Computer odesy, I went for broke.

[Brian37]

Ok so my tower died on me 4 days ago. I was sick of paying someone else to fix it or buying a new one. So I said fuck it, I am going to try to fix this myself. It is amazing what you can do when you get desperate.

I knew bits and pieces of computer parts but this experience in 4 days literally had me gut old towers for parts and Frankenstien this "Jesus raised from the dead" now working and formerly dead tower.

My first biggest problem was power supply. I was lucky to have a tower with a power supply with a connection that fit the mother board from the old tower. But no it does not stop there. It took me forever to figure out how to get past the boot errors.

I finally ran "safe mode" which got me to the C prompt. And wouldn't you know it, all those DOS command crap I learned 20 years ago paid off after I typed in "Format C:". HOLLY SHIT IT FUCKING WORKED.

Then I stuck in my windows disk, AND BAM! MOTHER FUCKER TOOK!

But after I got windows up again I had no sound. Tried looking up the drivers(DON'T DOWNLOAD CRAP) unless you know the source because you can end up with add crap that tries to get you to subscribe.

Anywho I bought a cheap sound card to bypass the motherboard into the expansion slot. BAM! Fucker worked!

But dumbass me had to fuck with shit while the thing was running. DO NOT FUCK WITH THE INTERIOR WHILE THE THING IS ON!

Ok so I was trying to put the cone back on the CPU fan and BROKE THE FUCKING BLADE!

Fortunately again I was able to gut an old fan that had the same number pins for the power supply. But the way this thing is jerry rigged now it is noisy. But the CPU seems to run fine so I'd put up with the noise. I had jerry rigged a fan on another tower years ago when that fan broke.

The long and short of it is I can now take a computer completely apart and put it back together. I am more afraid of software than hardware. Hardware is simply a matter of matching up shapes, just like a 1,000 piece puzzle.

A little bragging here, but I feel like I learned in 4 days what it takes people years to learn. But even after all this if my tower craps out on me again, I am happy because I had nothing 4 days ago, plus I got to learn new things.

[max-greece]

Feels great when you do it for the first time - actually for several things that spring to mind but I was referring to taking a computer apart, re-assembling it and having it work at the end.

One thing to be aware of - if your machine starts to cut out its probably overheating of the CPU. If the fan is making a noise then it isn't working optimally, but depending on your CPU you might get away with it.

[Brian37]

I have been monitoring the CPU in the task manager. It seems to be handling it. This gutted fan seems to be more powerful than the old one. I did the same thing with an old tower. I jerry rigged a bigger fan to that too and it worked for years after.

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I have 4 wepages open and an audio feed running and my CPU is fluxing between 50% and 95, rarely hitting 100%

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I just had 4 pages open and AND an ABBA video playing and the CPU was averaging 75 to 85 percent usage the entire time barely breaking 90. It seems that it hits 100% morso on an initial search but only briefly.

[Angrboda]

I have been monitoring the CPU in the task manager. It seems to be handling it. This gutted fan seems to be more powerful than the old one. I did the same thing with an old tower. I jerry rigged a bigger fan to that too and it worked for years after.

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I have 4 wepages open and an audio feed running and my CPU is fluxing between 50% and 95, rarely hitting 100%

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I just had 4 pages open and AND an ABBA video playing and the CPU was averaging 75 to 85 percent usage the entire time barely breaking 90. It seems that it hits 100% morso on an initial search but only briefly.

Heatsinks are cheap. Get a $10 one off newegg.com. (Zalman is popular; look for one with a lot of reviews, that's usually a safe bet. Other suggestions, Coolermaster -- inexpensive and fair performers - you don't need top notch).

I got started doing hardware in a similar way. In about 1998, after owning a Packard Bell for a year, I decided that I wasn't satisfied with the "OEM" compromises that you get with an all-in-one box, and decided to teach myself about hardware, so that my next main machine would be custom built. I would go to surplus stores and thrift shops and buy old, junk hardware pieces, bring them home, and figure out how to make them work, building computers from assemblies of second-hand parts. To this day, building and taking apart computers is something I do just because it's easy and a good stress reliever for me. Learning rocks.

I'm not extending this offer to anyone but you, and there's only so much handholding that can be done remotely, but if you need help with specific things, feel free to PM me. I've got a great deal of experience, and a lot of experience helping people with their computer problems. We can even chat via IRC or shoutbox if you like. (My hours are generally from 10 am till midnight, central time.)

[Doubting Thomas]

I've been tinkering with computers for years. I still have a few "frankencomputers" out in the garage which are obsolete by today's standards.

What really sucks is trying to take a laptop apart and putting it back together. Not for the faint of heart.

[Angrboda]

I've been tinkering with computers for years. I still have a few "frankencomputers" out in the garage which are obsolete by today's standards.

What really sucks is trying to take a laptop apart and putting it back together. Not for the faint of heart.

I was planning to upgrade memory and disk on my netbook, but since it requires disassembly to do so, I'm not sure I'll do the work myself (at least, not without prior knowledge gleaned from research).

[Tonus]

I used to say that you weren't a true hardware geek until you'd fried at least one piece of hardware. Having already fried about a half-dozen by that time, I had the credentials. :p I used to have a room with lots and lots of parts-- if we got rid of a box at work, or if another company in the building dumped theirs, I took it home. This in addition to the purchases I made all-too-often in order to upgrade PCs that were working just fine. I spent more time building a "gaming rig" than I ever spent gaming, until I realized that building the PC was the game.

Those days are past mostly because now I spend more time using the computer than I do upgrading it. But it's a good education to have. Being able to both troubleshoot and fix problems with a minimum of fuss and dollars looks like it'll be useful for a very long time.

[downbeatplumb]

My thirteen year old built his own gaming PC in the Autumn from scratch. (I've just remembered he's fourteen, bad dad)

He's playing on it now.

Engage proud dad mode.

[popeyespappy]

My first Frankencomputer was an 80286-16 running Windows 2.1. The 386 chip was out by the time I built it but I couldn’t afford one of those. So I just built one from hand me downs. It just went to recycling a couple of years ago although it hadn’t been plugged in for at least a decade prior to that.

I’ve got a seven year old HTPC that I was considering upgrading, but I was looking somewhere in the ballpark of $1000 for a processor, motherboard, memory, video card and drives so I just got one of these instead. Sorry Darwinian, but I used the Windows 7 key from my last laptop to for an OS…

[Brian37]

Now I know what a heatsink is.

This is what happens when you don't have a fan.

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Wow a 286, holly crap. I was jealous of my friend who got a 386 and look at all of us now with towers that won't be in homes for much longer now with tablets and i phones.