Sunday, September 29, 2002

• Phoenix rising from the ashes

  Wednesday, my hardware died.  You can tell it's a hardware problem and not a software problem when the power switch won't work.  Computers also make a little noise.  When you turn the power on and the only thing moving inside the box is the fan, then it's broke and all the telephone tech support in the world won't help you.

  Now the trick for an addict like me is to not let the husband know how utterly ruined your life is without a computer.  It's never a problem for the husband, who has a computer in his cubicle at work.  It's only a problem for the people whose only access is in the home.  If Gordon and Sophia and I whined and moaned about how miserable our lives had become without our PSP lessons and online gaming and blogging, Jim would probably have supposed that it was healthy for us to get a break and detoxify ourselves from our online addictions.  However, we all know him well enough to not go there.  We just talked to our friends on the phone, sent letters through the mail, and played other games.

  We also solved the problem ourselves.  I went up to Golden Tech Computers, told them what I thought the problem was (fried motherboard and/or processor), and asked them how much to restore the machine to its original condition.  They quoted me $189 for a slightly faster version of the setup I already had, a very reasonable price in my estimation.  I went home, laid the facts out for my husband (it pays to be tactful when trodding on your spouse's turf), and he agreed that it was a reasonable price.  He decided to accompany me on the return trip to the computer store, and dominated the conversation with the sales rep who had assisted me earlier.  I have to give the sales rep credit.  He know I was not the ditzy housewife my husband was making me out to be, and even encouraged him to let me install the new motherboard (it isn't any big deal, I know), but some thing's are "man's work" in my home, and it doesn't kill me to have Jim do it.  Jim also thought that we would do better to have a separate video card rather than integrated video, and we also grabbed a network card and a new Trackman, to bring the total to just over $300.

  So, last night, Jim installed the new stuff, and this morning, I got the device drivers to work (Jim considers software to be "woman's work", go figure), and now we are back in business, with a 1.53 Gig Athlon vice the 1.0 Athlon that we had before, better video (yes, it is noticeably better), and now all we need is a router (they were out last night) and our two computers will be networked. 

  I'm still sleeping on the floor, though.  What does this say about my priorities?

  • 1:23 PM
  • 1 view
  • 10 eprops
  • 7 comments