As it always does right on Christmas. It has done it every year, at almost exactly this date, for a couple of years. It just stayed black-screen when I attempted to start it up. I took it to the local computer guy to have it fixed. Am I happy with how it went down after that? You tell me.

I dropped it in at 11am and he told me to come back a bit later. I came back at about 3:45pm and he had the box open. It was explained to me that the problem was the DVD writer. He was about to install a Sony SATA one instead of the very old IDE model I had in it before. He showed me that he had uninstalled my CD burner, something I had not asked him to do. When I looked unhappy about that being taken off the system he argued that I would not need it as the new drive was very fast. I explained I liked the drive being there and he crossed his arms and said I wouldn’t need it so he wasn’t reattaching it. Something else I am going to have to do myself as I WANT it on there unless it physically will not work!

The last guy in this shop had removed all the front USB ports without me asking and flatly refused to put them back. In his case though it looks as though he might have used that part of my box to replace a part of the same model box some kids had damaged on his machine. Suddenly mine had damaged USB ports and I had only just taken those ports out of the plastic cover and used them once recently. That fact alone raised enough doubt about the possible causes of the damage for me to resist taking him to task over it. Dishonesty at that level is enough to cause bloodshed in some places!

When he put that motherboard in I asked him to include the graphics card I had just bought for the older motherboard. He told me the graphics card would not fit as it was using an old version of PCI. I had spent a week researching cards before I bought that one and whichever type of slot it was using was the best for the card and prominent on the paperwork for the new motherboard so I ignored him and fitted it myself when I got home. I almost had to pry it out of his fingers.

Back this guy. After about twenty minutes he slung the box onto the counter and handed me an installation disk suggesting I would have more luck and save time doing it at home. I paid him and took it home at about 4:30pm

Arriving home the machine was wired up and fired up. Twenty minutes later the start screen was still on. It was turned off and restarted going through the windows safe mode and into windows. There was a very long start-up and I realized the Super Antispyware scans were running so I managed to get in and turn them off before the machine froze Windows again. Restarted again. Without touching anything else I managed to get online and carefully shutting it down I started the television. The sound and image froze every few moments and then went through a minute of recycling the last image before working again. It did that again and again so I turned it off. The new drive would not recognize the installation disk and froze Windows again so it had to be switched off and restarted. I opened the box and checked that the cables were in place. One of the SATA leads was very loose I noticed. The one to the drive but it wouldn’t tighten with a push and I am not sure if I can switch to another of the 4 SATA plug receptacles on that board without damaging something.

Restarting the machine took several tries and when it started finally I placed the disk in the drive and tried to run it. An hour later nothing had moved and I restarted again. This went on until after midnight.

The next day at about 9:30am I took it back but he was closed for several hours. I caught up with him at about midday. The machine was popped on the counter and he said come back later. Then he was closed until 3pm and when I turned up he sent me home telling me to come back in a little while. He was closed at 4pm, 4:30pm and finally at 4:55.

I went up there at 9:30am next morning but a note on the door said he was closed until 10am. 10:15 he was in and as I walked through the door he was disappearing into the back clutching my box to his chest. He reappeared in the doorway telling me he had just started working on it now and come back at midday. Which I did.

He handed it over. Apparently, he told me, the cheap, nasty little motherboard I have in this machine does not support SATA  drives. Interesting! It doesn’t? The motherboard booklet tells me there are 4xSATA3Gb/s connectors supporting up to 4 SATA 3Gb/s devices as well as suppoort for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 0+1. When new the box contained two SATA 3Gb/s cables (it still does) and as an optional extra there is a SATA bracket. Apparently all this hardware is not supported by any actual processing power. The boards is a Gigabyte S series GA-M52S-S3P running an AMD Athlon 64 x 2 Dual Core. It was put in by that guy’s predecessor about 18 months ago. It was not very expensive but I would have thought SATA accessibility to be fairly basic any time after 2003

Arriving home I ran the machine. It worked but all of the security and other start-up items were off as well as the screen resolution was some very basic level. I reset Online armor through its panel. Then Superantispyware. Then Search and Destroy. The television will turn on but the start-up that runs the remote control is off and it looks as though it is turned on by reinstalling the software. That means up to two hours of reprogramming the television channels. I cannot find the freakin’ disk of course! Cineplayer is also off and I have not worked out how to get it back into the memory either. All in all several hours of getting things to work again.

Looking around the internet I see there are 6gb/s SATA drives about the place. I see that SATA has been about since 2001 at least and over a billion of them sold. The 6Gb/s SATA will certainly not work on my machine, will it? One online source suggests there are jumpers o speed limit…dunno again!  So when I give the machine to the guy I have give him the motherboard book and the drive booklet and the CPU booklet

Would you be happy? He fixes and works on machines all the time, should he know that some machines will not accept the latest fastest protocols? Should I have a crappy IDE drive in my machine when it is obviously a SATA enabled machine. The motherboard is reasonably young, should it use the 6Gb/s speed SATA and was I ripped off by that first guy (again)? This guy only charged me thirty dollars for labor although the second day was a warranty job and didn’t count.  Should I be the one working to get all this start-up software working again? I understand being treated casually. I will do a little of the work to assist a quick or cheap repair and he knows that.

The first drive came with installation drivers and a wad of software on the DVD. This one has no book, no disk and no software. Am I complaining? I dunno, should I be? That is the problem isn’t it. Should I be pissed off about this or is it just like everything else in here and life is just a comedy and people who don’t have big wallets should not expect much? Was this just fine and I have a computer which does something (anything) so I should just shut the hell up and get on with life? There is a lot of that around here! The busted USB ports came back to haunt me. It looks as though getting the guy who busted the USB ports (maybe) to replace a damaged motherboard with one of his choice came back to haunt me…didn’t it, isn’t that what just happened.

Doing more research has shown that SATA II (3gb/s) is still the more common one used in 2010 and SATA III (6Gb/s) is backward compatible with SATA II

I need more information. A second opinion may help!

Oh great and now I have done something to kill the Google Adsense in here and all my advertising has disappeared. Not that I have ever had a cent for it but on disability ya gotta try. Right?

So should I be unhappy about the way this has gone? Because I am!

More on the subject.

New Years Eve. A few days ago I discovered some of the game disks will not recognize the DVD player. That’s right. It was the reason for having a CD player in there in the first place. Attempting to re-install the CD player failed despite the fact that the actual player is still in the case. The IDE cable the went to both drives CD and DVD has been removed for one that only services the DVD drive and has no capacity for a second drive. I didn’t even know they made them.I do not remember being asked if I wanted to change it or told the change had occurred.

Some of the casing screws are missing as well. They are the kind made with plastic heads so they are easy to remove using fingers. I don’t want to go back in there and ask if he has changed the jumper settings on the back of the drives, or if he has another dual drive IDE cable, or ask about the missing screws. Not much bloody choice though is there!