under the cut, 'cause these are some ( spoilery musings )

*closes corporate bank account*

*cries*

Current Mood: depressed

I should so stay out of voceangelo's lj

( I'm doing WHAT with the Weasley twins???? )

Ah, a holiday! A whole day in which to assemble Brontoserver, install Slackware and generally glory in my own cleverness.

Or maybe cleverness isn't the word. First of all, we break out the dremel again and saw a hole in the case so we can plug in the keyboard. Kind of a necessity, a keyboard, and I am not buying another f****ng AT case even if this one winds up looking like swiss cheese.

Okay, then we carefully remove all the dremeldust from the case, and reinstall the motherboard.

Then we take it apart again, because we can't get to the power connector for the drive bays. No problem; we'll just connect it, and not plug the box into the wall till we're done rooting around in its guts.

Problem.

Have we established that this is an AT box? Okay, I know that it has two power connectors, and that if I don't get the black wires together in the middle Brontoserver is going to go spectacularly extinct. That part I understand. I've found the AT connectors coming out of the power supply. I've found the receptacle on the motherboard that looks like so many tiny white plastic mailboxes. I've verified in the PDF manual that took a year and a day to download that this is, in fact, the AT receptacle. I have read the directions: "plug it in." I have placed the plug(s) firmly against the socket and pushed.

Nothing happened.

Okay, we know I'm an idiot. I turn the whole thing around, still with the black wires in the middle, and try again. Nada.

Now to be fair, the socket doesn't really look like any big chunky plastic rectangle is meant to go in it. It looks like it ought to get fingers, like an ATX connector. But I got on the net and looked at some pictures, and clunky plugs A & B really are supposed to go in slot C.

So how come they won't?

*cries*

*sucks it up, and goes to cook supper*

Current Mood: pissed off

And Deer Park on DosBox has decided not to type apostrophes. Instead, it brings up a search box whenever I press that key.

*waits for new fan, in spite temptation of otherwise complete computer I could be loading with Slackware*

So the guy on ebay who sold me my first video card? The one that nagged me about feedback?

He just emailed me to say he "can't find the item" and is refunding my money. This is a brick-and-mortar store, now, not some guy selling stuff from his junk closet.

Oh, but he'll give me five dollars off my next purchase from him.

*waits for smoke that came out ears to clear*

I should have known. The feedback on his profile sucks.
Oh, well.

virtual_rottie

I have become a case modder by necessity. The ten bay full tower monstrosity? Has no holes for the video connectors. Nada. There's a great long depression down the side of the back where it ought to be, as if it's been punched but not hard enough.

No problems.

*breaks out Dremel*

*cuts part of slot*

*goes to Home Depot and buys a twenty pack of cutting disks*

*cuts rest of slot*

*smooths edges with sandpaper drum 'till they're satiny*

*discovers that case's original builders didn't do that with the original edges*

*discovers how hard it is to keep pressure on a cut on the back of one hand while peeling a Band-Aid with the other*

Now, if the fan out of the ten year old HP fits as is, I won't have to mod any more :-)

Oh, and the new 'puter now has a name: Brontoserver. Yeah, I know, too silly to be.

*reconsiders*

And the video card is here. Soon, my precious, very, very soon....

I got home the other night in the pouring rain and found a soggy cardboard box on my front steps, prominently labelled, "Fragile--keep dry." It contained a seven-in-one card reader.

*lifts middle finger at UPS*

The device was wrapped in plastic, so it didn't get wet, but I'm still peeved.

I'm still minus a video card, but the mobo has on-board video of a sort, so I opened the case and started construction. This will get all the scattered parts into the case, anyway.

Joy :-) ! The case has a removable backplate. This is good, because this dual slot one motherboard is bigger than Texas, and I really don't want to wrestle it into the case to fasten it down.

Bummer :-( The case came with two, count 'em, two brass motherboard risers, and a mess of the slidey white plastic things. The way the backplate and the mobo match up, though... hmmm...

*runs to Radio Shack to buy more risers*

Radio shack doesn't have risers. They have "offsets," which are the same thing but about twice the length I need. Probably meant for ATX boards, which will be my next project. Anyway, RS does have some black plastic things threaded at both ends that are the right size to do the job. Four, with screws, for $3. Yes, I can say "ripoff," thank you.

*installs memory and CPUs*
Darn. Something went perfectly. I have nothing to bitch about.
*pouts*

Current Mood: chipper

...had the nerve to email me and remind me to post feedback.

It's been more than two weeks, and I haven't seen the card yet. He better hope I keep forgetting to post feedback.

I bought another card. If his ever materializes, I'll put it in the Windows box. I also bought a floppy/card reader combo, retail, with the same intention. I've got enough card reader cables hanging out of the silly Gateway to dress the set of a cyberpunk movie.

And the new case in its huge cardboard box is sitting in my living room, and I got called in to work tonight.

Oh, well. Tuesday, I will build :-)

*does happy dance of motherboard arrival*

Anybody know a good use for all these packing peanuts? 'Cause I swear, you could have put a whole 'puter in the box they used.

On my way home from the post office I met the UPS truck going the other way, but there was neither case nor doorknob hanger on my porch.

*sobs*

*waits for case, floppy/card reader and video card, which I forgot about yesterday*

*unpacks everything to do the feedback thing*

So far I have

a pair of obsolete slot one Celeron CPUs glad to have a good home :-)
they have great big aluminum fingers of heat sinks poking out. I wonder how hot they run?
a bunch of 128k memory sticks
an elderly CD drive
a 10 mb IDE hard drive for the OS. If I have to get a big SCSI drive later, I can.
a 56k Linux-capable modem
(please would someone write a Linux package for WinModems? If Microsoft can do it....)

I'm waiting for the case, the mobo and the floppy drive/card reader combo.

And pricing a modern system.
*cringes*

The second person I bought the 7-in-one card reader/floppy drive from?

Can't deliver.

This is getting old, but I really don't want eighteen kazillion USB cables hanging off my case like I have on the Windows box.

In other news, computer stuff came. CD drive. Modem. Two more packages I haven't opened yet, 'cause the case and mobo aren't here and I don't want stuff rattling around loose.

I almost bought an MP3 player tonight.

From the people who can't deliver the 7-in-1. Am I sick, or what?

Current Mood: pissed off

Apparently the full tower case can't go to the P.O. Box, unless I want to shell out an extra $13. Nah, let UPS bring it.

In other news, Ebay has informed me that my star has turned blue. Ebay obviously doesn't know that this has more to do with the weather in Alabama than any innate marketplace ethics on my part. Just wait till it warms up again, and the star and my toes will both thaw back to their normal color.

Current Mood: cold

So I saw this pair of elderly Celerons on Ebay for ten dollars.

Yes, they would need a cane to run Windows, but I'm not going to run Windows, am I?

Motherboard? Another ten dollars.

Altogether, I bought the parts for an old-model server for less than $200. It'll have more memory than the shiny new XP boxes at Wal-Mart. They say penguins don't fly, but I'm betting Slack 9 will do a fair imitation.

Current Mood: excited

My cellphone died. I picked out a nice new one with lots of features, but *sobs* it doesn't support my cell provider's email account.

*kicks dirt*

And the point of this post is that lj used to forward to that account, and now it'll forward to my ISP, so I'm testing it.

We now return you to something you were actually interested in....

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Let's see if I can remember how to do this....

( headers )

*waves at everyone*

*contemplates long list of stuff that needs doing*

*faints*