Me, my wifes computer and bugs

[Camou]

My wife Rashari had some serious computer performance problems, especially on raids. In detail - the computer wasn't really what geeks would stick into the bag with the tag "state of the art".

So Mr. Camou, as persistent as his title, decided to open the bottleneck and upgrade the system to something faster. Base of the plan: In the ground floor of the building i am working in is a very good computer shop. So i took the computer of Rashari at the morning with me, promising to her, that the computer will be ".. glowing fast .." at the evening.

I marched into the computer shop, while the rather young russian employee there was smiling brightly at me. I guess, every reseller would smile, when some older man with suit and tie comes into his shop with an old computer in his arms.

I placed the computer on the desk and said "Ok, i need a really fast state-of-the-art graphics card, based on a NVIDIA chip, for this .. well .. computer". The smile of the clerk became brighter. As i expected, the computer - bought somewhen 4 years ago as a grab-n-go product from some non-computer-shop for a very very cost efficient price - had some nicely prepared surprises ready for us.

Most impressive was the dust curtain of the so far never opened computer. It was like 2 cm thick and was as tough like a persian carpet. After we removed this alternate protection layer we found out, that the system actually has a PCI-E slot. "Not more than 150 € for the Nvidia card and add an upgrade from 2GB to 4GB RAM." Still the employee treated me like some stud, not knowing that i am in computer business since 1987, nor that i am MCSE, MCT, PCI QSA, compuer freak and hardcore gamer. Annoying, hehe, but well.

So i bought a Nvidia GTX460 and 4 GB DDR2 and went home at the evening to build the new hardware in. Sure i was like "Honey, you should really take more care about cleaning your computer .." and started my work under her critical view over my shoulder. Out with the old RAM, in with the new ones, out with the old non-cooled graphics card. Then i opened the pack with the brand new card, which i announced as " .. a miracle of graphic cards ..", " .. more than 20 times faster than your old one .." and " .. placed as number 14 of the fastest graphics cards, while your old one is like place 750..".

Then the problems started. Whoever had the idea to design an inverted and 180° twisted mainboard, obviously never expected the user to buy a graphics card, which needs 2 (!!) slots to lead out of the computers back. Because there was a.) no slot and b.) some frigin video genlock interface with a scart-interface (never used) for the TV-card (never used). Long speech short sense: No chance to use the graphics card. Rashari was pissed as hell, less because the card didn't fit into her computer, but because of my announcements about the new graphics card, and then i have to rebuild in the old ..

Back to the computer shop and refund. Friday things cooled down and i took Rashari with me to the computer shop, to demonstrate her, how much i care for her and how important this issue is for me. So we discussed again with the geek there and at the end we bought a single slot Nvidia GT430 and - to bring back the smile to Rasharis face - a 60GB SSD drive.

Home and again i smilingly built in the new things, demonstrating professional skills in front of the waiting wife, who was expecting a boost of performace in her computer. SSD in and old graphics card out and new graphics card in. Fits.

Starting the system and .. doh. Whoever had the idea to give a graphics card a sound chip additionally obviously ignored the fact, that the onboard sound system uses the same ressources. Which caused the onboard sound card to be - BLOCKED! Holy crap! And no chance to switch of the HDMI sound on the graphics card (who would disable the better sound system??), and no chance to use the onboard sound system, and - oh wonder, oh wonder - i didnt have a HDMI compatible dolby surround sound system left in spare, which obvioulsy everybody has nowadays at home!

Reading dozens of posts of users having the same problem, i wasn't really satisfied that i found out, that the HDMI system was infunctional anyways, since it is supported only by Samsung and Toshiba. On the flipside of the medal i was not even more amused about the fact, that the systems would work again, if i could set the BIOS option of the onboard system to be enabled. Our BIOS only allows a.) Auto or b.) Disable .. but no enable.

Weird at all - when i make warmstart after reinstalling the graphics card in windows, the old system works. Sigh. A coldstart resets the BUS and assigns both soundhips as PCI 0, ID 0. Even a brain handicaped chimpansee would have tested a new soundchip inside a graphics chip.

Solution a: Install the graphics card with a new driver ech time you start from cold and rebooting with warmstart. Negatives: When warmstarting after driver install windows recognizes the conflict start an uninteruptible background process causing a delay in shutdown of like 5 minutes.

Solution b: Never turn of computer once it is running.

Solution c: F..k the sound, i dont need it.

Solution d: Buy a sound card - sigh.


TBC.

Cheers Camou.

[Abadonn]

At least you had fun !

[Camou]

Looking forward what suprises the just bought sound card has for me tonight ..

Cheers

[Kutufluix]

You really make me smile with that story haha, too bad is true :P

did you think in just purchasing:
- a case
- a motherboard
- a microprocessor

Is all you need for a brand new computer... since you have bought all the other things already

[Kikthin]

Long story short:

Next time Rashari will just ask for your CC and get it solved on her own in probably an hour!

[Camou]

Hehe, yes i REALLY DO think about purchasing a whole new computer for her, since it is about time

We delayed that to her birthday in December.

@ Kikthin: I asked the computershop geek about simply doing what i want and i get the damn system back at evening with everything running. He said:"Well, yes, we can do that for you - costs 100€ extra and takes about a week."

Inacceptable and if those screws there would have encountered the problems i spent my weekend with, the computer would still not be ready Ands if id have paid 100€ for that i would have tried to bite my ass myself

Cheers

[Vegethalia]

Lol! it was a really fun reading :D

anyway... I hope everything gets solved soon!

vege.

[Camou]

I cant believe it. IT IS WORKING with the brand new Soundblaster without any problem.

Mainboard, CPU and power supply is left to have the thing build from ground new. Then i only need the case adn we are done

Cheers

[Imrahil]

Speaking of the PSU... I certainly hope yours is capable to supply the energy needed for the new GFX on a steady base (like when playing 5 hours). Have seen old PSUs collapse after a bit of time with new and power hungry hardware, hehe.

[Rashari]

Hehe, good idea Kikthin :D

Imrahil, please stop scaring me...men and computer, or men and
changing running (not very good, but running...) systems on
computer is definitely my newborn nightmare.
I'm really really fed up with this for a while, although I had no
work with it..but being patient is also very exhausting - for a woman

Rash