I hate PCs

[Spreadie]

PC upgrade rant

Meh, what a noob.

We've all been there, at some point - Stopped in our tracks with an epic head-scratcher. Cost of ownership, I'm afraid.

I recently had a SFX PSU die and, seemingly, take the motherboard with it. I tried the board with another PSU - nothing. So I coughed up for a replacement board, which doesn't boot. Swapped the RAM and it boots, so I try the RAM in the original board - it boots! SO it's just the RAM that was killed by the PSU.

I dig out the SFX PSU, just in case, and try both boards with the new RAM - Dead. I stick my PSU tester on it - Dead.

Turns out it is still in warranty, so I RMA it.

Just got a message back - "PSU tested, no fault found"

[scaryjim]

It occurs that it could've been worse: the PC could've been watercooled

Can't believe I spent several evenings over the last 3 weeks messing with my watercooling kit only to discover that the GPU I've loving restored is out-performed by bus-powered, low-profile cards from both AMD and NVidia. And I don't want to even think about the implications of Polaris...

At least I was able to diagnose some of the issues I'd been having with some of my older kit - one very dead stick of DDR2. I threw the towel in when it ticked over 1000 faults in memtest test 8. The other stick from that pair tested fine though, so at least I've still got *some* legacy RAM available...

[Saracen]

..... but did get a little distracted by the 'well, I've already gone to the hassle of dismantling this.. I can't have to do all *that* much more?'

Ha. Amateur.

Mine started with the syphon in the bathroom loo packing up. A bit of the flush button and leverage shattered.

Bear with me, I'm going somewhere with this.

So, syphon. Easy. Turn water off, and replace. £3. Easy. But .... it's quite an old loo, and the syphon has a funny-shaped pushbutton in the cistern lid, and you CANNOT get a direct replacement. Okaaay, fit a different type.

No problem. Except that the drop pipe into the loo bowl now doesn't fit. It's too long. So, simple, remove pipe, trim a bit off, and replace. Job done. Uhhh huh, except that the cistern, which is quite elderly, has plastic that's gone .... powdery. Where? Where it bolts into ths wall, natch, so the bleeping thing falls off, doesn't it.

Argggh.

So, replace cistern.

Ever tried sourcing a cistern to match a '60s Avocado coloured loo bowl? Right, you find them next to the piles of rocking horse poop.

Sigh. New loo, then.

Of course, now the loo doesn't match the washing basin. Oh well, we wanted a white loo suite anyway. But .... don't forget the bath. More of that in a minute.

So, basin. Naturally, that means replacing the counter top, because it's cut wrong for the replacement and, of course, it's been tiled in and can't be done without replacing the tile. At which point, about half the plaster came off with the tile. So, plaster before I can retile, having stripped the entire bathroom tile.

But am I done? Oh, hell, no.

Now it gets REALLY stupid.

Whoever the dickhead was that built the house put the doorway in the wrong damn place. When they measured up, they miscalculated and put the door in a place where the ONLY way to fit a bath, even a narrow one, is to cut a notch in the door surround, and seeing as we're now redoing the whole bathroom, we don't want an overly narrow bath.

So, that's rebuilding that wall, in order to move the stupid bleeping doorway about 6 inches. But now, re radiator is too close to the new doorway, so we decided to switch to underfloor heating and a heated towel rail, rather than move the radiator.

It cost thousands, not £3, took me weeks and all because the damn flush button broke on the syphon.

Can't have "that much" more to do, indeed. Tell me about it. I'm an expert in cascading disasters, now.

In case anyone wonders, no, I'm not making it up.

Still, the good news. The bathroom light pull-cord switch was okay, and survived the process of fixing the cistern flush button. Pretty much nothing else did.

EDIT .... You hate PCs, Kal. How do think I feel about bathrooms?

[MrJim]

At least I was able to diagnose some of the issues I'd been having with some of my older kit - one very dead stick of DDR2. I threw the towel in when it ticked over 1000 faults in memtest test 8. The other stick from that pair tested fine though, so at least I've still got *some* legacy RAM available...

Which brand of ram is it? A lot of brands offer lifetime warranties....

[scaryjim]

Erm ... it's probably OCZ Platinum? Might have to check back on the order. Also depends what they mean by lifetime....

EDIT:

OCZ Storage Solutions is also unable to provide any warranty support for all discontinued non-SSD category products including DRAM memory

So, bin and replace. Sadness.

[Saracen]

... Also depends what they mean by lifetime....

....

That is oh, so very true.

Whenever coming across "lifetime" warranty, I'd always suggest looking deep into T&C's because it usually doesn't mean what Joe Consumer might reasonably assume it means, and for any product with a short "life cycle" can be next to meaningless.

[MrJim]

Erm ... it's probably OCZ Platinum? Might have to check back on the order. Also depends what they mean by lifetime....

EDIT:



So, bin and replace. Sadness.

I happen to have a 2 x2Gb OCZ Plantinum ram kit that I was planning to sell on here, if you're interested? Got an Asus P5Q Pro and Core 2 Quad CPU as well!

[peterb]

Ha. Amateur.

Mine started with the syphon in the bathroom loo packing up. A bit of the flush button and leverage shattered.

Bear with me, I'm going somewhere with this.

So, syphon. Easy. Turn water off, and replace. £3. Easy. But .... it's quite an old loo, and the syphon has a funny-shaped pushbutton in the cistern lid, and you CANNOT get a direct replacement. Okaaay, fit a different type.

No problem. Except that the drop pipe into the loo bowl now doesn't fit. It's too long. So, simple, remove pipe, trim a bit off, and replace. Job done. Uhhh huh, except that the cistern, which is quite elderly, has plastic that's gone .... powdery. Where? Where it bolts into ths wall, natch, so the bleeping thing falls off, doesn't it.

Argggh.

So, replace cistern.

Ever tried sourcing a cistern to match a '60s Avocado coloured loo bowl? Right, you find them next to the piles of rocking horse poop.

Sigh. New loo, then.

Of course, now the loo doesn't match the washing basin. Oh well, we wanted a white loo suite anyway. But .... don't forget the bath. More of that in a minute.

So, basin. Naturally, that means replacing the counter top, because it's cut wrong for the replacement and, of course, it's been tiled in and can't be done without replacing the tile. At which point, about half the plaster came off with the tile. So, plaster before I can retile, having stripped the entire bathroom tile.

But am I done? Oh, hell, no.

Now it gets REALLY stupid.

Whoever the dickhead was that built the house put the doorway in the wrong damn place. When they measured up, they miscalculated and put the door in a place where the ONLY way to fit a bath, even a narrow one, is to cut a notch in the door surround, and seeing as we're now redoing the whole bathroom, we don't want an overly narrow bath.

So, that's rebuilding that wall, in order to move the stupid bleeping doorway about 6 inches. But now, re radiator is too close to the new doorway, so we decided to switch to underfloor heating and a heated towel rail, rather than move the radiator.

It cost thousands, not £3, took me weeks and all because the damn flush button broke on the syphon.

Can't have "that much" more to do, indeed. Tell me about it. I'm an expert in cascading disasters, now.

In case anyone wonders, no, I'm not making it up.

Still, the good news. The bathroom light pull-cord switch was okay, and survived the process of fixing the cistern flush button. Pretty much nothing else did.

EDIT .... You hate PCs, Kal. How do think I feel about bathrooms?

I think I'd have washed my hands of the whole job....






But not until the washbasin was replaced

Avocado, now THAT is retro 60's/70's - I'm amazed you put up with it for so long!

[Ttaskmaster]

Bathroom upgrade noob rant

Ha. Noob!!

We rent, so our landlady passes all that hassle and headache on to a professional fitter who copes with it effortlessly, while costing us nothing!!

[scaryjim]

I happen to have a 2 x2Gb OCZ Plantinum ram kit that I was planning to sell on here, if you're interested? Got an Asus P5Q Pro and Core 2 Quad CPU as well!

*puts mod hat* Take it to FS!

*takes mod hat off* and once you do I'll definitely talk to you about it! Although *hopefully* the mobo and CPU will be OK

[DanceswithUnix]

EDIT .... You hate PCs, Kal. How do think I feel about bathrooms?

So the moral is, if at first you don't succeed then £300 for a 3D printer is actually good value to print a new button.

Or old school, araldite

[Saracen]

Ha. Noob!!

We rent, so our landlady passes all that hassle and headache on to a professional fitter who copes with it effortlessly, while costing us nothing!!

True enough. Renting has it's advandages.

On the other hand, our monthly outgoings on rent/mortgage = £0. And this place is "worth" a few hundred grand more than I paid for it.

But rent versus buy is really a whole different thread. While, of course, my plumbing disaster fits .... ahem ... into PC Hardware. Kind-of.

[scaryjim]

... my plumbing disaster fits .... ahem ... into PC Hardware. Kind-of.

Sure, it's just extreme water-cooling...

EDIT: or I guess an unusual typo...

[kalniel]

my plumbing disaster

Now that's a whole other thread, and remember we don't recommend people ask for medical advice on these forums..

[Ttaskmaster]

On the other hand, our monthly outgoings on rent/mortgage = £0. And this place is "worth" a few hundred grand more than I paid for it.

But then, you're probably old/paid enough that the bank would give you a mortgage in the first place... Word is that our lot won't ever be able to afford property.

This is why I got into building my own PCs rather than DIYing my own house, why a potential PC build failure is cheaper/less of a disaster than a failed house... and how I'm able to make this about PC hardware again!

[Saracen]

Now that's a whole other thread, and remember we don't recommend people ask for medical advice on these forums..

Well, I could go into detail on that too, but I'm not sure if you have a large-enough puke bag to hand. Unfortunately, we'd like membership numbers to increase, not shrink to single figures and I doubt much work be more effective at driving people away .... except possibly my singing.