Well, the RAM and OS are on their way. My new build will begin in a few days.

[Occulus]

Here's what happened:

Last week, I decided to try to fix the ongoing USB version loss issue my current motherboard has been having. To clarify, one by one, over time, all but one of my USB 2.0 ports have mysteriously reverted to USB 1.0. During my research of the problem, it was repeatedly suggested on several websites that occasionally, flashing the BIOS to the most current version can fix problems like this.

My current mobo is an XFX 750a SLI board from a couple years ago. The manufacturer's website is very careful about feeding you the right information; unlike with other hardware, I was forced into registering it with them to receive even a .pdf of the mobo manual. Initially, I was very annoyed at this, but it was a real help when it came time to obtain the proper BIOS for my mobo.

I triple-checked the file and version numbers before I even burned the BIOS flash boot DVD. I made absolutely certain- having done this before a long time ago, and used the wrong file back then- that I had the correct BIOS before proceeding. I booted to the flash DVD, the BIOS flashed successfully without errors, and the "Program exited normally."

I rebooted, and the computer shut down completely. This was unexpected; usually, a soft reboot leads to a soft reset of the power. Not so. The power came back up for about a second, and then shut off again, was off for a second, and came back on. "Jesus please us," I thought. "No. No. No."

No POST screen. Fuckitty. Hit the CMOS CLEAR button on the mobo. Power down/power up, boom! POST screen. DEL to get into the BIOS, reset all my settings, turned on SLI, reboot. No POST screen. What the shit. Random button pushing at the GRUB menu led to a Windows boot. Yay! SLI is working! Reboot. Still no POST screen. Clear the CMOS again and started making BIOS changes one by one, and BEHOLD! For some reason, enabling SLI in the BIOS now turns off the POST screen completely. This is inconvenient because of my GRUB menu, but hey, at least it's working!

Then my OS started falling apart. That's the only way to describe it- occasional bluescreens, some programs suddenly not working or going corrupt, audio is messed up, etc. Some hardware also seems to be wonky now, some hard drive partitions can't be formatted even though they're empty, etc. So, I decided to start fresh. It was getting to be time for a major upgrade anyway, and this hardware seems to be on the precarious edge of death. Here's what I ended up with:

AMD Phenom II Black edition CPU
ASUS M4N98TD EVO mobo (I needed SLI support and this was one of the few boards listed that had it)
2x4GB Corsair 1600MHz DDR3 DIMMs
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit

I already have 2 9500GT video cards, which while not even "good" still manage to run Portal 2 at 30+fps with most of the effects maxed out. I'll get a new card in a month or so, but for now, these are sufficient. I didn't really want to do this, but a failing mobo is nothing to trifle with (I looked for but couldn't find a replacement for it, given its age). As long as the current machine runs until I get the new parts, I'll be happy.

Wish me luck.....

[steve2470]

1. Best of luck ! nt

[struggle4progress]

2. Have fun!

[Occulus]

3. It's built! It works BEAUTIFULLY! And it was sooooooo PAINLESS!

Easily the most painless build I've ever done. Everything just WORKED, right off the bat!

Yaaaaay! I have a new PC!

[struggle4progress]

4. Which CPU? How many cores? What speed? Stock cooling?

Sounds like fun!

[backscatter712]

5. Don't you love getting a new homebuilt PC working?

I just gave my old desktop a brain transplant. Ended up replacing everything except the case. AMD Phenom II X4 Black edition, 8GB DDR3 RAM, Windows 7, Ubuntu Natty, 1TB hard drive.

Not top-of-the-line, but a hell of a lot faster than the old hardware.

Had a major hiccup during the build in that the RAM I got went bad, so I had to take it back and replace it, but once I did that, it's working great!