if it is bad, it won’t.  My power supply came on.

Since I know my processor is good, and I have tested most of my RAM, it’s just a matter of deduction from there.

Finding parts for a computer built 3 years ago is surprisingly hard.  Newegg only has 2 motherboards available, but both seem very cheap.  Looking around the internet, I found many suppliers but most of them were out of stock.  So I went to the “last resort,” eBay.

We found a OEM model that includes 8x AGP.  The auction ended in 10 hours, but I decided to “buy it now.”  Hopefully this thing will be as good as the reviews I’ve seen for it.

I also purchased a new IEEE 1394/Firewire card and 3 new 80mm cooling fans.

Now it’s just a matter of delivery and assembly.  I wanted to dis-assemble everything to prepare, but Rachel wants me to relax tonight as we have a early start tomorrow.

We are now discussing purchasing, dare I say it, a Dell for our normal “personal” computer.  This way we can separate everything physically.  I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, but finances have dictated otherwise.

This wouldn’t be possible without the help of Editor B.  I want you to know that I will always feel in your debt for the things you have done for me.

I hope to keep on track for Holiday season availability for ROX season one.

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