Pkchukiss - Reality Wine

(I did write a lot on this article, but it got all wiped out when I forgot to save it, and restarted the computer after installing like, 62 critical Windows updates. Life can get really down to earth, and if you are already on the ground, it takes delight in shovelling more dirt on your face :))

That aside, I suspected that everything took a downhill turn quite a few months back: the computer was freezing for no reason, and the blue screen of deaths were coming more often than I got up from the computer for breaks. I am now less annoyed at the system being broken than I am at myself for being such a brick that I didn’t suspect the computer graphics card for being the source of all the troubles.

It’s a situation where the solution has been there all along, but it took a completely nice stranger to point right under your nose to get the “ta-da”! moment. After realising how much more practice in troubleshooting that I needed, the little geek was humbled enough to sit back, and let the real expert strut his stuff.

I could see the monitor’s LED light mocking at me with its amber insignificance, but the professional took it in his stride, and handled the troubleshooting with extreme deft. He had some really cool diagnostic tools, like Memtest86 (or something) to test the DDR rams for any problems, PC Doctor Diagnostics to run up the hard drive, plus Norton Ghost to flash the original hard disk to my computer’s hard disk.

In the end, the 3D graphics card was fried, though there was no freshly fried smell nor smoke emitting from the computer, which I was extremely thankful for. But I was really eyeing the new spare motherboard that he carried with him. Now if only he would replace that, it would be like having an entirely new system again!

He plugged in the monitor to the motherboard graphics card, which was a regression for the computer, but that would have to hold until the new graphics card came.

The morale of the story: when something goes wrong with the computer system somewhere, always, always suspect the video card if you cannot find anything else that could contribute to the problem. If all else fails, you can always hurl the entire system from your 16th storey flat, and get a new one. That’s the reason why my computer is next to the window

Filed under: General