Friday, November 07, 2003

Waaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh....

Well, my PC is upgraded...and I handled the entire project with much poise and grace...

Um...not exactly. After I installed the processor and the new RAM, I turned the PC back on and... it wouldn't boot...hmm..."not this again!" I screamed aloud. "Wait, I'll call J-mo...yeah, he'll know what to do...if he can't help, no one can..." I dial... "What do you want now?" he asks. "It won't boot," I said in a panic. He replies, "It worked before you upgraded it, you hose-monkey." I say, "But..." "Shut up and listen," he interrupts, "Take it apart, put your old stuff back in one thing at a time, and isolate your problem." "Yes, O great one..." I reply.

So I do...turns out I simply hadn't seated my P4 as "snug" as it needed to be. D'OH!!! It fit MUCH more snug in the slot than the old processor, which just "fell" into place... The new one needed a little push... I'm such an idiot. Or maybe I just got overly impatient in all the excitement of the upgrade...

"All right!" I exclaim. Now, time to reboot. The PC whirs to life, with all its reassuring beeps...UNTIL...

"What's that screen mean?" Ominously, the screen reads "Overclocking failed." Overclocking, had I overclocked anything? The phone rings again at J-mo's house. He answers not with words but with a sigh, followed by, "This is why I don't do computer work after 9:00. You get into a panic...well, YOU, Kevin, get into a panic." I think, "well, pardon moi, but I want my PC to work, Mr. 'My PC did NOT suffer a major malfunction 2 weeks ago and it was a headache.'" Annoyed, he states, "Your PC is probably trying to revert to its prior settings...wait, I'm not going to explain it...just hit "use default settings" and leave me alone." "Okay...wow, that worked." "Of course it worked, you dufus," he proclaims (with a hint of satisfaction at my stupidity...or sheer annoyance).

WOOHOO! PC up and running...cool, now I can...oh, no...NOW WHAT???? "FOUND NEW HARDWARE...WHAT NEW HARDWARE? NOTHING I INSTALLED SHOULD CAUSE THAT!!! New audio device...WHAAAAAA????

J-mo, peacefully sitting in front of his brand new, fully-functioning PC, hears the phone ring yet again. It rings...he ponders not answering it. "No," he thinks, "He'll just keep calling and calling...man, I need new friends..." Reluctantly, he picks up the phone. I swear I hear faint teeth-gritting mumbling as I hear him pick up the receiver.

"What?" Hearing the annoyance in his tone, I ponder leaving him alone, and think..."nah." "It's bringing up a new hardware wizard." He replies, "Will you just go to bed and deal with this in the morning?" "But I want it working NOW!" I whine. Suddenly, as J-mo reminds me to stay calm, a solution clicks in my own head...and I realize that setting the motherboard back to its defaults caused the onboard audio to re-initialize... "Oh," I say, "I know what it is...need to go back into the BIOS and disable the audio." "Good," he replies. "Now, leave me alone, or I'm going to shove your PC up your..." I hang up quickly...

Absurd? Not really...I was a big freakin' baby trying to get my PC working tonight. Each solution was simple, and could've been easily figured out if I wasn't in a "I want it now!" mood and hadn't lost patience with technology and human error. Funny, in the long run, technology inevitably leads to human error...especially when you "rush" it, then don't try to solve the problem yourself with a little patience.

Anyway, after the upgrade fiasco, the PC is functioning VERY well. Feels new all over again...WOOHOO! I jumped online for a little B-1942 action and made peace with J-mo by sitting in the machine gun seat on the tank he was driving, protecting him from those lousy 'brits who kept trying to blow the tank up. It worked well, until he tried to take on about 4 tanks at once in the middle of an enemy base...wow...that was smart... ;-)

KEY PHRASES OF THE NIGHT: "Leave me alone." "Again, leave me alone." Stacey: "Kevin, I don't care about computer stuff." Me: "Whaaaaaat?" Stacey: "Good night...I'm going to bed."

THE "MORAL" OF THIS STORY: Be patient with projects of any kind. Rush, and mistakes are inevitable, and having to backtrack your steps is very frustrating. Besides, throwing an adult "temper tantrum" is not a pretty sight. -sigh-

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