I recall why I swore off building my own machines... (this is what I get for wanting new kit)

[feren]

... and said I'd only buy a premanufactured one from a major retailer. I'll put it this way, folks: I spent all day yesterday (about 20 hours) building the system, only to find I had to spend another $610 ($399 + $179 + Uncle Sam's cut of the take) to make the system run. Granted, almost all of that will be refunded when the defective/inadequate parts are sent back under RMA, but that doesn't make my wallet feel any better.

What makes it feel worse is that after spending another 10 hours on it today, it still. Doesn't. Run. Reliably.

I have given a name to my pains, and it is Integrator's Lament. Right now I believe I have a terminal case of it.

Comments

[mindslide.livejournal.com]

I have given a name to my pains

At first, I thought that said I have given a name to my penis.

[feren.livejournal.com]

You know, when you quoted it, I could see exactly why you'd think that. I even thought that's what I typed when I read it and since I wrote it I should know better.

Apparently a lot of guys do that whole naming-of-the-penis thing. I'm not sure if it's an actual requirement of being male (I don't see anything in the Big Handbook of Being A Man to indicate there's a loss of membership if I don't do it) but I can't say I've ever actually participated in naming my equipment. I've had it named for me, but that's sort of a different exercise.

[feren.livejournal.com]

I also sort of like the idea of naming my penis "Integrator's Lament."

[mindslide.livejournal.com]

I've never actually been intimate with someone who named their penis.

I never want to. >_< How much of an egomaniac does one have to be to name their junk?

[angelwind.livejournal.com]

Apparently a lot of guys do that whole naming-of-the-penis thing.

I call the big one Bitey.

Not Quite 'The Lion King'

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

That reminds me of this...

http://www.queenofwands.net/d/20040121.html

[wolfbrotherjoe.livejournal.com]

... You call it the "Trouser Titan?"

NOT THE POINT!

[(Anonymous)]

You're just one of those people who have bad luck building machines. I've rarely had anything that I had to RMA upon receiving and getting up and running.

[angelwind.livejournal.com]

However LJ hates me. :P

Maybe I am bad luck for PCs.

[feren.livejournal.com]

As near as I can tell the XFX video card was DOA. If I had it plugged into the mobo and hit the power switch, I'd get no POST and no error beeps. If I pulled the video card out of the PCIExpress x16 slot and turned on the power, I'd get beeps. If I left the PCIExpress card out and just dropped my old Matrox Millenium into one of the board's few PCI slots, I could navigate around in the BIOS without a problem. So I was lead to believe my ills were to be pinned on the video card. Subsequent purchasing of a different card (same 7800GT chipset but different manufacturer) seemed to bear that out in later testing.

BUT...

The power supply I ordered lacked the 2x2 (four pin, +12v) rail connector that the motherboard apparently requires in order to run things like the CPU fan. Yes, the power supply has a 24 pin mobo connector so could have supplied that power, but this motherboard (despite having the 24 pin header) needs it to go into a separate header elsewhere on the board.

In all honesty I'd be perfectly okay with those two setbacks if it wasn't for the fact that (now that I have the appropriate power supply and a functioning videocard) the damn thing continues to lock up for no reason I can fathom.

Re: Maybe I am bad luck for PCs.

[angelwind.livejournal.com]

Since ICQ is being a bitch to me :P

How/when does it lock up?

[posicat.livejournal.com]

My last machine had a bad motherboard, MSI swapped it out for a non-broken board and it's been running just fine since.

I would never buy a pre-built system (unless it was out of standard parts to my specifications, and even then probably not). I'd rather fix it myself rather than having to lug it into 'service centers' during their hours, or mail it off for repair only to have it come back with a re-imaged harddrive. No sir, hand me the screwdriver.

[yakko.livejournal.com]

I'm with you there, 100%.

The last prefab PC desktop I bought was in 1993 -- my first PC -- and I only kept it for a year before selling it. It took a week for me to max everything out on it. There were 4 ISA slots, 4 RAM slots, a space for another hard drive which I had to make a bracket for out of a slot cover...

Every PC desktop I've had has been homemade since then. The only prefab machines I buy are laptops and Macs (because sometimes, even I want to just get stuff done). I don't have a problem telling family members to buy something from Best Buy or Micro Center, though. At least that gets me out of being their "on-shore support," having to then guess, over the phone, what's gone wrong with their machine.