Since I’ve arrived at Uni and set up my computer here I’ve had naught but trouble from it.
So far…
- One of the two memory modules went caput. Caused mysterious errors in Windows until it bluescreened proper and refused to boot. Even had trouble installing XP again or using a Linux live CD until the problem was narrowed down to the faulty chips.
- Next to go was the power supply. A few days after fixing the memory problem I went to turn my computer on. Immediately after I pressed it I heard a loud pop come from inside my computer and a bad smell too. Unfortunately I was impatient and it was a Saturday afternoon so I had to go to PC World for the parts. I’m not making that mistake again. PSU cost me double what it would online and they had the damn balls to charge me £16 for two kettle leads (that I’d blown by making sure that it was the power supply).
- The latest calamity to befall this hunk o’junk (gotta be careful here; it’s what I’m typing this on) happened to the video card. I noticed that the last few times I’d tried to play any games it would work for a few minutes and then completely crash the system after printing load of corrupted garbage to the screen. I figured it was overheating so I took the side-panel off only to find the video card’s heat sink and fan hanging off. I’ve fixed it back on but unfortunately I think it must’ve got toasted a bit because it now looks like my computer is having a bit of an acid trip.
I’ve not had any problems like this with PCs in years. Why must it all happen at once and why must it be when I’m in such a poor financial state? Well, poorer.
2 Comments
damn… that’s evil. and unless we students feel ready to give up food there’s really no way of replacing hardware without getting bottom-of-the-range crap. give your system a lobotomy, that’s my advice (but i guess you know this tactic well). i know it’s hard with xp, but my win2k is a mere husk of the personality it had on installation and works fine (*frantically touches wood*). word.
Late comment here, but worth knowing down the road. If things happen one after another like that, the most likely spark on the fuse is high up in the hierarchy of parts. I would blame your PSU. A bad PSU means inefficient power goes into the entire rest of your machine – with the likely result being many if not all of those parts getting ruined.
I’ve had a bad PSU crap out my motherboard before. It started with visible instability. Since the effect is so subtle (even a cruddy PSU will still provide enough power to turn on your computer), I decided to test the PSU somewhat arbitrarily. Plopping in another PSU was enough to point out that that was the problem. Unfortunately, it was too late for my mobo.
After that, of all the parts I cheap out on, I made sure that the PSU is not one of them.
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