If it is not broken, do not fix it. That is a golden rule, and one I have come to know all too well in the last ten days.
Technical Difficulties
I have been running my main computer off of water cooling for nearly three years now. I planned on using this machine even when I bought a laptop, it was still good for what I needed to do on it. I was becoming leery of the water cooling abilities and decided to switch over to an air cooled system.
After I bought a new case, several fans and I was ready for the switch. My first obstacle came when I was missing a critical part (socket 478 retention guide) and could not proceed with the install. Every store I called did not have this part in stock, and when I did find it the cost was $38.
Memory Express was my saviour, as they also had it in stock and for a lot cheaper. Although after a very unfortunate day I left there without my retention guide. I called in the morning, confirmed they had them in stock, but when I arrived in the evening they were all sold out. Not just in Edmonton, but in their Calgary stores too.
A week passed and not wanting to lose any more time on my projects (as I am still editing the Matthew Good DVD and The Strokes audio) I decided to fork over the $38 and buy the retention guide. Road block after road block.
I had everything set up in the new case, but then the machine did not power on. The fans were spinning but it would not power anything else. Hours of troubleshooting led me to find that the power supply was faulty. I made an emergency drive into Edmonton to have the power supply replaced. Just my luck, when they tested the power supply it worked.
Ninety minutes later I return home with a power supply that is in a bitchy mood and a motherboard that is unhappy with the new case. I decide to forget the new case and move everything back into the old case, the one that was previously used for water cooling. I set everything up, throw the power switch and…nothing.
Now neither power supply will work and I am past my seven day return period for the hardware I originally bought at Memory Express. Where does this leave me? Most likely with a faulty motherboard and no known good parts to test with.
If it is not broken…
