Albright Builds a Computer (31)

4 Name: Albright!LC/IWhc3yc : 2006-06-25 06:50 ID:erMTJ0cy

...Only to suddenly die a few moments later.

Hmm. I turned the system back on. This time it died within seconds of initially powering it on.

Hmm. At this point, I was distracted by something and had to leave my new toy for a moment. When I came back, I tried powering it up again. This time it lasted almost as long as the first time, but it still died. I gave it another try, and this time again it died soon after turning it on. Can you guess what the issue is here?

I thought it might be heat, so I popped open the case and made sure that the fans were clear and able to spin. They were, so I gave it another try, but it shut itself off again. This time, I fiddled with the huge processor heat sink I mentioned above. The instructions with the processor gave instructions on how the heat sink needed to be installed, but it was quite difficult trying to get the thing to properly snap on; on my first installation, I got it partly on, figured that'd be close enough, and moved on. This time I made sure it was snapped on all the way. It really felt like I was pressing so hard that I'd break the motherboard, but eventually I managed to get all four corners of the thing snapped in as far as they'd go. I powered it on again, and... it stayed on, and stayed on, and stayed on... Eureka! The lesson learned here was to follow installation instructions to the letter, even if they seem wrong. The hardware element of my creation was complete.

(Well, sort of. For some reason, the lights on the front of my case which are supposed to indicate power and hard drive access aren't lighting up, even though (as far as I can tell) I've installed them properly according to the directions. Also, my case has a USB and headphone port on the front of the case for convenience; the USB port works fine, but for some reason, the sound from the headphone port is backwards; the left sound channel comes out of the right speaker and vice versa. As far as I can tell, I've connected that correctly too, so I'm wondering if it might be because of some discrepancy between the motherboard and the case. The headphone port on the back of the case works fine, but obviously is more inconvenient to get to.)

All right, so I have a working computer, but it doesn't have an operating system on it. That was the next step; and this part of the story has a bit of a surprising ending, so stay tuned.

(I forgot to mention it in >>2, but you may notice I didn't get a video-in card. I've decided to delay this purchase until later, but when I do get it, it'll probably be a card in the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR line, as these seem to be both widely regarded and widely supported by the relevant Linux software.)

Name: Link:
Leave these fields empty (spam trap):
More options...
Verification: