I've always thought myself fairly knowledgeable on computers, but I'm starting to feel a little behind the times. It all started when I finally got around to unpacking my Windows box from Turkey and trying to set it up. What I initially thought was a little ding to the case turned out to be that the whole front of the case was smashed in.
I decided to buy a replacement case since it seemed the case was not salvageable. The first case I ordered from Newegg arrived with the front panel completely sheared off. There were six little cylinders on the front panel that were supposed to snap in the metal part of the case, and they were all rolling around the inside of the case, having been neatly sheared off in transit. I asked Newegg if they'd just ship me a new front panel like they did the last time this happened, and after a few days they agreed. Much to my chagrin, the new panel arrived without any of the 6 posts that were supposed to connect it to the case. In other words, it was broken exactly like the one I already had. I got frustrated and completely returned the broken item to Newegg--on their dime much to Newegg's credit.
After a 2-week pause where I was alternately too sick or working too much to work on the computer, I ordered another, sturdier-looking case from Newegg. The case arrived, but again due to work it was over a week before I had a chance to work on it. Now, to back up a second, when I discovered the damaged case I powered up the computer long enough to see that it did in fact work properly and the hard drives seemed ok.
Jump back to the present, or at least a few days ago. I had some time to work on the box, so I carefully disassembled the old case, unplugging and unscrewing everything as I went along. I then carefully installed everything into the new case. I was impressed by some of its features but won't get into a review here. About 6 hours after I started, I fired up the computer for the first time and got...nothing. Turns out I forgot the video card had a power plugin. I fixed that and started again. The CD/DVD lights came on like a normal boot and then the computer just started clicking. The LED on the network card was blinking in time to the clicking and the power seemed to be dimming slightly with each click. No POST, nothing on the video...
After much searching on the net, I decided my motherboard must be fried. I need a new one anyway because after I installed everything the CPU heatsink fell off because the plastic holding it on had also been damaged and gave way after I closed the case up. Not my day, you know?
So, I started looking for a new motherboard. After a fair amount of searching I've determined that Socket 478 mobo's are all but gone. In addition, AGP video cards are likewise toast. Finding a board with both is near impossible. Fine, I said, I'll upgrade the mobo, processor and video card; been wanting to upgrade that old P4 3.0GHZ anyway. Guess what? The first 10 or so boards I checked out have only one IDE connector for my 4 drives!!! Now I'm willing to upgrade my mobo because it's broken anyway, the cpu because I must and the video card likewise, but I am not upgrading to SATA hard drives when my IDE ones are working just fine for me!
So now I'm stuck looking through each type of board because for some reason IDE (PATA) isn't a search option on every motherboard page. I need to find a reasonably priced board that will work with everything I own except the processor and video card, and then I need to find those two items that will work with my board. I don't want to spend too much but don't want to fall too behind either. I don't really feel like going through every spec of the board and learning what the new terms mean, but I'm going to have to if I don't want to "upgrade" to a completely new system. Yikes!
