My New PC Update!

May 29, 2008 – 7:46 pm

Computer problems make me a sad panda You should see my new PC, seriously… it’s awesome!

Right now, all the parts are sitting in individual boxes, wrapped in bubble wrap, encased in a single giant cardboard box with my RMA number written in bold, black Sharpie. Why? Well friends, there’s a fun story behind it all (unless you’re me).

It all started last Thursday when I checked my order status and found that it had only partially shipped. I called in and was told that my video card was on back order and they’d get more in stock by Friday afternoon. I wanted to make sure I received it around the same time as my other stuff (shipped by ground), so I asked them to overnight it for another $10.

A white Purolator sticker attached to my front door greets me as I arrive home from work on Friday. I’m so excited that I jump right back in the car and rush to pick it up! The mail clerk comes back with a small box in her hands. I open it to find my video card. Well, that was early… I stared at that marvelous things all weekend with spittle running down my chin.

Monday passes with no new sticker.

Tuesday arrives and there’s a yellow sticker on my door. UPS. Heathens! Their carriers keep your package overnight rather than bringing it back to the office for pickup after a failed delivery. That means you have to arrange for another delivery, which I do, to my office.

Wednesday arrives and I receive all my parts unscathed. Joy. Doves. Choir music. I rush home, mow the lawn, BBQ some dinner for the family, knock in some fence posts, and last but not least, unwrap my goodies on the kitchen table. I spend the rest of the night intensely focused on fitting piece A into slot B. Doohickey into whachamacallit. All goes well. I rush downstairs, plug in my peripherals and hit the power button with fingers crossed.

It powers up… the lights are flashing. Joy. Doves. Choir music. And then it powers down by its own accord. I stare with gaping jaw. It powers itself back up! Joy! Then down. Fail. Then up. Woohoo! Then down. Ugh. After half an hour of tinkering I realize that I haven’t done anything wrong but it still won’t work. I go to sleep at 1AM pissed off and frustrated. Maybe a fresh set of eyes will help…

Thursday. Today. *cough cough* I call in sick. I spend another hour checking and double-checking my doohickeys. All check. Whachamacallits. All check. Anger is starting to creep in, so I grab the laptop and ask a friend over MSN what it could be.

“Probably your power supply,” he says.

“But… but I did my research and everything should be fine at 430W!”

“Well, dust and wear takes its toll as your PSU gets older and it won’t push as much juice as it used to.”

“Doh!”

Off to a local shop to pick up an overpriced 700W PSU (about $50 more than I could get it for online). Bring it back and install it. Crossed fingers. Check. Push the button and it powers up perfectly!

But wait… I can’t see anything. My monitor is on but it keeps flashing an orange standby light. Ugh. Check the video card and ensure everything is connected properly. It is. It is still not working. Run over to my parent’s place to pick up their monitor for testing purposes. Still nothing… Death metal riffs are playing up and down my spine. I’m fuming.

Call tech support and they tell me to try out another video card to make sure it isn’t my motherboard that’s causing the issue. Run out to ye olde ‘puter shop again. Oooh, now that I have a 700W PSU I can run an 8800GT instead of a 9600GT! Sweet, it’s on sale for $200! Yoinks. Back home… swap the cards and cross the fingers AGAIN hoping things will finally go my way.

Nope. Same problem. Hmmm, let’s call the motherboard tech support. Oooooh, sweet. DFI is located in Taiwan and the phone number is 29 digits long. Not even going to bother. Full of rage by this point. Disassemble everything and pack them back up. Put in an RMA request with NCIX. They reply one hour later with the go ahead. Gonna return the 8800GT and the 700W PSU too. This is the problem with ordering parts online… the hassle when you’re unlucky.

I could try another motherboard, but at this point I’m just too angry with the whole process. I’m going to return it all and save my toofs (that’s Orcish money for the uninitiated) for a prebuilt, custom system that will be put together by professionals and tested before getting sent out. NEarer to release…

It only cost me $70 and a day’s worth of frustration before realizing this is just the easiest way to go with the least amount of stress. I’ll pay the premium to keep from tearing out my own hair in the future. And usually I’m such a Scroogey bastard.

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Post tags: humour

12 Responses to “My New PC Update!”
Thats….. thats so unlucky.

By Greek on May 30, 2008
ya, I’m sorry man sounds like you got pretty unlucky.

By Zypher on May 30, 2008
It does get really frustrating sometimes, but in the end after it’s all put together a PC you build your self always gives so much more satisfaction.

For when things get too stressful though, just keep some booze on hand in an insulated cup(with spill proof cap). The insulated cup too, so you don’t get that sweat off the glass on you fingers while messing with components. In the end, you’ll be happy with your newly built computer, or happy due to the amount of booze you’ve chugged trying to get the damn thing to work =D

By Alex on May 30, 2008
@Alex - LOL! Johnnie’s Blue Label… About the only thing that could have taken the edge off during this build process. Then I’d be out even more cash!

But at least I’d care a bit less!

I sure was unlucky though… I built my original system by hand and the CPU shipped with a HSF blade that would jam up against my heatsink when installed… I had to carve it back with a sharp knife and it eventually worked fine. I did feel satisfaction after completing it but still… I hate dealing with internet orders when faulty components are involved.

On the other hand… I’m pricing out an entirely new system and it seems within budget. I may wait closer to release though.

By Snafzg on May 30, 2008
I -ALWAYS- go with pre-built. I stopped tinkering with hardware years ago. I refuse to do anything other than video cards. Too much stress. Too much worry. Too much hassle ordering parts.

You can find some amazing deals and end up paying only $100-200 more dollars for a prebuilt system. To me it’s worth the hassle of having to do it all myself.

By Keen on May 30, 2008
Yeah… NCIX offers a build and test service for custom PC’s at $25-50! You can’t beat that IMO!

By Snafzg on May 30, 2008
Unlucky! I feel for you dude - so much can go wrong with homemade PCs, yet, I always feel its the mans job to do it myself. That’s come back to bite me on the bum several times!

By Gordo on May 30, 2008
The sad panda fits this post perfectly. I know how frustrating it can be not getting it to work. I spend 1.3k on a new system at the beginning of this year and with help from my friends got it running flawlessly. Though it did take us a minute to figure out we didn’t have the DVD-R cable plugged in.

It’s almost sickening not getting it to work. I’m just glad mine came together nicely or I may have exploded.

By Cicadymn on May 31, 2008
Ouch, that’s too bad, but hey, on the bright side, every day you wait, PC parts just get faster and WAR just gets closer to release.

When the Canadian Dollar was at $1.06US I went out and looked at buying either an Alienware or an HP Blackbird 002. Despite the Blackbird being handbuilt in Calgary (only 300km from me in Edmonton) the Alienware was cheaper. Thankyou plummeting US dollar.

So I bought it with a good processor (3.0ghz dual core e6800) liquid cooled, and a 10k rpm raptor main drive, with only 1gig of RAM and their cheapest video card.

The idea was to then go out and buy the extra 3gig of ram myself (Patriot, same as the 1gig of lowlatency already in the case) and swap out the video card when the 9800 came out (which I have, in turn selling the old 8600 card to a friend) and add another hard drive myself, for far, far cheaper.

Basically, regardless of where you buy, just getting the bare bones pre-built, and adding in the little things here and there after you can still get a prebuilt, and save some cash by buying some parts yourself

By Knash on May 31, 2008
a built a comp for a friend using a dfi lanparty board. it did similar stuff. I figured out that it was supplying voltage to the ram at startup correctly. I bought a voltage regulator for about 25 bucks, worked like a charm after that.

before it would try to install windows but it would corrupt after reboot and after about 84 million times I narrowed it down to the ram voltage. pain in my ass I’ll never get dfi again, but it owns now that it’s running.

He asked me to reinstall windows and format his drive for him. I told him hell no hahahaha…what if it acts up again. he’s gonna have to get a new hard drive or do it himself this time.

By he-man on Jun 3, 2008
yeah i made grammar errors in that last post but i’m too lazy to correct them here

By he-man on Jun 3, 2008
Grammar mistakes are allowed; this is a Greenskin site after all!

The DFI came highly recommended but I don’t think I’ll buy it for my next system. Their website is horrible and tech support is in Taiwan (to my knowledge). It wasn’t even much cheaper than similar ASUS boards, but it was supposed to be easily over-clockable with the CPU I bought (e2180).

Bah well. I might look into the new AGP cards, track down a 7900GS / 7950GT, or just save for a new system in September.

By Snafzg on Jun 3, 2008