Box Fix

Last week our home computer died. Sigh.

It wouldn't turn on. I checked the power supply. It had a blown fuse. I bought a new power supply.

After installing that, the computer would turn on - that is, fans would spin and such - but it would not boot. I figured something had shorted on the motherboard. I bought a new motherboard and processor. I wasn't sure if the processor had been damaged, but Fry's had a good deal on a combo.

After installing that, the computer would turn on, get through BIOS startup, and crash. I discovered an addendum to the motherboard manual indicating that my old PC2100 memory was Too Slow to run with my new Athlon XP 2800+ processor. I bought new memory.

After installing that, XP couldn't (or wouldn't) recover, so I got to reinstall Windows. And patch it up. Hoo boy, what fun it is to do 50 critical updates at one throw.

The moral of this story? I don't think there is one. It's good to have a functioning home computer again. Now I can get back to the business of filling this space with more mindless ramblings.