my dying HD finally got too much for me to endure (I had to reimage after every few reboots b/c I was experiencing 50% data corruption after every boot. It steadily got worse after the past few months) so
I took it back to comp-usa b/c my parents paid for the extended 3 year warranty, which is good b/c I've come to realize that compaq is s*** quality-wise. In the end, I only had 130 gb usable on a 160 gb drive--- Windows marked the rest of it as bad sectors.

It will take 2 days for them to swap out the HD with another one, and while that happens, I have to use my other computer, which is not too bad (while it has the exact same specs as the other one, plus the additional hard drive that I yanked from the other machine before I took it in. however, I couldn't get my radeon card out (it is stuck very firmly in the AGP slot and won't come out. I didn't want to yank on it b/c cards are delicate and the general rule for these things is that if it doesn't want to go, don't force it.)

So this means that while i have a kickass computer for web surfing, word processing, and photoshopping, It is nearly useless for games.

Post any repairs you ever had to make on your machine (s).

Well, other than replacing the floppy drive and the occassional reformat, there really isn't anything.

However, I'm off for reading week right now, so I'm forced to use an ancient computer... at least it can still run Blockland.

I laugh at your prefabricated demise.

I run a techbench at a best buy. I can say that though without tact, his post is correct. We all warned you against those compaqs you got. I see more HPs and Compaqs than any other brand every day of the year. *sigh*

Never had to do any major reapirs on my box. Just upgrades: video card, sound card, bigger hard drive, RAM.

Best Buy's the good guys. It's the others I don't trust.

I don't mean to be an ***, but you just NOW figured that out?

A. Should have asked to just have a new drive. Two days to install a hard drive? It's like a 5 minute procedure!

B. Compaqs have always been bad. Poor choice on your part.

C. AGP slots usually have tabs or some such locking mechanism on the slot to keep the card in place.

D. General rule for these things is: If it won't go in, get a hammer. If it still won't go in, get a bigger hammer. RAM can be aggarvating, along with some poorly built PCI slots. Oh, and heatsinks on processors are like playing with the devil. You have to nearly put all your weight down on the heatsink mounting bar with a screwdriver to attach it to the mobo, but yet, if you press TOO hard, you crack the die on the CPU, and your stuck with a dead CPU.

E. When you hand that comp back in, keep the hard drive that came with it. See if they notice :p

Oh man, I remember installing a CPU/fan for the first time. I tried doing it with my fingers first. I quickly found out that didn't work. I got it in with a screwdriver, but I was really worried that I might have broken something. Then I read that it takes up to 25 lbs of force to bend the mounting bar and snap it in place. That installation scared me half to death.

* ion has joined #sp
<ion> today's my birthday
<deMoN> yo happy bday man
<ion> thanks, my dad brought me a new case home from his work today
<ion> ok, it's not a new case, it's my old one...i didnt like the gray metal frame so i wanted to change the color
<plague> What color?
<ion> gold. i was going to spray paint it, but it would have ended up melting. so my dad said he'd take it to work
<ion> he works at this metal coating place
<ion> just brought it home today. looks awesome
<plague> So you have a gold plated tower?
<ion> no it's not gold...something else...let me go ask
<ion> copper. it's copper
<plague> Copper plated?? Is it running right now?
<ion> no dude...on my other pc..i just finished hooking up the mobo and stuff, i'm about to start it
<ion> stand back
<plague> Before you turn it on...I think you should know something...
* ion has quit IRC (No Route to Host)
<plague> Copper is a conductor of electricity.
<deMoN> think we should have told him?
<zeff> nah, it's funnier this way.
<plague> of course...<>
Note: the fuse box in his house was fried. knocked the power out.

I'm thinking about doing repairs on a Dell laptop, but I don't know where to start. Or if I should start.

Depends on what you need to do. RAM and hard drive replacements on a laptop are fairly simple. Anything more and you'll want to take it to a service center most probably.

I didn't know one could upgrade hard drive on a laptop and RAM. Graphic card too?

graphics = no but ram and harddrive, ya

Sometimes you can upgrade the graphics.

I didn't see any catch or release on mine. There were two things that stuck out, but they didn't look like they did anything, so i left them alone.

My old computer was also a compaq, but it was a pretty good machine (for the time) . I never had any problems with it. in hindsight, it may have just been the rare Compaq that actually worked as advertised.

I did ask for a new drive. Yes, it takes them that long, although they probably have to order it from the factory. (so much for getting a name-brand replacement, but I wasn't about to pay extra for it.


I also told them not to partition it to install anything, b/c I plan to do so myself.

That would be funnier if maybe steel and aluminum didn't conduct electricity, and maybe if the components of the PC weren't isolated from the case, and maybe if his power supply had the fuse removed.

I HATED that procedure when I built mine. I spent almost 15 minutes trying to get it on. And afterwards, I realized that I could've taken the heatsensor supplied with the heatsink and placed it under the CPU. I wasn't about to go and rip everything apart again.

added a new hard drive, graphics card, sound card, wireless network card, RAM, USB 2 card, DVD drive, DVD-RW drive and power supply....

only thing I haven't changed is the motherboard and processor, although I have taken the heatsink and fan off to clean all the dust out....it was a total pain in the arse putting it back on so i'm not looking forward to putting brand new components together when I finally change the motherboard and processor in a few years....

processor and motherboard are probably the worse thing to change from what I can see, everything else is pretty straight forward...

Last time I took my comp to the shop was in 1996, and it was Macintosh Plus.

Good times.

Having your hard drive die on ya really does suck. I should know because in the past 5 years or so, I lost about 6-7 hard drives. Funny thing about that is that despite all those hard drives dying, I still don't get in the habbit of backing up my files. I lost a lot of game projects because of that. Projects I lost were RotE 4, Leeza 4.0, Fatal Resistance Beta 9.8, Space Soldiers: Ground War SP campaign for mots, and a Gundam skin pack for JO. You'd think I'd learn something by now, eheh

Ditto. I was sure that my screwdriver was going to slip and plant firmly into my motherboard.

I remember fitting a P2 years and years ago: that little git took a very large man putting all his weight on it to get it to click into place...

On a side note, Geoff (my laptop) is back form the shop with a very new cpu cooling system - £25, done in a couple of hours.

NYcom rocks.

(North Yorkshire computing)

I used to build computers after school in Grade 10 as a part-time job, and I got so good at those stupid heatsinks. I really hated them.

haven't upgraded my box, besides putting win2k on it... and putting in another CD drive.

I was reinstalling a Tt Volcano 6 and I was using the amount of force it required to get the damned thing back on. However, the little metal clip that the screwdriver sits in bent, my screwdriver, with all the force I was wielding behind it, went into my EPoX 8KHA+. Not good times.

I got a new tool for my techs. It's a heatsinc placement rod (a screwdriver with a rubberized and notched tip). It makes things so easy because it slides into the holes on the heatsinc's spring clip, and the rubber coating stops it from slipping, while the notch makes it so you put equal presure on both the outside and inside of the clip.

Whoever designed those heatsink mounting mechanisms should be shot. You have a cpu, its worth tons of money...you need to put a heatsink on it? What do you do? Jam a flat head screw driver into a tiny slot and then throw all your body weight on top of it.

I've probably but on several hundred heatsinks...but I still get a little nervous everytime. Especially after I put that dent in my abit...

but you could still build off of 9.7, eh Sav?

Jesus christ man, let them have a bit of fun. It's just a bash quote. Does it really matter so much for you to 'debunk' every piece of information on massassi?