The Tubbsitron KA, a computer I built with my own hands, and the machine I replaced just last year at this time, appears to be catatonic. I gave it to Christie about six months ago, set her up with some speakers, loaded iTunes, put a photo of the Minnesota State Fair up as the wallpaper… good to go. (In a house with four computers, it didn’t seem fair that she couldn’t have a little desk with one, for word processing or surfing or whatever.)
But, as she has reported, it went quiet on Wednesday, and didn’t want to wake up. I immediately thought of the $50 I just gave her to spend at the iTunes Music Store, and how they’re unsympathetic if you spend $50 and don’t back up your files before a hard drive crash eats them. (I haven’t backed up my files in about three months, but I do at least back up the ones I paid for… if that’s not too incriminating.)
When you turn it on, it beeps. That’s never good. The beep code persisted even when the hard drive was removed. (I was so happy that the hard drive was not the problem.) That beep code (long-short-short, or 1-2) indicates video problems (but all beep codes indicate video problems in one way or another: if the video was okay, it would write the error code to the screen). I swapped out the video card: no luck. I removed all the memory and reseated it. Same code.
Now, I’ve noticed that the video card that was in there (a 4x AGP beast that Christie in no way needs for the Battlefield 1942 she doesn’t play) was not getting enough power to run the fan, but the replacement (an older AGP burner that Christie in no way needs for the Max Payne she doesn’t play) did have its fan going. But neither card resolves the video issues. So: problem with the power supply, or problem with the AGP bus? Given infinite resources to get this machine back up and running, I suppose I would first swap out the power supply (just because it’s kind of making a funny sound, but I am getting very bad at telling where sounds are coming from these days), and then try to get another Gateway-branded six-year-old motherboard, so that the whole system could be transferred to the new motherboard, and I could spend the rest of my natural life chasing around those little screws and attaching case wires to jumpers I don’t understand.
Or, Christie could just borrow my laptop indefinitely.
I suppose if the Tubbsitron KA were the only computer in the house, I’d be a little more aggressive about repairing it, but I actually just got a USB hard drive enclosure from CompUSA and salvaged the data. (More on this later.) So, for the time being, that machine is pretty much dead, and Christie’s happily working on the laptop. Still, we’re down to only three computers in the house…
