So, I wake up this morning to see that stuff isn't connected. Lovely. Go into the network stuff of windows, see that it says that everything's fine, so I do my normal of disable the NIC. Went to get ready to re-enable it, and it dissapears! What? Go into device manager, and it says there's no driver for it. How is that the case if it was working LAST NIGHT?!?!? (not to mention ever since I plugged the darned thing in some time ago). Now, one might ask "why do you have a NIC plugged in? Why not use the on-board LAN port?".
Well, let me answer that for those that may not know. Some time ago, this very PC was subject to the lovelyness that comes to Florida all the time, that of thunder storms. I did have this computer behind an APC power supply, and for the most part it did it's job. The only thing that got fried at that point was the LAN port on the motherboard, and the power supply. Luckily for me, I had a spare PSU sitting around that I could use. It worked for a while until I found out that I needed a bigger one to supply the power necessary for my video card. A cool friend helped me out and got me a new PSU to cover the problems I was facing with the video card derping up. Why didn't I contact APC and get them to pay for things?? Well, I did actually. I contacted them and they did send me out a replacement unit, and I sent them the lightning struck one. They also supplied me with something to fill in with details of the stuff that got damaged. Unfortunately, they didn't seem to care that I'm A+ certified and had tested my stuff out and found the bad parts. Nor did they care that I have no money (even back then) to replace the parts that'd gotten nuked. I supplied them with the cost to replace the parts that got hit, I got NO check that should have covered it (per their guarantee of covering the cost of things that are plugged into their units). So, I was forced to use hand-me-down parts to keep the beast running.
Lately, I've been noticing my computer acting up, to the point where I would love to format and re-load the whole thing. Unfortunately, when I got ready to do that, I noticed that while the BIOS sees the DVD drive, it doesn't read disks. Plug the same disk into another computer and it reads the disk fine, so I know it's not the disk. Within windows, it sees it, but again, it doesn't see any disk put in it. Hell, it can talk to the drive enough to be able to eject the disk tray when prompted to do so, but it's not reading anything. I even went so far as to swap out the drive with another KNOWN GOOD drive (hey, I did say A+ certified right? so yea, replacing with known good stuff is the clear way to identify if something's borked), still no go. Plugged the drive I'd swapped out into another computer, boom, reads the VERY DISK I'm trying to get my beast to recognize. So yea, communication between the motherboard and the DVD drive are sketchy to the point of not working.
So, to get back to the LAN card... looking at the card, it's getting the green lights and they blink to show there's attempted data travel across the LAN line I've got hooked up. Thinking maybe it's something goofy with the seating (the case is made of LEGO after all, so, some stuff can move if not careful). Turned off everything, took it next door to use the air compressor on everything to clear out any dust (wasn't too much really). Brought it back over here, plugged it all back in... LAN card get's it's green lights, everything looks fine... get into windows... nope, it doesn't even see the card now in device manager! I can't move the LAN card to another slot, as there's not one accessible (the only other PCI slot is covered by my big video card's cooling case / fan / whathaveue, and without an on-board video output, I wouldn't be able to see what's going on if I took out the video card and whatnot)
So, here I sit, dealing with
right now due to having to connect via wireless that's ... none too happy right now... I'd love to be able to get THAT better, but it's only getting 1 bar of signal (hince why I ran the CAT-5 from the modem+router out to my computer).
If APC reads this (which I plan to tweet this out and @mention them on it if I can find one for them) ... Realize, that I've been through a TON of stress, when the lightning struck the computer, it was during the whole divorce/separation stuff going on that happened so long ago. The only thing that's changed for my financial state, is that I'm now getting LESS a month so REALLY don't have the money to be able to get replacement parts for this thing. So, if you guys want to get hot on this shit and make me a happy customer that is willing to tell people to use your product while I do my streaming ... maybe you might want to get in contact with me again and try to set things straight. As it stands, with what I've experienced out of you guys... I'm not pleased at all. I've moved TWICE since that talk with your reps, so yea, there may need to be some digging done to find out WTF happened to cutting me a check to replace the parts that got hit. Basically I really needed to replace EVERYTHING inside the computer.
Motherboard died in bits and pieces; power supply completely fried; had lost a hard drive but it was a secondary so I wasn't too concerned at the time but hey, it did take a hit too. Only things that survived that was IN the PC? one hard drive, the processor (I think at least it's still good, seeing as it's running right now, but who knows if/when that'll die due to the hit), the memory sticks were un-touched as well.
So...here I sit, hoping to god that somehow the VA gets off their collective arses and gets my review completed quickly so that I can hopefully get some extra funds in to be able to catch up on some bills that have been falling behind, then maybe start saving to get the replacement parts that I need to FIX this beast (IF APC doesn't get with me, and fixes this issue)...if I have to fix this myself, it may be some time before I can get streaming again, because I WILL save up and just replace everything inside the computer to really just upgrade the whole thing... I'll probably not have to replace the memory or the video card... but hey, why not get everything I'd love to have for a streaming PC ...
(another) SO ... if you're reading this and wish to help out, I've got a donation page for my stream over on https://streamtip.me/t/kinamkrindar ... any donations would be AWESOME and everything donated there is used towards my streaming. This means that the $12 that I've gotten so far from streaming is being saved up to go for upgrading this PC first and foremost.
I'll try to keep this updated daily until things get fixed for me to be able to stream, but it's better to just watch my twitter honestly.
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