WWBP: Computer Troubles. · 2:51am Jun 14th, 2017
This starts about ten days ago, when I bought Total War: Warhammer for myself on a Steam sale.
Little did I know that this was my first mistake.
So I played it for a day when it became... painfully obvious my computer wasn't up to handling it.
It only had 4gb of RAM, well shit, there's the problem.
So I bought new RAM. A $200 set of 16gb Corsair Vengeance. Nice.
I put it into the motherboard and... the motherboard can't handle the new voltage and blows.
Shit.
I take it back in for warranty and get a new motherboard. Fine. Fine.
Take it home and... shit. I've misread the specs: I thought I had an AMD X4, I had an AMD FX. I need a new CPU.
Fuck. That's another $300, but... fine. Fine.
It's been a few days since I bought Warhammer. It was fun. I was playing as the dwarves. I wistfully remember owning a working desktop. I lament my hubris in ever trying to upgrade my RAM.
I put everything together again. Doesn't work. I check and-
The Corsair memory, for the original MOBO/CPU combo, was 3,000mhz. The new system only takes up to 2,667mhz.
Scream. Order $150 of new RAM. Scream some more staring at the $200 sticks sitting on the workbench that I can't use.
Get the new RAM. Plug it in.
It doesn't post. I don't get a BIOS. It boot-loops.
Scream some more.
Go to bed and try tomorrow.
It is now Sunday, a week after the MOBO fried. Each new part took time. Lament hubris again.
Okay. Pull everything apart. Put it back in. Make sure everything is plugged and wired correctly.
It is.
Turn it on.
Still won't start.
Resign myself to calling a technician.
I take the hint and decided to hire a professional. A great weight lifts from my heart at the realization this clusterfuck is no longer my problem. Though it is no less catastrophically FUBAR, and an irrevocable amount of damage has been done to me in terms of time and money, I am finally free of the stress it is causing me.
I think to myself;
This must be what it feels like to be a parent whose child is leaving home.
Technician comes over. He makes *that* "Huh" noise looking at my rig. I'm so vindicated.
We fiddle with it for ninety minutes. He declares the MOBO fucked.
I cheer and celebrate: Warranty! Not my fault! Warranty! Ha ha ha!
I drive to the store with it. They put it up on the bench.
It turns on.
I scream.
I take it back home and plug it in.
It turns on.
I have never been so furious at something going right.
It just wanted to be taken out for fucking walkies.
Turn on.
Oh. Shit. Right. Windows is trying to use the old drivers isn't it. Well. Fuck.
Go to bed.
It is now yesterday morning.
Put Windows boot CD in. Get options. Try to navigate menu-
Can't.
Turns out it's trying to use the Windows drivers for the USB slots.
Okay.
Go to motherboard looking for legacy USB options so I can use the keyboard to clean install Windows.
It isn't there.
There is a screenshot of where it should be in the manual, but it isn't there.
What.
Go to manufacturer website and get BIOS update. Put it on USB. Flash it.
Scream the entire time it updates, because if the power cuts out while that happens you've made yourself a $200 brick.
It doesn't. It's fine. Everything's fine.
Check the update; Still not there.
That option that is in the fucking manual is not on the BIOS screen
The screenshot of where it should be is in the manual, but the BIOS doesn't have it.
HOW?!
THIS SHOULDN'T BE POSSIBLE.
THIS SHOULDN'T EVEN *HYPOTHETICALLY* BE POSSIBLE.
Scream again. Cry a little bit.
Go to garage where I keep every piece of computer kit I have owned since 1996. Find computer dongle from 1996 that lets me plug a keyboard into the ps/2 connector.
But not my good keyboard, that'd be asking too much.
Navigate menu.
Manage to get offline command prompt up.
Take out repair CD. Put in drivers CD.
Motherfucking
dism /image:C:\ /add-driver /Driver:D:\ /recurse
, bitch.
Slowly boot.
Poke carefully with a stick just in case.
It eventually works.
It has taken me nine hours of constant fiddling to do it, but it works.
Name the computer "Murphy" after the rules it follows so lovingly.
Go to bed for a nap at 2pm and wake up at 12pm irrevocably fucking up my sleep schedule.
But it's okay.
It's okay.
Because I can play Total War now.
And that is how I spent $900 and dozens of hours of work over ten days upgrading my memory.
Damn. This was a rollercoaster of emotion to read.
Today was a bad day but I'm feeling better after reading this. Thanks a lot.
This is why i got my new gaming rig pre-assembled in the shop.
It might have cost a whole month's paycheck, but it'll chew up any game on the market in one piece without even burping, and I didn't even have to scream in mortal terror once!
Of course, then I got it home and my router immediately died, so I had to sit staring at the desktop for a weekend.
I feel for you man...
Also, as a fellow Australian, CELESTIA DAMN THE PRICE OF PC PARTS HERE!
I do this for a living; my entire job at my office is basically sitting around waiting for computers to break and then fixing them.
And please let me say, quite authoritatively, that this happens all the fucking time. At least once a week (and that's an unusually low floor, the very left edge of the bell curve) I end up resolving a problem by simply walking over to a persons desk while they try the thing that's been flat broken for them, sometimes for days on end, in my presence... and it works. And it keeps working, never to trouble them again. The computer very much just wanted someone who was willing, and able, to rip it apart to come over and stare at it before it started cooperating.
Or I get the cheeky systems that replicate an error in my presence, but not when I take it back to the workbench, where they are surrounded by the bones of their departed brothers who dared to displease me.
This isn't a complaint, because I look like a fucking wizard when this happens, like I have a magical aura around me that just fixes shit.
But this is massively, massively common. Every tech I know encounters a similar phenomenon.
Oh boy, yup this is going to be good. Though as a Techie myself this made me facepalm several times. It's like watching someone walk into a pit and get out only to see them fall in another.
4570721
I'm familiar with Tech Jesus Syndrome, where just having IT on your nametag gives you a weird Lazarus touch. This wasn't that.
It's that the ninety minute gutting got it down to just one stick of RAM in slot and the CPU, not even a harddrive plugged in, could get it to the BIOS, but a trip to the store putting in there GPU and both sticks of RAM just... worked. Just worked.
It's the whole next level.
Once upon a time, I had a job that included scaring PCs back into line (I also occasionally fixed them also), but some PCs weren't intimidated by me and my supervisor had to glare at them for a while. At least that's how I like to explain it to people. Beats trying to convey how it actually works. ;)
I feel for your troubles. Hope no more blue smoke gets away.
Gaze upon your works, ye mighty, and despair.
"Shouldn't even be hypothetically possible," basically sums up 65% of hardware issues.
was it worth it to lead Karl Franz to victory
4570721
My father is, what can be described as, a freelance IT professional. He has told me this phenomenon is so common he has considered selling lifesized cardboard cutouts of himself to his customers, except that it would probably put him out of business.
4570732
Thorgrim Grudgebearer you Sigmar worshipping beardling
Wow. You probably could have just bought a whole new computer instead with that money. Saved yourself a whole heap of trouble too.
All for warhammer. Holy shit.
4570746
Basically what happened. Just... a new computer one part at a time.
Probably the wisest move at that point.
4570741 this is why the Ruinous Powers trashed your computer yo
also geeze that sucks ass.
Just as planned.
Vae victis technica.
Earlier this year I reimaged my workstation from Windows to Ubuntu, after discovering that there were several tools necessary for my new job which were Linux-only, and getting tired of using Chrome Remote Desktop into a Linux workstation in the cloud to do all my work.
I followed the instructions on my company's internal tech support website what I thought was to the letter, including encrypting the hard drive.
A month or so later, my graphics card threw up and I was forced to reboot. The password prompt to unlock the encrypted drive wouldn't accept my password, the same password I had used several times on the same menu. I contacted tech support, and after several hours of emails and a desk visit, we discovered that I had made one major mistake during the reimage process: I had used HP's built in drive encryption, instead of the Ubuntu drive encryption. All of our options for fixing the problem were out the window. We couldn't even zero the hard drive and reimage, because HP's encryption stuff was stored separately in flash memory.
I ended up getting an entirely new workstation out of it, though, so that's nice.
4570750
So a ship of Theseus rig, then?
... I usually do not offer hugs of comfort. I am a terrible pony like that. But you seem to be needing a hug.
4570721 Ditto here. I once had a computer an hour and a half from my home office that broke twice, and worked perfectly when I made it to the office to look it over. I finally told the user, "It just misses me" and I taped a picture of myself to the wall right next to it.
It didn't hiccup once in the several years before we finally replaced it.
(as a side note, the intersection of the set of "All computer IT support people" and "MLP Fanfiction Fans" seems to be larger than anticipated.)
I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry on your behalf.
I don't think I've read a computer-related story like this in ages. What a train wreck.I feel for ya.
I actually had this exact same thing happen to me once. It was ridiculously embarrassing, despite saving me a lot of money. My computer would not turn on at all, I took it to the store, it turned on fine, I took it home, it turned on fine.
Both myself and the store people remain baffled.
This is why I call Computer Science (and electricals, for that matter) "Dark Magic"
4570813 Unsurprising. My completely-unjustified-by-anything-other-than-my-gut-feeling impression of this sites demographics is "mostly young, mostly white, mostly nerds." That's going to sweep up a lot of IT people.
Oh my god.
I had some issues with ECC-incompatible RAM, but to actually blow up a motherboard...
And you probably could return MB again before buying a new CPU.
Technology sort of only has two states: irrevocably borked to the point where it is infuriating, or working fine. There are no middle grounds.
And I thought I had issues getting my computer at work set up. That was hours upon hours of frustration, but at least all the components survived. Well, enjoy the game, I suppose.
4570860
I've got some parts in the middle, unfortunately
A Gigabyte motherboard that occasionally likes to bootloop, requiring me to mash the CMOS reset button in the hopes it will snap out of it.
Among all sorts of miscellaneous annoyances that could probably be traced back to it.
memory that doesn't want to work in XMP at the higher speed I paid for without bluescreening (only a couple bucks more, but still), I'm not even sure if that's the memory's fault, or the motherboards...
Oh yes, I've tried bios updates. I've installed every damn one they ever released in the hopes that either problem would be resolved. Twice the motherboard has rewarded me for these updates by forgetting its own MAC address or something, and a few hours later the bottom right of my desktop is covered with "Windows is not activated" (FUCKING WHAT), requiring hour long phone calls to Microsoft ending in them giving me a new product key out of pity
And recently I got a great deal on an open-box 1440p monitor. Within a few weeks I discovered why it was open-box... little flickers of white pixels dance across the screen every now and then, occasionally the whole screen has a bar of static appear for a fraction of a second. Rarely, the whole screen goes dark for several seconds. After an episode of this, its fine the rest of the day.
All of these problems dance the line between "I could probably return this for a replacement" and "but computer hardware customer service is so shitty and I'll be out of a critical component for weeks and it works MOST of the time"
In the end I've resolved to live with these problems, and go full Office Space on the motherboard when I'm ready to upgrade to the next generation of CPUs
I hope you like the game! Because if you don't... Well, all that for nothing.
The moment a Republican got in to office, the Android people decided that they ain't gonna support older phones.
June 1st update, the latest update wouldn't run on my phone. T-Mobile won't run without it, so I lost my WiFi.
Oddly enough, both Chrome and the regular browser work just fine on my phone, but not on my computer. I know why that is. It's because Bill Gates hired Satan to run the Internet
And this is why I only buy memory on the Memory Support List posted by the motherboard manufacturer.