You probably don't want to read all this

Blah, blah, blah.... I don't want to type in here. So why do I? Bored I guess, maybe I want to make this thing work again like it used to. I think it's good to have a place to thrash out ideas and feelings. That sounded less feminine in my head.

So I'm on my backup PC right now, here's why. A few months ago I had a power outage during a storm. No big deal, the backup PC went down as expected, and my main PC stayed up as expected. So did my internet and a few other things. All this because of the 500VA APC UPS on the floor next to my PC. The UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) is basically a battery that keeps providing power to whatever is plugged into it for as long as that battery has a charge. It also makes sure that the power going through it never spikes up or down. Upward spikes in power are handled with simple electronics that never allow the voltage to exceed a set amount (why do I always try to put two M's in amount?). Downward spikes are handled with capacitance and the aforementioned battery. Anyways, back to the story (I know it's a great story so far, and it's gonna get better folks).

So I finish up some rant about DKP or guild drama or our raiding schedule or whatever happened to be the topic in WoW at the time, and was about to close down my main PC, when the UPS battery ran out of juice and powered off. No big deal, it gave me enough time to finish what I was doing after the power outage, so I was happy. A few hours passed and power came back on. The backup PC cycled on, but the main PC didn't. This is where the story really takes off guys.

So I had a mystery on my hands. Well, mostly I just wanted to not deal with any of this, but I forced myself to. My first thought was that it's the power supply (PSU), motherboard, or CPU. My next thought was that these are all kinda spendy, and I don't want to throw that much money at the problem. So I took out the PSU, and drove to PC Club to have it tested. They said that it was putting out proper voltages, but would need to run a bench test to see if it's putting out enough amps. Well, if it's putting out the right voltages, I'm sure it's fine. I'll just replace the motherboard because that's surely the problem. So I took anther 2k from my 401k, and paid rent, bought groceries, and picked up a new Asus A8N-SLI Premium.

The motherboard got here a few days later and I installed it that day. Hit the power button and NOTHING. I just wanted nothing to do with it at that point. But I knew that most of my bills were paid and that I easily had enough money left over to buy a new PSU, so I drove to CompUSA and bought a new Antec NeoPower 550. I was a little upset that the NeoPower series had switched from 120mm to 80mm fans, but I bought it anyways.

Got home, installed the PSU, and it powered on! I was so relieved. And just in time for Molten Core (MC). WoW was acting a little strange at times. Of course it wasn't the computer's fault, I had that all fixed, right? Well, it turns out that about every few hours, the game completely locks up. I replaced the CPU with the one from my backup PC, and it still faults. I'm at a complete loss as to what this could be. I've replaced EVERYTHING that could be doing this. Except drivers. Seriously, I just realized that as I was typing.

See, not matter how girly it sounds, it IS good to have a place to type out what you are feeling.