This is going to be a long read.

It all started when my laptop broke about 5 months ago. My son knocked it off the the arm of the couch and it fell directly on the power plug in. This caused it to break the plastic portion and snap the metal of the DC adapt inside so that it could no longer charge. My friend helped me jimmy rig it with solder and super glue so that it could charge again. This worked for a while up until about 2 months ago when it started getting really picky. I had to either force it up or force it down to make the connection to charge. Eventually, it stopped working altogether. I got my own soldering kit and redid the jimmy rig myself. This worked again for a few days (just long enough to experience the WoW Cataclysm launch). But last Thursday (12/9), my laptop shut off suddenly. It wouldn't even run off the battery anymore. I tried everything I could but nothing would get it to turn on again.

Well, I decided to open a credit account with Amazon and see if they had any pre-built PCs that I could use as a base and then upgrade. There were 2 viable options, good processors and just needed a video card. But getting the new video card would require a new power supply. That ended up totally about $700. That was too much. So I saw they sell parts just like newegg.com does. I pieced together a system for under $500 with the specs at the end of the post. Its a rocking little machine... but thats only have 3 nights of working on it.

When I finally got all my parts in I proceeded to put them together. After all was set in place and plugged in I turned it on, the moment of truth... no video. All power was on, fans were running and lights came on. No video. I checked the video card and made sure it had power and was seated correctly. Still nothing. So I wanted to make sure I didn't have a faulty video card by pulling the one out of my wife's tower. Still nothing. I put my new video card in hers and it still worked so I knew it wasn't the video card. Next I verified the RAM sticks were good. I put each stick in each slot 1 at a time and still it never showed video. Lastly I checked the power supply was good by putting my new one in my wife's working PC. Still worked. I tried her PSU in my new PC, still didn't work...

I was at my wits end by then. I somehow got the notion to try the processor. My wife's CPU was almost the same as my new one so I pulled hers out and put it in mine first... AT LAST! It booted up and I could see it on the screen. So I tried my new CPU in her PC... same symptoms as my new PC: no video, power is on, fans running. I checked everything I could but could not get the new CPU to run in either machine. I verified with the motherboard manufacturer websites that the new CPU was compatible with both boards. Stumped, I figured maybe I got a bad CPU. So I processed an exchange with Amazon and got my new CPU 2 days later. They didn't even wait for the old one first to send out a new one!

Now we're at last night. The new CPU has arrived and I'm excited because I figure my new system will finally work! I put it in... same exact damn results!!! No video, power is on, fans running. Same results in my wife's PC as well. This time I kept her CPU in my new system and installed Windows. Then I flashed the BIOs. This didn't help anything, the new CPU still would not work. I stopped for the night after 4 hours of tinkering.

Now this morning, I decided to check Fry's to see if they had any processors because I wasn't going to wait another day. They had a step up in the processor for only $20 more and it was the same price Amazon had that processor for. So I go down, pick it up, stop home on my lunch, put it in.... YAY! It works!!! I was stoked. Now I'm working on installing my programs and then transferring my files from my laptop hard drive to my new one.

Here are the new specs:

AMD Phenom II x2 560 3.2 GHz dual core
Biostar AM3 Mobo
Radeon HD 5750 1GB video card
1TB Samsung Hard drive
16x DVD Burner
23" 1080p LCD monitor

The processor above is the one that is working. What I bought first was an x2 555 and what my wife has is the x2 550. All very similar processors, just different clock speeds. For some reason the x2 555 would not work even though both motherboard said it was compatible...

If you read all that, thanks! If not, oh well. I had nothing else to do while my programs are installing... 6.5gb left of WoW Cataclysm download.

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