"Mo"

My computer hates me...

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My computer hates me...

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Over a year ago, I built a new PC from the ground up. This wasn’t my first PC to build mind you. I hand-picked all of the parts and had a great time putting it together. If you’ve ever built a PC, you know the feeling of hitting the power button after hooking the final jumpers and hearing that familiar whirr as the PC boots up. Boy, is it a scare when it doesn’t do that! That’s what happened with this PC… absolutely nothing. Long story short, I got the PC to come on finally, but everytime I shut it down, it wouldn’t come back on without my resetting the CMOS by using a jumper on the motherboard. I tried replacing the CMOS battery, changing out the memory… everything. I finally found some people online in a hardware forum with a similar problem. Their solution? RMA. sigh What was MY solution? Get a Dell. Okay, okay, I’ll admit it. I chickened out. I just didn’t want to get burned again. I’m still using that Dell, too.

Flash forward to the present. I wanted to build a PC for my wife and I still had that motherboard sitting around. I ended up RMA’ing it and I got a replacement back. I hooked it all up a few nights ago and, miraculously, it worked! I had a few strange lock-ups, but they seemed to stop. Tonight, it won’t turn on. I took the case off and reset the CMOS to see if anything would happen. Something did happen, but only for a second. I heard the whirr for about a second and then silence. I would guess a short, but I don’t know. Building a PC is a lot of fun, but it can be great source of frustration when it doesn’t work.

My recommendation for building PC’s (ha, like you’ll listen to me now) is do a Google search on some of the hardware you’re interested in, but put words in there like “problem” or “this piece of crap won’t work” or something. If you find a lot of results, check them. It can save you some stress later on.