Honor
"Building a computer,
For teh_pwnerer [sic]"
-Pure Pwnage
This week, I did the Headless Chicken Dance™ to get together all the parts for my computer. Yesterday was assembly day.
Thursday for me went something like this:
-Wake up.
-Shower and etc.
-Go to II committee meeting.
-Tram to Airport West to pick up the car.
-Take car home.
-Train to MSY
-Find out that MSY has less than one Conroe (of any flavour in stock). Also, none of the video card I want.
-Train home cancelled, wait for train.
-Call CPL.
-Go to CPL, order parts. Suffer through salesperson confusion over prices (I got overcharged). Impulse buy: G15.
-Train home.
-Go shopping for food to make dinner
-Meet blinvisible's dad at supermarket.
-Go home and cook.
-Realise part of blown light globe is stuck in socket.
-Call blinvisible's dad for advice.
-Eat.
-Collapse.
Friday also didn't start so well. Not much sleep was to be had the night before. It wasn't really excitement, it was more like more like "holy crap, I've just spent how much?" Not to mention random (or not so) brother related stress. I told you I wouldn't mention it.
He packed up and left for my parents place yesterday morning, which leaves the house to me for a few days.
Kane came over and we started putting stuff together. The heatsink over the CPU was a bit fiddly, otherwise it wasn't too hard. I had a "head, meet wall" moment when the DVD drive button didn't match up with the button on the case (the case is silver, and optical drives sit behind a silver panel). It is also scary when you press the power button and nothing happens.
It is even more scary when the computer fails to POST. Ben was around by this time. Now, my motherboard has a shiny LCD panel at the back which tells you what it's doing. It was telling us that it wasn't detecting the RAM. Much hypothesis ensued, which resulted in Kane driving Ben to Ben's place (10 mins walk from my place, incidentally) to get a stick of his DDR2. Of course it works with his stick. We play around with voltages, and putting sticks of RAM in backwards. ephant came over.
I didn't actually see Kane's handiwork, but apparently he somehow managed to put Ben's stick of DDR2 in backwards. That's bizarre, since there's a notch in the chip that's supposed to prevent that from happening. Cry more, Kane, cry more.
The short version is that the computer is now booting with one stick of RAM. It doesn't boot with two, or with one particular stick installed. Conclusion: faulty RAM. More Headless Chicken™ will ensue, possibly tomorrow when I have time to go to CPL.
Software-wise, everything is rocking. Okay, I'll give in and actually install drivers. But we gave it a test run of BF2142 on Kane's shiny new 24" widescreen and it was sweet.
After that we messed around with the Wii - Kane drove Ben home again to pick up two more Wiimotes. I learned how to bowl backwards in Wii Sports Bowling.
Ashley finally arrived, so I made dinner for everyone, then we played some poker.
Tonight is a short LAN (prep for StickLAN, plug plug) then I'm going to sleep for a bit. Then wake up and play with the RAM some more. Hm.
Thought for the day:
No matter how big a case you buy, it isn't big enough.
For teh_pwnerer [sic]"
-Pure Pwnage
This week, I did the Headless Chicken Dance™ to get together all the parts for my computer. Yesterday was assembly day.
Thursday for me went something like this:
-Wake up.
-Shower and etc.
-Go to II committee meeting.
-Tram to Airport West to pick up the car.
-Take car home.
-Train to MSY
-Find out that MSY has less than one Conroe (of any flavour in stock). Also, none of the video card I want.
-Train home cancelled, wait for train.
-Call CPL.
-Go to CPL, order parts. Suffer through salesperson confusion over prices (I got overcharged). Impulse buy: G15.
-Train home.
-Go shopping for food to make dinner
-Meet blinvisible's dad at supermarket.
-Go home and cook.
-Realise part of blown light globe is stuck in socket.
-Call blinvisible's dad for advice.
-Eat.
-Collapse.
Friday also didn't start so well. Not much sleep was to be had the night before. It wasn't really excitement, it was more like more like "holy crap, I've just spent how much?" Not to mention random (or not so) brother related stress. I told you I wouldn't mention it.
He packed up and left for my parents place yesterday morning, which leaves the house to me for a few days.
Kane came over and we started putting stuff together. The heatsink over the CPU was a bit fiddly, otherwise it wasn't too hard. I had a "head, meet wall" moment when the DVD drive button didn't match up with the button on the case (the case is silver, and optical drives sit behind a silver panel). It is also scary when you press the power button and nothing happens.
It is even more scary when the computer fails to POST. Ben was around by this time. Now, my motherboard has a shiny LCD panel at the back which tells you what it's doing. It was telling us that it wasn't detecting the RAM. Much hypothesis ensued, which resulted in Kane driving Ben to Ben's place (10 mins walk from my place, incidentally) to get a stick of his DDR2. Of course it works with his stick. We play around with voltages, and putting sticks of RAM in backwards. ephant came over.
I didn't actually see Kane's handiwork, but apparently he somehow managed to put Ben's stick of DDR2 in backwards. That's bizarre, since there's a notch in the chip that's supposed to prevent that from happening. Cry more, Kane, cry more.
The short version is that the computer is now booting with one stick of RAM. It doesn't boot with two, or with one particular stick installed. Conclusion: faulty RAM. More Headless Chicken™ will ensue, possibly tomorrow when I have time to go to CPL.
Software-wise, everything is rocking. Okay, I'll give in and actually install drivers. But we gave it a test run of BF2142 on Kane's shiny new 24" widescreen and it was sweet.
After that we messed around with the Wii - Kane drove Ben home again to pick up two more Wiimotes. I learned how to bowl backwards in Wii Sports Bowling.
Ashley finally arrived, so I made dinner for everyone, then we played some poker.
Tonight is a short LAN (prep for StickLAN, plug plug) then I'm going to sleep for a bit. Then wake up and play with the RAM some more. Hm.
Thought for the day:
No matter how big a case you buy, it isn't big enough.