I got my processor last nite and then spent the rest of the evening putting my machine back together. I always have a good time doing this but work in constant paranoia. yes, afraid I’m going to fry my shit because I for the most part do not conduct my computer construction in a computer friendly environment.

I’m sitting indian style with the case in front of me. oh.. sitting indian style on carpet mind you.

so anyway I get everything together and it boots up first try, go me. I notice that it doesn’t recognize all my ram. it says I have 768 when I in fact have two 512 chips in this machine. so one chip is obviously so fucked up its only using half of itself, not only that but its so fucked the machine won’t even recognize its plugged in.

just for fun I run a memory test on the bad stick and the god damn memory test locks up- this has never happened. I tried it twice with the same result. then I threw in the good piece and ran it and no problems. so just when I thought I was done, now I have to send it off to crucial to get a replacement. what I’d really like is 2×1gb sticks. thats all this mobo will handle. probably the only thing I don’t like about it. there are 4 ram slots but two are DDR and the other two are DDRII. it will not allow you to run a set of each. its one of the other son.

so basically its a catch 22 for me on upgrading this computer. see I’m sort of stuck with it because if I REALLY wanted to say put 4gb of ram in the machine I’d need a new board. BUT the boards that support that much ram more than likely don’t support AGP, which means I’d have to buy a new graphics card too! well.. 2 gigs of ram isn’t bad. that seems to be pretty much the standard for most gaming machines right now.

now then, straight to what brought me to writing this.. I did not install a fan backwards as I thought I might of. see, I got done with everything and then press my hand against the side panel to see if its exhausting air. dun dun dun, it is not! I’m like oh shit I did it again some how, but I know I flipped the fan around when I remounted the panel.

I take the panel off and yet again flip the fan and boot up. guess what? I get the same fucking result. turns out the power is directing what direction to spin this shit. so no matter what way I turn the fan it’s still going to spin the same direction. so apparently its suppose to blow air onto the board…

it makes sense, but doesn’t make sense.