Hi Brian, I've never had problems like those with all of the boxes I have built. Are they really cheap parts? Without being there to watch the way you assemble it's hard to comment. Maybe a flaky power supply? Maybe the motherboard is not mounted correctly? The only problems I've had with the machines I've built is a power supply dying after 5 years, it was a sparkle. Only other problems I've had are users errors(deleting root directory), driver issues, or failed hard drives.
Chris -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Weeden Sent: Sunday, March 13, 2005 5:14 PM To: hwg Subject: [H] Here's why I hate our hobby sometimes... Okay this is going to be a bit long but I figured I would interrupt all the off topic spew currently flying around here with a rant that was actually on topic. I have been struggling with a HTPC for months now and it is the main focus of my rant, but it actually applies to everything in the home-built PC arena that I have seen over the last few years. I had a HTPC running for about 6 months with no probs when one day it wouldn't load windows. It wouldn't load one of the drivers and gave a BSOD. Pretty standard. So I pull it out and toss in an XP setup CD to reformat it. Setup won't load. It says that the BIOS on the motherboard is not fully ACPI compliant. Weird - it was for the last 6 months. So I mess with it, flash the BIOS, and now I get an error that it can't load some of the files needed by setup. CPU, RAM, HD, and the setup CD are all verified fully operational in another machine. After consulting this group and the net I determine it's probably a flaky mobo, although there is no visible damage, bad caps, etc. So I order a new mobo. New mobo arrives and I begin to install it. First power on and it doesn't POST. Pretty common, at least for me, that a new machine doesn't POST on first boot - usually a loose card or RAM. But the weird part of this is the BIOS beep code - the high/low one that I brought up on this list a couple days ago. Again, I verified the operation of the RAM and CPU in another mobo and they run just fine. So for the sake of being thorough I pop everything back in the original mobo listed in part one. The $&#^er POSTs just fine. So now I'm happily installing windows and setting up the machine using all the old parts (including the old mobo). Fresh reformat and install of XP. A day and a half later I have it fully patched and everything installed. It's been rock stable and fast the whole time. I am doing some final configuring with Powerstrip and it crashes. On power on no POST beep or video. I yank all the parts, verify operations in another machine, then yank the BIOS battery. After a few min it boots. I reflash the BIOS. It starts booting windows, but then hits a BSOD for a split second then reboots. I toss in the XP setup CD and now it won't load, giving me the "not fully ACPI compliant error" I had 6 months before. WTF. Do I just have the kiss of death or what? I have dumped over $1000 in this machine over the last 16 months for various parts, fixes, mobos, etc on what SHOULD have been a simply $500 HTPC using spare parts. Why can't manufacturers simply make parts that WORK reliably? I bet I'm not the only one to have machines that are stable for months on end all of a sudden stop working. And once you spend hours tearing them apart, checking to make sure each part works, you rebuild it to just the way it was only to find it now works just fine. What is wrong with the industry and our hobby? -- Brian
