10/01/2005
Oh Crappy Day/PC Shop of Horrors
Well, my PC Parts came in. The RAM from PCTek Online... and the rest from Compgeeks. The RAM was in a small box, wrapped in bubblewrap and an antistatic bag. I pulled the bag off and noticed a sticker that looked like it was printed on a crappy inkjet had come off inside the antistatic bag. The sticker said 1GB. The RAM though had a sticker on it from the manufacturer that said: 512 Meg. Okay, something is up. The guys at PCTek said on their site that "certain" chipsets would falsely report this RAM as 512 meg. Yeah, right. According to the specs on the manufacturer website, it looks like PCTek is selling 512 meg DIMMs, and trying to pass them off as 1 gig. I've e-mailed them asking politely what is the deal.

I installed the processor (3.2 gig) on the motherboard. Compgeeks said it was a used processor, but boy did it look used. It looks like someone tried sanding it to lap the processor like overclockers do. That had me worried. I wiped off the white thermal paste on the heatsink, and replaced it with silver thermal paste. Installed the processor on the motherboard, and then the heatsink and fan with the retaining clips. I installed the board in the case, hooked everything up, hit the power, and nothing. All the fans spun, but no sync on the monitor. So I checked the videocard, it's good. Checked the RAM, it's good. Put different RAM I knew to be good in.. Nothing. Checked to make sure everything was seated.. Nothing. The power light would come on, but no video, no beepcodes, nothing. So I reset the BIOS as the manual said. Nothing. Then I checked Google using my wife's PC. That alarmed me, turns out the motherboard I've got has a history of being DOA when a customer gets it. That and the fact that the processor looked so rough, worried me. I tried everything again, even removing and reinstalling the processor and heatsink. I spent about six hours trying to make it work to no avail.

In the end, I packed it all back up and sent a message to Compgeeks requesting RMA numbers for the motherboard, processor, and heatsink/fan. The thermal paste is mine to keep, I opened it and do not think it ethical to send it back. When they get back with me, hopefully I can get my RMA number on Monday, and ship it back by UPS with my UPS account on Tuesday. So I'll be out the cost of shipping, and have to find something else. I'm a bit wary now. I'll probably end up trying to find an Athlon 64 for a decent deal with motherboard, processor, etc.. Compgeeks has some good greenlight specials right now, but I don't want to order until I get an RMA number.

I ended up reassembling my Athlon XP 1800+ motherboard and dropping it back into the case. So I am back with my OLD PC. The only thing different is the paint job. I did paint it with stripes. Flat black front, a no-skid black base, and yellow, orange and white stripes on the side. I was going to do the red and black stripes.. But quit after the thing looked good enough as it is. I had an art professor in college who told me you had to learn when to stop on something, because sometimes a piece of artwork doesn't need to keep being added to... Less is more. It looks good, I shot two coats of clearcoat on it. With the old drywall paint texture on it, it looks like it's a painting. I threw the RAM from PCTek into my Athlon, and it reported it as 1 gig, which has to be wrong.. And the PC ran SUPER SLOW. That was just to make sure it worked while trying to build my Pentium 4. Argh.

Okay. I didn't wait until I got the RMA number. I couldn't. They were having their GREEN LIGHT specials at Compgeeks (used to be blue, guess K-Mart got onto them) and those are only during a certain time of day. Usually during the week when I am at work, and I don't like shopping on company time. As such, I ordered new components, and will just send back the stuff that was defective via UPS when I get an RMA. I ordered a CPU/Motherboard Combo which included 1 gig of memory. Why didn't they have this 2 or three days ago? It's an Athlon 64 - 3700.. Equiv. to a Pentium 4 - 3.7 if there was one. Wow. I should have gone with AMD to start, but the P4 price was so good compared to the Athlon 64's I was finding. This is more expensive, but ever since I've been building my own machines I've used AMD processors and have found them to be reliable and easy to work with. The combo included the motherboard, heatsink and fan, thermal paste, processor, and 1 gig of memory. I threw in a $30.00 case, the one I wanted which was out of stock originally... in black... and a 256 meg GeForce Videocard which was discounted very well. Same card would cost me $200.00 locally and was only $75.00. Even with having to take back the defective merchandise, Compgeeks will make out like a bandit. Oh well, I'll get a better PC for it.

The new parts will leave my old PC, with the new paint job.. Relatively complete. Since all I will be yanking will be the optical drive, the hard drives.. And the Firewire card. I don't know what I'll do with it. I guess I could sell it on E-Bay... Athlon XP-1800+, Sound Equalizer (sorry Phil.. New case won't allow it), Full Tower with custom paint job (Flat Black and Juicy Fruit colors.. Yum, it does look good though), Floppy (I don't need it, sorry), 512 meg of RAM. Just add hard drives, CD-ROM (I'm sure I have an old working one I could throw into it) and you've got a Puter! I'll probably yank my GeForce 4-440 MX and put it in Maru's box... That would take her up from the GeForce 2-Ti she has.. I donno, we'll see.. The GeForce 2 is an actual Nvidia card and the 440 is an Inno3D which is an off brand. Just have to see. I'm going to use my LCD monitors speakers, and my IBM subwoofer that I got off Infinite Auction (hah, is that site still around?) 8 years ago (8 years ago!!!).

I had VERY good success quieting Maru's PC. It's sounded like a jet engine for a while.. Three fans in front, three in back, fan on the processor and videocard. I think because I drilled holes in the side (very badly because I didn't have a drillpress years ago) that it's noisy. Now it has two fans in back (power supply and an exhaust fan), one on the side, one on the processor, and one on the videocard.. But none in front.

We went riding... Out to Lake Sylvia
We took the bikes (Buell XB9R) and the Vulcan out to Lake Sylvia for a ride today. About 86 miles in all. Took some photos. They're mixed in with the above and below. Did the maintenance on her bike a week ago, and she took it to our local Harley Dealer last week to have the TPS reset. It was cheaper than buying a $250.00 program for the PC to do it ourselves.. $35.00... and the next time is at 10,000 miles... Maybe 2 or 3 years from now. Lake Sylvia is DOWN from the heat/drought of the summer which is over. There were geese on the lake, in the parts that still had water.. And the part where we normally swim was a meadow. It was interesting to see the DEEP area, and see it's only about 7 feet deep... but it seems like it's 10 when you're out there since the lake is dark. When we parked, we used the Helmet Locks on the LeatherLyke bags for the first time. These are great. The old Helmet Locks will put your helmet up against the exhaust pipes (Why do motorcycle designers do that?), the new ones don't. Which is great. They are nowhere near the pipes. When we went to eat later in the day at a restaurant. I locked my helmet to my bike. It was nice not to have to carry it or store it on the table. We always park where we can see the bikes from our seats inside though. Too many bike thieves out there with pickup trucks if you ask me.

Me with the bikes on the side of the bridge on Highway 10. Really pretty spot by the Reservoir.	Me with my bike at a stop by the drinking water reservoir. The Vulcan 750 really looks good with the hardbags and the tool roll on the front. I HAVE to get a taller shield (Demon or Hellcat) for winter though. The Shooter is great for summer riding, but at 95 miles per hour I am getting alot of wind (maybe I shouldn't do 95 miles per hour eh?)	The meadow which is normally the swimming area at Lake Sylvia, including the pier which kids jump off of into 10 foot water at the end. The drought has really drained the lake, or maybe it also gets used for irrigation. I don't really know.
Smeagol tries to catch a fish in the stream... This is at Lake Sylvia, in the part of the lake which is normally 10 to 12 feet deep.	Maru's bike from last week when we were changing the oil and transmission fluid in her Buell Firebolt XB9R. Maru was so nice to put the dirty paper towels in the oil catch pan, it made draining the rest of the fluids so wonderful (NOT!). :-)