Joy Hath Cometh

Well, I've had a little adventure with setting up the new computer. First, as previously posted, my heat sink did not fit correctly onto the motherboard. Small pipe-looking things in the heat sink rubbed against small plastic pieces on the mounting piece for the heat sink, not allowing the sink to be positioned straight on the processor.

I didn't want to send one of them back and get a different one, if I could help it. Soooo... I took a slightly unconventional (and non reccommended) approach and cut off the plastic pieces on the plastic mount, allowing the heat sink to sit perfectly in place. The perfect solution? Probably not. But alas, it worked. Whooah!

Then, of course, I get everything else plugged in, turn it on, but then discover another problem. The fans start to run, but as far as I can tell, nothing else does. The DVD drive has no lights and does not open. So I call my Computer Architect Tim, and after a while, we figure it out. (Evidently you can stick a 4-pin power connector into an 8-pin connector on the motherboard to give it enough power.)

Then everything worked wonderfully. I installed Windows Vista (which I've had no problems with thus far) and, of course, Everquest II, which is much more pretty with the new video card. It's wonderful.

I need to install whatever other programs I need and copy all the data from Computer #2 to the new computer, then I will quite possibly reformat that computer and install a fresh copy of Windows XP. Fun stuff, huh?

LotD: 2008 GOP Convention Report. This is the page that I designed for the wife of my former FLS coworker. I hope it ended up being what she wanted. It includes an admin tool so she can add, edit, and delete the stories (which are the focal point of the front page). I still have a couple little things to do, but it's pretty much done. And, most important, I already have the check. :)