🚀 go-pugleaf

Mark Anderson <mea@nospambrandylion.com> wrote:
> Recently I got a little drunk and I was messing with this P4 w/ 512M RAM 
> and I must have bumped something and it wouldn't load a kernel so I 
> started messing with the memory sticks and then it wouldn't even turn 
> on.  Well, I think the power switch works because the fans go and I hear 
> one beep and my mouse lights up for a second.  Then I have to do the 5 
> second hold on the power button to turn it off.   It doesn't talk to the 
> monitor at all.

> Although this PC was old, I had it serve a purpose and now it doesn't 
> work.  Microcenter has a $99 P4 512M PC for sale that would replace this 
> thing easily.  But they have P4 chips for $9.99 and since I took the 
> chip out already, I'm wondering:  Is it worth it to gamble on the $10 
> chip if that's the cause of the problem?  Or should I just get the $100 
> Microcenter PC and be done with it.  I'd hate to put this nice HP case 
> into the landfill.  If the processor has a 1/2 chance of being the 
> problem then this might be a good bet.  If the odds that it's a 
> processor problem is less than 1/10 then I should forget it.

I'd go with the $99 special.

It's not clear what you were doing but if the first symptom was really
"wouldn't load a kernel", I sort of would stop there and assume everything
afterwards just made it worse.

The $99 special at least has a 3 month warranty and comes with an XP
license.

The $10 cpu, if it doesn't fix it, isn't even going to make a good peice of
jewerly.

-bruce
bje@ripco.com