Doh!
2 January 2008I got a camcorder for Christmas. It’s a hard drive version, which means I can easily copy my video off to my computer. In anticipation of many happy/frustrating hours of video rendering I decided I needed more RAM for my computer. 2 more gig to be exact. That gives me 4 gig to run on 32-bit Vista, which will only ever see/use ~3.3 gig of it because that’s just how these things work. I could upgrade to 64-bit Vista, at which point none of my programs would work, but I’ll have that extra half a gig of RAM! But I digress…
The box was on the porch this evening, so I settled in to do a quick upgrade. Installing memory is really one of the easiest computer upgrades you can do. Anyone can upgrade their memory. The tricky part (which isn’t so tricky) is making sure you buy the right memory - but installation is a snap (literally).
Ground myself by touching uncoated metal in the comptuer, unplug the cables, open the door and snap the memory into the slots. All that is left is putting the door back on and plugging in the cables. Really… the whole thing takes a few minutes. That is, until your computer doesn’t have any power…
Check all the cables
Plug it in again
Check all the connectors
Mentally curse the rats nest of wires you left behind when you built the computer in the first place
Check all the cables again
Pull out the case manual
Pull out the motherboard manual
Check all the cables again
Remove the memory (knowing that it has nothing to do with no power)
Push the power button for the 10th time
Check the power cord for the 5th time…
Oh wait… there’s a rocker switch for the power on the back of the case. Must have flipped it when I pulled the power cord out. The sad part is that when I found the problem it all felt vaguely familiar… I’m pretty sure I’ve done that before.
on March 21st, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Hi,
I looked up my name, and there YOU were… good luck to you. Life is a crazy thing. Amy J
on March 21st, 2008 at 6:56 pm
And good luck to you! : )
-Amy J