Originally posted by Weasel
Who would think changing a video card could lead to such a disaster. 
Me!!!
My story, which will probably be in the same format as Weasel's since they are so strangely similar...
My hard disk was fried. Kaput, yes? However, I didn't know this at the time - I thought it was the PSU that was causing my computer to not turn on. So I bought a new PSU. Didn't work. Obviously now you would pull out all the power leads one by one to see which bit was pulling so much power that the computer couldn't turn on. Did I? Did I hell.
Bought a new motherboard, CPU, and memory. (So obviously the next step
) Installed them. Still didn't work. Found out that instead of unplugging all the power leads in the previous step, seeing as I had identified the problem as being a power problem, I had instead only pulled out all the IDE cables, and was then hugely surprised that it still didn't work.
Finally I figured out that it was the hard drive that was faulty, but only after getting the help of a friend's father. Tried new hard disk, and the computer still wouldn't work. But progress! Beeps! Unfortunately, the kind which signals a problem with the graphics card. Graphics card? But that was working fine, and surely the HDD and GFX card wouldn't fail simultaneously, would they?
This particular graphics card was a Geforce 2 MX, which I had bought about 6 months previous to the incident, to replace my Riva TNT. So I tried the TNT in the board. Same thing happened - beeps. My conclusion? It must have been a problem with the AGP slot on the board, the brand new one I'd just bought and had never used. To check this, I decided to...oh no...bring the card over to a friend's house. Now remember children, the first law of computers - if you ever are asked by a friend if they can "try out" a "troublesome" piece of hardware on your fully functioning computer, run. Run like the wind.
So I merrily brought my GF2MX to this friend's house, totally oblivious to the fate that would soon befall me. We opened up his computer and I replaced the TNT2 that he had had since he bought the computer, and had worked perfectly ever since, with my "troublesome" Geforce 2. Pushed the power button. Nothing happened. I then switched the PSU on (
) and tried again.
Still nothing. At this point I'm thinking "could it be the graphics card? And somehow, the other one that has lain in a static bag for 6 months? Oh well, let's just get his computer back together and I can go from there." Here should commence the sarcastic laughter.
I replaced the TNT2, made sure that the PSU was on this time (to decrease the odds of a fatal heart attack) and turned the computer on. Heart attack anyway. The dreaded beeps came: 8 of them. Somehow, between taking out this card and replacing it less than 15 minutes later, it had broken. Or something. I now had a new theory.
That's right, it was all the Geforce 2's fault! Somehow it had been taken over by the forces of Evil, or bitten by a radioactive spider, and had become: "The AGP slot-destroying Geforce Scum Of The Earth". Oh dearie me. Next stop? Creative, of course, to try and sell this really quite ridiculous idea to them, and get them to replace the card, my motherboard, and my friend's motherboard. Can you guess how many figurative fingers they held up to me?
Well, they seemed dubious at best, and they wanted a report from an independent engineer. He will henceforth be known only as "My Best Buddy"
. So we gave him all three graphics cards, and both computers, and let him do his stuff. At this point My Best Buddy was probably feeling much like RandomThug, i.e. like throwing himself bodily off the closest high building, but he did his job. His conclusion? This is so much like a murder mystery, in that the culprit is the one you least expect...
The only thing that was faulty at all...was the TNT2. Both of my cards were fine, both of our computers were fine. Only my friend's card was broken, a seemingly innocent victim of this lengthy (and it sure has been lengthy) comedy of errors. I also found out what I was doing wrong. The old AGP 1.0 slots were really easy to get a card into, just like PCI slots. You push them, and they go "chunk" and are in. And they work. AGP 2.0 slots, however, seem to have a different outlook on life. They seem to enjoy tearing people's live apart. You push them in. They go "chunk". But they don't work yet. Oh no. For you have to push them in still further, until it seems as if your motherboard is actually going to crack down the middle. Just to test your faith, you see. Then, and only then, when like Indiana Jones you have taken he step off the cliff that seems senseless, do you hear another, louder, more violent, "KERR-CHRUNK".
You see, if at the very beginning I had just pushed my Geforce 2 that little further into the motherboard, this wouldn't have happened. But of course I didn't know this. To this day I have no idea how the TNT2 managed to get broken. I suppose I've learnt...
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If you've read this far, then congratulations! You've just wasted 5 minutes of your life. If you've skipped over all that rambling to here, double congratulations! Read the last paragraph and you won't have really missed anything, and you get the added bonus of laughing at those people who've wasted their time.