As I was sitting on the beach for 4 months I decided I wanted to play video games. But I wanted to play them on a computer. And seeing as my current computer couldn't even play SimCity 3000 anymore, now was the time to build a new one. Since I built my last computer, discovered my fatal mistake in building it and then realized that I could not undo that mistake, I've been waiting for the day to be able to build another one. That day was afew weeks ago.
Spending more than twice as much as I did last time I built my i7 core 3.2 gHZ, Full ATX (4 case fans), 900 W PSU, 12 GB RAM, 1.1TB (2 HDD), nVidia GTX 285 1 GB (BFG) rig. It's pretty sweet. But you'd think with my previous experience building my last computer it would have been a cinch. You'd have been wrong.
After three minor crises I got the machine running. (Crisis 1, I bought a non standard heatsink fan and thought I'd bought the wrong size. After installing the stock one, I found the mounting brackets for my mobo and was able install the sweet ass heatsink. Crisis 2, I missed the mobo's 2nd 8-pin power plug and couldn't figure out why the thing wouldn't turn on... that lasted for 20 minutes. Crisis 3, after repeated attempts to install Vista and the machine wouldn't, I was convinced that it was because my BD-ROM wasn't reading the DVD fast enough. As I disconnected my old 80 GB HD from the IDE connection so I could hook up my CD/DVD drive I bent the pins on the IDE slot o nthe mobo. It was the mobo's only IDE slot. )
But even after it was running, the first major crisis was apparent. I couldn't install Vista. I became convinced that Vista sucked and I needed to get my hands on XP. I picked up, for an additional $175, one of the last copies of XP in the city of Chicago. It installed on the computer with no problem. As I installed the drivers for my graphics card, it told me that my graphics card was really meant for Vista, and it wasn't going to work correctly. It didn't really.
But the computer was running on XP and I was sated temporarily. Sims2 kept crashing without warning and seriously, its frigging Sims2, my card should be handling its graphics with ease. I came to find out that XP had a built in RAM limit, it wouldn't recognize more than 4GB. I pulled out the unecessary RAM. But now I was pissed, I spent a lot of money on that RAM and I was gonna fucking use it. I searched for Vista RAM issues. Vista 64 (the version I had) recognizes unlimited RAM supposedly. I reinstall the RAM and attempt to reinstall Vista. Still doesn't work. Then I find out that Vista won't install with more than 1 GB of RAM installed. Well that meant I was fucked because I had 6 sticks and they were all 2GB. I pulled out all but 1 stick and gave it a shot. SUCCESS! Vista installed. Now I could use my RAM and my graphics card.
I installed the rest of the RAM, and then Windows wouldn't start. Must be a bad stick of RAM, or a bad DIMM slot. I pull out all the RAM, use a sharpie to mark them and keep track and then begin testing. It must be the DIMM6 slot. For balance I decide to run on 6GB, that's really 2-3x more than anyone really needs.
But now, when I'm connected to the internet the computer crashes. ??? I can't get through 10 minutes of hulu.com. WTF!?!? Finally it becomes too much. As I'm looking through the documentation that came with the components I see that I may have installed the graphics card in the wrong PCI-E slot. Yes, my computer is so bad ass, it has TWO PCI-E slots. I move the card and go to start it up and ......Vista won't start!?!?!? It doesn't recognize the HDD or the BD-ROM. I must have static fried them when moving the card around. ???? BUt that doesn't make sense.
AFTER I install a brand new HDD and the mobo still doesn't recognize it, do I realize, that somewhere along the way I unplugged the HDD (by extesnion the BD-ROM as well) from the power supply. I now have 2 pefectly good 1 TB HDDs.
Today, I was also able to watch 2 hours of hulu with no problems. We'll see if this is the end of my frustrations. One can only hope.
