superczar
Keymaster
The story so far.....
Switch couriered the Winnie and the Asus A8V dlx combo to me on Saturday....
I was hoping to get the Mobo by Monday afternoon, but no such luck....so Tuesday afternoon, I call up the Blazeflash guys and a gruff sounding man picks up the fone: I ask him the status of the given consignment number and a minute or so later, he says that the delivery guy has left with the packet and I should be getting it anytime now...
An agonising 4 hour wait later, no sign of the packet as yet....
I call up the Blazeflash guys and a lady picks up the fone this time ....I giver her the details and she tells me that they have not received it as yet from Delhi, and it may reach them maybe by tomorrow ...Aaaaargggghhh....
No sooner than I hang up the phone, I get another call from the Office security gate...Apparently there is a big fat packet waiting for me....Yayayyyyy :hap2
(Sorry if it sounds sexist, but feel free to draw your own conclusions from my last conversation....)
So I half sprint over to the main entrance and claim the much awaited puppy (puppies rather!)
Avoiding the risk of being labelled a geek/nerd by my colleagues (By opening the package at my desk, I would have invoked the wrath of the teeming masses huddled over the package expecting snacks/food couriered by my ever-loving mom from the oh-so-Far-away Bihar) , I grabbed the pack and rushed down to the parking lot...
Huddled in the privacy of the car, I take a loving look at the package....Oh no, the covering is torn and the packed edges seem frayed and caved-in at places
Hope there are no damages
So i peel off the cover and lovingly examine the contents...Everything is in place, the mobo looks okay, the winnie is snugly sleeping in the socket....but but..Oh nooo...Switch, how could you forget the cooling compound
Ugh...this means that I will have to leave the winnie sleeping content till Friday till I can go down to Ritchie to get some thermal compound....
hang on dearies....how cld i forget abt my Friendly Neighborhood Saiyanman and the Antec Cooler tube he got at the DFI launch....
And the evr-so-helpful Saiyan did not disappoint.....Not withstanding the agony of stepping away from his comp stressed by Prime, he makes way to see me at 9PM (yes..my cruel office made me work that long on a day where every second felt like ages ) and passes on the Antec...
Good, All set...
So what do I have so far:
- In hand
The Winnie 3200 and the stock HSF (fins slightly bent & base dirty...needs a thorough clean of the base)
The Asus A8V Dlx wi-fi mobo
- To be extricated out of their peaceful abode:
The Sony HS 95
The PSU generic featherweight champ (desperate upgrade needed)
The RAM - Hynix DDR 400 512 X2
The GPU- 6800nu AGP
And of course the Mouse/KB etc...but wait, I am using a Logitech CL USB based combo, not wanting to take the chance of using a USB CL combo, I guess I'll need to dig up my Pandora's box to get hold of the old PS/2 KB/Mouse
11PM: All the needed stuff is at hand's reach...All I need is a peg of heaven-sent manna to set my sight and hands steady...WHat ..no ice in the freezer...Never mind, at least ther's some cold Coke around for the mixer
11:30PM: All set to get sterted
WIth a bottle of Acetone in my hand, I clean up the HSF base and the CPU die..Apply some Antec compund and do some vigorous rubbing on the HSF....
Ugh..no blade to spread the compound on the CPU...Ever the resourceful man
, I pry apart a Gilette sensor blade and use that...Thumbs-up for ingenuity :hap2:
12:00AM: HSF mounted, CPU mounted, GPU mounted, RAM (1 stick to start with) mounted, monitor attached ...With the mobo on the anti-static pack, Am all set to connect the wires....(No drives for now...let's K.I.S.S.)
Plug in the 20 pin ATX + the 4 pin ATX, switch on the UPS..ahh the mobo light's on....
So With a prayer on my lips, I Short the power switch pins on the mobo........
CPU fan spins, and Yikes the mobo give me a high pitched incessant whine....
WTF
..did the Blazeflash guys kill the mobo in transit :'(
Totally distraught, I take another sip of my poison and start checking everything....Oops, the Molex to the 6800 is not connected....Anyway, since the card is rather big, and the mobo isn't fixed to anything as yet, let's take this out and mount the old 5200 lest I somehow damge the fragile PCB of the 6800
So I plug that in, and short the pins again....
This time, nothing...Nada...zilch..
no beeps, nothing, just the CPU fan rotates...not even the 5200 fan rotates (Gee, yes, my old 5200 has an active cooled Heatsink )
Why oh lord...why???
Never mind, let's start all over again...
Read the manual, Take the RAM out, plug it back in carefully,
Take the 5200 out, plug a molex in the 6800, seat it back in carefully....Connect...fire........
ooooh, finally, i see monitor coming back to life to show me the Asus logo....
Who would have thought that a brand Logo (That too the Asus logo) could look so beautiful, and calming, and soothing!!!!!!!! Thank you Lord....
1:00AM: Time to take out the old Mobo & Proccy from the cabby...Screw the new one in...
Connect all wires, mount the AGP, wireless card, make the connections...
All set....Press the power button, the fans whirr to life...
1:30 AM...A small voice at the back of my head tells me....Everything has been happening on cue for too long now...the law of averages is bound to catch up......
Damn....The windows CD image is on the HDD in the case.....
Why couldn't i burn it before happily unscrewing to glory my old setup ..
(obviously my old install isn't gng to boot up to allow me access to burn it)
Aaargghhh
Time to make another peg for a nightshot , and call it a day!
Damned be the day I decided to join TE
I was a happy and content man ...I used to use a PIII 550 machine, loved watching my movies and munching my popcorn over a 14" Samtron
And then came TE and thus began my woes....
Anyway, to cut a long story short, several upgrade (steps, not cycles later), I realized that my Thorughbred 2400 on a Gigabyte 7VM-333RZ mobo (Via KM266/33 chipset) is proving to be serious bottleneck for my AGP 6800nu and the new Sony HS95 deserved a better rig....
What set the next chain of events rolling was the realization that getting a good AGP mobos is fast becoming as rare as finding a bottle of Chardonnay in a Chennai TASMAC shop (for the unitiated, a chennai govt. booze shop)
The ever helpful :^ Sunny promptly directed me to Switch's combo deal for a Asus A8V dlx wireless mobo and Winchester 3200+ combo sale which I promptly closed with him....
Oh, I just wish that was where the story ended.....
But no, the ugly head of the upgraditis devil rears itself again to tell me what I always suspected....
"Your PSU ain't gonna cut it"
"Your Memory (not the biological one of course) ain't gonna cut in no more"
Your PATA Barracudas ain't gonna hold out any longer"
Aaaarggghhhyyyy
So I half unwillingly succumb to temptation again :mad2:
1) Current PSU--> Generic 350 (??) W PSU (Planning to keep the Winnie chuggin at a (hopefully) stable 2.25 Ghz 24X7) ---> what next?
2) Current memory --> Hynix (3-3-2-7) 512X2 333mhz --> what next?
3) Current HDD --> 2X 7200.7 segate 80GB barracudas --> What next
Switch couriered the Winnie and the Asus A8V dlx combo to me on Saturday....
I was hoping to get the Mobo by Monday afternoon, but no such luck....so Tuesday afternoon, I call up the Blazeflash guys and a gruff sounding man picks up the fone: I ask him the status of the given consignment number and a minute or so later, he says that the delivery guy has left with the packet and I should be getting it anytime now...
An agonising 4 hour wait later, no sign of the packet as yet....
I call up the Blazeflash guys and a lady picks up the fone this time ....I giver her the details and she tells me that they have not received it as yet from Delhi, and it may reach them maybe by tomorrow ...Aaaaargggghhh....
No sooner than I hang up the phone, I get another call from the Office security gate...Apparently there is a big fat packet waiting for me....Yayayyyyy :hap2
(Sorry if it sounds sexist, but feel free to draw your own conclusions from my last conversation....)
So I half sprint over to the main entrance and claim the much awaited puppy (puppies rather!)
Avoiding the risk of being labelled a geek/nerd by my colleagues (By opening the package at my desk, I would have invoked the wrath of the teeming masses huddled over the package expecting snacks/food couriered by my ever-loving mom from the oh-so-Far-away Bihar) , I grabbed the pack and rushed down to the parking lot...
Huddled in the privacy of the car, I take a loving look at the package....Oh no, the covering is torn and the packed edges seem frayed and caved-in at places
Hope there are no damages
So i peel off the cover and lovingly examine the contents...Everything is in place, the mobo looks okay, the winnie is snugly sleeping in the socket....but but..Oh nooo...Switch, how could you forget the cooling compound
Ugh...this means that I will have to leave the winnie sleeping content till Friday till I can go down to Ritchie to get some thermal compound....
hang on dearies....how cld i forget abt my Friendly Neighborhood Saiyanman and the Antec Cooler tube he got at the DFI launch....
And the evr-so-helpful Saiyan did not disappoint.....Not withstanding the agony of stepping away from his comp stressed by Prime, he makes way to see me at 9PM (yes..my cruel office made me work that long on a day where every second felt like ages
) and passes on the Antec...Good, All set...
So what do I have so far:
- In hand
The Winnie 3200 and the stock HSF (fins slightly bent & base dirty...needs a thorough clean of the base)
The Asus A8V Dlx wi-fi mobo
- To be extricated out of their peaceful abode:
The Sony HS 95
The PSU
generic featherweight champ (desperate upgrade needed)The RAM - Hynix DDR 400 512 X2
The GPU- 6800nu AGP
And of course the Mouse/KB etc...but wait, I am using a Logitech CL USB based combo, not wanting to take the chance of using a USB CL combo, I guess I'll need to dig up my Pandora's box to get hold of the old PS/2 KB/Mouse
11PM: All the needed stuff is at hand's reach...All I need is a peg of heaven-sent manna to set my sight and hands steady...WHat ..no ice in the freezer...Never mind, at least ther's some cold Coke around for the mixer
11:30PM: All set to get sterted
WIth a bottle of Acetone in my hand, I clean up the HSF base and the CPU die..Apply some Antec compund and do some vigorous rubbing on the HSF....
Ugh..no blade to spread the compound on the CPU...Ever the resourceful man
, I pry apart a Gilette sensor blade and use that...Thumbs-up for ingenuity :hap2:12:00AM: HSF mounted, CPU mounted, GPU mounted, RAM (1 stick to start with) mounted, monitor attached ...With the mobo on the anti-static pack, Am all set to connect the wires....(No drives for now...let's K.I.S.S.)
Plug in the 20 pin ATX + the 4 pin ATX, switch on the UPS..ahh the mobo light's on....
So With a prayer on my lips, I Short the power switch pins on the mobo........
CPU fan spins, and Yikes the mobo give me a high pitched incessant whine....
WTF
..did the Blazeflash guys kill the mobo in transit :'(Totally distraught, I take another sip of my poison and start checking everything....Oops, the Molex to the 6800 is not connected....Anyway, since the card is rather big, and the mobo isn't fixed to anything as yet, let's take this out and mount the old 5200 lest I somehow damge the fragile PCB of the 6800
So I plug that in, and short the pins again....
This time, nothing...Nada...zilch..
no beeps, nothing, just the CPU fan rotates...not even the 5200 fan rotates (Gee, yes, my old 5200 has an active cooled Heatsink
)Why oh lord...why???
Never mind, let's start all over again...
Read the manual, Take the RAM out, plug it back in carefully,
Take the 5200 out, plug a molex in the 6800, seat it back in carefully....Connect...fire........
ooooh, finally, i see monitor coming back to life to show me the Asus logo....
Who would have thought that a brand Logo (That too the Asus logo) could look so beautiful, and calming, and soothing!!!!!!!! Thank you Lord....
1:00AM: Time to take out the old Mobo & Proccy from the cabby...Screw the new one in...
Connect all wires, mount the AGP, wireless card, make the connections...
All set....Press the power button, the fans whirr to life...
1:30 AM...A small voice at the back of my head tells me....Everything has been happening on cue for too long now...the law of averages is bound to catch up......
Damn....The windows CD image is on the HDD in the case.....
Why couldn't i burn it before happily unscrewing to glory my old setup ..
(obviously my old install isn't gng to boot up to allow me access to burn it)
Aaargghhh
Time to make another peg for a nightshot , and call it a day!
hyeah:
)