And Now For Something Completely Different

Well, not exactly.

See, it's Tuesday night. I have spent the last three days trying to make a computer work. Not this computer (my usual blogging tool), but rather, a newer more powerful computer that I had assembled. However, as much as I'd like to bitch about it here, this is a blog for games.

Wait a second.

Computers play games.

BRING ON THE BITCHING.

OK, so let's run through the basics. I built this computer back in August, and it had no hardware problems.

Specs were:
2.7 GhZ Processor
1 Gb of RAM
and a bunch of patched together drives of various sorts (they all worked together).

Now, as of Sunday (ironically, when I directed the computer to this blog), something went wrong. I had installed new RAM (which, before you blame it on the RAM, it showed up fine in the BIOS and had no problems when I installed it a few days earlier). Midway through the DethKlok video I am so fond of, the computer crashed and shut down of its own accord. However, all attempts to turn the computer on after that resulted in a similar crash just a few seconds after reaching the desktop. Finally, after popping in the XP Pro install disc (to try and repair it before a full boot), I am greeted with another shutdown via a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death).

Next, I tried starting from scratch -- I put in a new Hard Drive. I also had acquired a Vista upgrade disc, so I figured that this would be a good time to install that, too. Unfortunately, every time I got to the "install" part, I was greeted with, you guessed it, another BSOD. THE HARD DRIVE WAS EMPTY! WTF! All it needed to do was be formated!

So, figuring that there was nothing else I could do, I unplugged it overnight.

Then, when I put yet ANOTHER hard drive in it, it decided to work. I was able to install Vista (although there were several BSOD's that made things difficult). Finally, I got it to load Vista.

...for a while, anyways.

See, it was harassing me about not having virus protection. So I went to install some. And then it crashed (much like the very first time). Vista reboot itself, but it was highly unstable. So, I restarted it with the disc to repair it. Repairs completed, I tried rebooting.

Never even made it to the title screen.

So, I used the disc again, and went to a system restore point.

Still didn't make it to the title screen.

So, I went in with Safe Mode. This worked, but every single application (including explorer) terminated itself as soon as I gave it a command.

Finally, I was just getting hit with BSOD's.

So, I tried using the "memory diagnostic tool," which told me that something was wrong with the hardware, but no specifics. Also, it gave me a series of error messages every time I tried to boot. No fixing, no safe mode.

So, I opted to reformat the drive. Nothing important was on it yet, so nothing to lose. So after the reformat, I try and install vista again.

BSOD.
Repeatedly.

And after about 40 minutes of trial and error (complete with RAM switching), I was unable to get it to reinstall vista after a format. Just another BSOD. EVERY TIME.

Anyone have any suggestions? I'm pretty much out of ideas.

Well, at least this guy has the right idea: