Just beat the damned thing until it works
Rarrrr.
I want to beat my chest.
I feel very good.
Despite:
Swear words: at least 12
Number of screws leftover: 1
Number of phone calls: about 8, in stages of buying game, DVD-ROM drive, installation
Amount of money spent: Too much
I installed a DVD-ROM drive in my computer, and I feel like shouting to the world about how smart I am. As my brother pointed out, there are plenty dumber people than me who do this for a living. I’ve never considered myself very handy or mechanical, but have been known to make things work on occasion. Mostly I just outstubborn the item in question; often it’s a matter of just outstubborning software, digging around until I can make it work.
I spent a very long time trying to make my existing DVD-ROM work. There’s plenty of backstory but I’ll spare everyone (though about half of you have heard it already).  It boiled down to my DVD-ROM appeared to be a) a cheap piece o shit and b) inoperable, no way it was going to work. I tried everything. I read that other people had problems with the cheap piece o shit.
I resolved to take it in for service, since the computer still is technically under warranty for a couple more months. But the last time I tried, I got swatted off by the Nerd SWAT. Again, no details necessary, but I got lazy and frustrated and didn’t want to be without my computer for several days and make sure everything was cleaned up on my computer or inaccessible (don’t want anyone logging into my bank account, for example) OR have some Nerd SWAT member come into my home, which would necessitate me cleaning my bedroom and the rest of the house. And being around until they deign to visit and mock me for not being able to fix the problem myself. Sometimes it’s just less aggravating to take care of it yourself.
My brother, after all, assured me that putting in my own drive would be easy. Plug in a couple of things, you’re done.With a false sense of confidence, I sit down with my computer and realized there were a lot of screws involved.
A lot of outer casing had to come off, and finally I had to call my brother and tell him it was nowhere near as easy as he’d sold the operation. I looked at my user’s manual to see how the casing was supposed to come apart, since I was having trouble, only to find that it only tells you stupid things like how to plug the computer in, how to turn it on, what a mouse is for, what software you might like to purchase after the annoying trial period is over, and how you might register the now-three-year-old computer.My brother says, look on the Internet.
Yeah, I would, I reply dryly, except my computer is in pieces.
Oh, yeah. Well, why didn’t you look before you took the computer apart?
You told me this would be easy, I whined.
I swore a lot. My fingers still hurt from screwing, unscrewing and trying to pry out cables. My brother looked up how to open the casing on the Internet. It featured animation, which didn’t translate well over a staticky cell phone signal.
Once the casing is fully off, the swearing mostly ceases. I coax the computer, tease it into letting me plug and unplug things. All does not go smoothly; I get the drive bolted in, and plug peripherals back in to see if the drive functions. Well, it’s getting power, but it’s not being recognized by the computer.
Another call. I have to unscrew, unplug things again, and the cables don’t want to come back out once they’re in.
But then I crow in triumph as I realize I finally have a working DVD-ROM drive again, even if it meant purchasing and installing one myself.
I’m free to play a game I’ve been looking forward to for a long time: The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. My brother smugly informs me I wouldn’t have had to do all this work to my PC if I had an Xbox 360. I don’t want an Xbox. I want my computer to work. Besides, I can now play other neglected games on my PC, as well as watch DVDs on my computer (though I never did when the old drive worked.)
My brother also says now that I found out how easy it was to install a drive, upgrading my RAM won’t be hard either. I’ll probably need the extra memory because Oblivion appears to be a resource hog. My computer will run it, but it probably won’t like it.
I’m going to bask in my triumph for a while. And play my game, of course.
It took me less time than it would to assemble the average piece of furniture, with nearly the same amount of swearing. Maybe my dad got a fairly capable daughter after all. I just have to be motivated.
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The way some men enjoy tinkering with car engines, I enjoy tinkering with computers. I’ve always had this dream of buying an old PowerMac G4 for next to nothing and souping it up, adding a second hard drive, maxing out the RAM, adding a Super Drive (one that both burns and reads DVDs and CDs).
I had the chance to do this in a small way when I was a HS librarian. I collected all the Macs the school system was getting rid of and with library funds, I upgraded them as best I could and made my own little Mac network for student use. That, to me, was fun!
By the way, why no pics? On Nerdy websites, whenever a geek hacks a computer they always post a series of illustrative pictures showing how they did it.
Good job Mel,
BUT inquiring minds want to know where the leftover screw is supposed to go?????
Good for you!
So now what will this inspire? Bigger computer projects? Souping up your car? Building a house with only your bare hands?
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…..
(But I am sincere about the good job, chica.)
It was fun to do, eventually. I liked the sense of pride I got.
Part two was finding out that the computer didn’t want to run the game, that despite being pretty good at running games three years ago, my poor computer had fallen behind the times. To be truthful, I figured my computer would be at the bottom, very sad low end of the minimum requirements to play the game, but turns out it was outside, pressing its face against the door. Not enough for admission.
Yesterday, I installed a graphics card. It took me far less time and only four or five swear words, mostly at myself for trying to install the card in the wrong slot.
And because I’m not a true computer nerd, I didn’t realize that it was part of the deal. Besides, I was too busy trying to not break anything and keep my cats away from the open maw of my computer.
As for the leftover screw… it is supposed to be mounted in one of the drives, and I erroneously took it out, dropped it, eventually found it again, tried to screw it back in, dropped it another time (inside the computer, which is a very bad idea) and decided that the drive didn’t need that screw anyway.
Technically, I have more screws leftover than that. The DVD-ROM drive came with its own screws, but I reused the ones I had.
I’m not sure what other computer projects I can take on. I might be reaching the end of things that it would be wise for me to do. In each case, it’s something I’m assured is very easy. I wouldn’t like to replace my motherboard, for example. I think that’d be a very stupid thing for me to do.
Btw… today’s project is RAM. I need more RAM.
Did the graphics card compensate for your lack of processor speed? More RAM might help, too, but if your processor isn’t fast enough to deliver on frame rate, you’re going to be frustrated.
I was sorely disappointed when I bought Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, based on the fact that my iBook met the minimum system requirements. It was horribly, deathly slow to play.
Right now, I’m playing “Age of Mythology.” It’s similar to Warcraft and Age of Empires and other such games. Incredibly addictive! Especially when you can play as the Greeks fighting the battle of Troy.
I am impressed! And you know you wouldn’t have gotten a bit of personal satisfaction had you had some nerd do it for you, so bask, woman, bask!
Let’s just say that the graphics card got it running. It still needed the RAM. It was almost unplayable.
So there’s the whole saga of going and buying RAM, having some pimply, no-social-skills little jerk from the tech department deliver monosyllabic answers and point out the wrong kind of RAM. Gave me some outright bad information in the bargain.
Went home, got the RAM in, didn’t work. Not only does it not work, but when I reinstall the old RAM, that doesn’t work either. So then I called free tech support (my brother looking up information for me thousands of miles away) and he decided I bought the wrong RAM.
Stupid tech guy said they’d charge me a restocking fee. But they didn’t, when I marched it back.
Unfortunately, I had just enough time to buy the RAM; I haven’t had the time to install it. I really really need it to work. I can’t limp along on half of the memory the computer used to have, and I’ve already spent embarrassing scads of money trying to get one game to work.
So the moral of this story is: know what you’re getting into, and don’t expect just because your computer may get close or meet the requirements, that it will run a game.
On the other hand, I’m still fairly proud of myself, because I’m getting better and quicker in each step of the process, once I know what I’m doing. I actually didn’t need to call my brother until I found out that the RAM didn’t take.
Age of Mythology might be interesting. It’s a lot of strategy, right? Did you ever play Populous? That’s a great favorite of mine and my brother’s.
You are the female shaman of a small tribe, starting out. The objective is to build your own tribe by building houses (which helps you breed more braves) and warrior huts or other specialty buildings for other types of people. The more people you have, the more mana your shaman has. And then your shaman can kick ass as she learns spells.
You share your world with one or more other tribes, and the ultimate objective is to be the only surviving tribe. It’s quite fun to use your preacher to convert enemy tribe members. Unfortunately, that also makes them splendid targets for longer range attack.
There are about 26 different levels to the game. I never got through them all.
But it’s a great game. A lot of strategy. A lot of havoc. And you might lose. A lot. But quite fun.
I like to tinker when I can, but, generally, all I do is add RAM and call tech support every three weeks (lately, anyway). My problem with tinkering: yes, I can do most of those things around the house and some things on the computer. Yes, I can do my taxes.
But they always take so long. If I could remember back two years ago when I changed my brakes I could do them in half the time. The same goes with taxes, faucets, dishwashers, wiper blades, disposals. But I never remember and the job always takes the same amount of sweat and anguish.
Those Macs…. They aren’t generally so unreliable, are they? You seem to be having a lot of problems.
In the interest of full disclosure, the latest update is that I tried to install the RAM (after having to return RAM once) and ended up having to pay a computer guy $20 for about 5 minutes work. For something that was completely stupid: I just hadn’t pushed the RAM in far enough.
But I was so grateful to have a running computer with the upgraded RAM that I paid it with a smile.
But he also gave me some good advice in other areas, and I learned at least one thing about the innards of my computer, so I will not have this problem again.
It has significantly speeded up the process of installation, though, just by me becoming familiar with the way things work inside the computer. But as you say, Todd, perhaps I will forget how to do this a couple years down the road.
Btw… responding to something much earlier in this thread… my processor speed is more than adequate. In about the midrange of the specs, not at the bottom, in this case.
However, I’m still struggling to get the computer lean enough to run the damned game.
And … is it a sign that you’ve been obsessing over the computer for so long that you dream about it and when you wake into that half-state, all you can think about is the graphics card, over and over again?
It runs now, after a fashion. The frame rate is so slow it’s like playing on an olllllddd computer. Circa 1995. But I’m having a good time. Will buy more RAM after my trip home, which is only a few days. No point in buying the RAM if I can’t play.
I’ve had that same problem, Mel. Who would have thought that RAM would have to be shoved into place THAT hard. But we novies are so worried about damaging a computer that we tend to be too gentle. That is my problem, anyway.