Friday, September 08, 2006 #

Blue Screen of Death

I'm in pieces again... I turned on my computer yesterday and was presented with the "blue screen of death". I hate the feeling that I get in my stomach when things don't work like they should, especially when it comes to my computer. Here is how it all went down:

The night before last, I installed a "CareBears" game for the girls so that they could play "vee oh games". They played that game for almost an hour, and of course I supervised the whole event to make sure that things didn't get out of hand (apple juice in the keyboard, crayons on the lcd, etc...). When they were done playing, I simply closed the app, ejected the CD and locked my computer. After that, I went upstairs for a while and didn't get back down to the computer until after putting the girls to bed. I went back downstairs after a couple of hours to put my pc in hibernate mode.

Yesterday morning, I turned on my computer to get started for the day and this is when my problems started happening. I saw the 'Resuming Windows' progress bar and then boom... Blue Screen of Death. Unfortunately, I don't remember what it said specifically. To get it to turn off, I had to hold in on the power button for 5 seconds. After I did that, I gave it a minute and tried to turn it back on... Nothing. No clicks. No beeps. No lights... Nothing.

Panic set in and I told myself to take a deep breath. I decided there was no time for that, so I unplugged all my cords and took my computer upstairs to begin surgery immediately. I took out all my add ons, hard drives, and memory. My computer had to be in 100 separate parts (or so it looked). I consulted with some computer nerd buddies and got lots of tips (thanks John, thanks James, thanks Corey). James actually helped me determine that it was not my power supply by using some cool hack to hot wire my fans with a paperclip.

Using the hack I knew that it had to either be my motherboard or my battery. Apparently the battery is a critical piece on a MAC, but I'm not sure that it is that big of a deal on a PC. Anyway, I think that the problem is another fried motherboard. Remember that I had a fried motherboard less than 5 months ago. I emailed MBX support already and I'm sending in my tower tomorrow in hopes of getting it back with "the quickness".  That is where I'm at now... Waiting for morning so I can visit FedEx... CRAP!!

posted @ Friday, September 08, 2006 10:37 PM | Feedback (0)

Hardbarger Spell Check

The funny-side of having such a cool last name. :)
I thought this little prompt was 'blog worthy'... Another cool one was 'headbanger'... that one almost got the 'Replace' button.

posted @ Friday, September 08, 2006 1:29 AM | Feedback (1)

Toboso and WikiPedia

I did a search for Blackhand Gorge on google and was presented with a wikipedia link. There is even mention of the great flood of 1946 when Dillon Dam was completely submerged and forced the town of Toboso to be torn down. A couple of years ago, I got to see how a good bit of rain could have caused a whole town to pick up and move. I actually blogged about it... Anyway, I just thought that it was cool to see Claylick and Toboso in a Wikipedia definition. I feel like we're officially on the map now.

posted @ Friday, September 08, 2006 12:55 AM | Feedback (0)