#1924103 - 04/08/08 05:46 PM
It's official. I'm the biggest moron to ever....
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Griffinator
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Registered: 03/28/02
Posts: 9880
Loc: Lynchburg, VA, USA
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...plug a CPU into a socket. I'll tell my story, you can have a hearty laugh at my expense, and then agree, disagree, or share your own "duh" moment from the past...
So I finally decided to upgrade my music computer. That venerable old Athlon XP 2800+ had served me well, but I'm getting into some more sophisticated software, it's about time I ramped up the hardware to hang with it. Not only that, but it had taken to shutting off randomly in mid application, which is MOST annoying, particularly after four hours of hand-programming beats in FL Studio goes down the crapper because I forgot to auto-save...
I ordered new motherboard and CPU (Athlon 64 x2 4000), 2GB of matching RAM, a PCIx16 video card (no AGP on this board), a shiny new 160gb WD Caviar, 500W power supply, and wait excitedly for UPS to arrive.
Parcels came, and I began surgery. Removed all the old guts from my trusty rack-mount case. Installed power supply first, then motherboard, making sure everything's nice and snug. Dropped the CPU in the slot and locked her down. AMD's come a long way with ease of installation of the fan for the new AM2+, I thought, as I locked down the fan in mere seconds, instead of the minimum requisite 2 minute wrestling match I recall from the old XP days. Dropped in the RAM sticks, video card, my old pal EMU 1212M, the hard drive, and the DVD-burner from my old system (still works, I don't need warp speed burn!) Make sure everything's connected properly - all three case fans plugged in, CPU fan plugged up, drives are properly jumpered and plugged in, and away we go.
Dropped my TinyXP install disc into the drive and fired 'er up. Did my full format like a good tech does, didn't bother with multiple partitions, just started installing. Everything looks good so far, goes through the first reboot cycle, and...
Clunk. It shuts off.
Huh?
I turn it back on - hmm, that was weird. CPU reading on startup: 67C - a little warm, but nothing unusual. I let it pass through the boot from CD cycle and let Setup re-initialize...
Clunk. Turns off again.
So I pull the sound card and one of the RAM sticks - there, minimum deployment. I knew everything in there was brand new except for the DVD-ROM - but that couldn't be the problem, could it?
Fire it up, let setup re-initialize, and Clunk.
OK, now I'm baffled, and a little annoyed. What the hell could it be? I swapped the DVD drive with a known working unit from another system.
Fire it up, let setup re-initialize, and Clunk.
OK, something's really wrong here. I ran through the list of possibilities and thought "no, it can't be something wrong with the case?!"
Well, mechanic's logic says if you replaced all but one part of a system, and it's still displaying the same symptom, that part is the most likely problem....
Grumbling, fully irritated now, I jerked all the guts out of my g/f's case, and installed my new guts in there.
This time, I'm not taking chances - I let Windows wipe the drive and start over.
Goes through the sequences ok, we go through the first reboot cycle and....
Clunk.
WTF?!
I'm stunned. What the hell is going on here?!
Wait - maybe Tiny is too old a version of XP to deal with the new Vid card? I swap it out for a PCI vid card and try again.
Setup is restarting.... Clunk.
Man, my copy of Tiny must have gotten fouled up. I can't think of any other explanation!
So I pull out my emergency disk - a legal copy of XP home I've had stashed in the basement for forever. I hate Home, but if that's the problem, that's the problem....
Drop it in the drive. Fire it up. Reformat (quick this time, I'm sick of waiting for 160g to format) and install. We get through the initialization, into the first reboot cycle and...
Clunk.
I'm ready to pull my hair out. What the hell? I go in and start feeling around the core parts to make sure everything is seated properly. RAM's fine, vid card is fine, I start to feel around the CPU fan, and on one side my fingers hit.... plastic. Huh? I feel around the other three sides and sure enough, plastic.
My heart fell into my shoes. I took the CPU fan off, and sure enough....
I had forgotten to remove the piece of plastic that keeps the thermal grease from smearing off the bottom of the fan before you install it.
It was shutting down in exactly the same place every time because the CPU really doesn't have to do anything while MS-DOS is copying files, only when it really initializes the full Windows deployment for setup. The CPU exceeded the 100C threshold and the system shut down to protect it.
And I'm a moron. 
Edited by Griffinator (04/08/08 05:53 PM)
Edit Reason: stupid typo, what do you expect?
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#1924315 - 04/09/08 07:44 AM
Re: It's official. I'm the biggest moron to ever....
[Re: Griffinator]
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Danzilla
MP Hall of Fame Member
Registered: 01/09/04
Posts: 3623
Loc: Baltimore, MD
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Nothing like greasy fans! Isn't that what life is all about? That, and a never ending supply of Devil Dogs!
PS... Moron! (though I've known bigger morons)
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"Am I enough of a freak to be worth paying to see?"- Separated Out (Marillion) My Band's website
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#1924769 - 04/10/08 05:59 AM
Re: It's official. I'm the biggest moron to ever....
[Re: Danzilla]
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A String
Modulating Moderator
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Registered: 12/18/03
Posts: 9896
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Several years back I had a similar problem. Same story as you with the repeated clunk and the trouble shooting. Turned out that I hadn't quite gotten the fan latched down tight enough and I guess that was enough to cause the CPU to heat up and the system to shut down. I finished clicking down the lever and she ran great.
The worst thing I ever did was back when I first started building computers. (Luckily it was before I started building computers for others!) I had just got myself a brand new 20 Gig HD! (Don't laugh. It was a lot back then.) I was really excited to get it installed so I didn't bother moving the computer all the way out for a good view.
The computer case had the wider drive bay that had the little narrow "fins" inside and the hard drive slid between those fins. Well, I couldn't quite see what I was doing and when I slid it in, the left edge was beside the fin on the left and the right edge went over the fin on the right so the right fin was across the bottom of the hard drive.
I hooked it all up, fired up the machine and there was a snap noise and a tiny puff of smoke. I pulled the plug, had a look inside and realized what I had done. My heart dropped as I fixed the problem, restarted and the hard drive had stopped working.
I tried everything I could, but there was no fixing it. Luckily, no other components were lost.
Since then, I always pull the computer right out when I'm working on it...
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#1925097 - 04/10/08 02:12 PM
Re: It's official. I'm the biggest moron to ever....
[Re: A String]
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Dave Horne
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Registered: 01/11/01
Posts: 7809
Loc: Vught, The Netherlands
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I once replaced the water pump in my Jeep Wagoneer. It must have taken four or more hours to get it out and the new one in. It was a real pain - all the bolts were of different sizes, US and metric. I never bothered to compare the defective water pump with the new one I had just bought from the dealer. Had I looked I would seen the fins were angled in the other direction.
I drove around and in a very short amount of time I heard very loud knocking sounds coming from the engine block.
The next replacement took a little less time. I learned my lesson.
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