I R not teh l337

Grrrr, just thought I post this here to get out my feelings of moronness.

First off, I'm a paid technician. I work on computers for a living, and have been for about 3 years. I'm A+ certified. Generally, I know my hardware.

I replace quite a few motherboards, probably in the area of 20+ per month. Now, of course, when I replace a motherboard I swap the CPU/heatsink between the two. Pretty simple thing and I can't think of a single time where I've messed that procedure up. Until now...

I bought a new Antec case 2 days ago, pretty sweet case with a good power supply as well. Of course the first thing I wanted to do when I got it home was swap my stuff from my old case (reverted back to it's original Gateway self) to my new case. Working the way I normally do, I stripped everything off the mobo, put it aside, then took the board out. So far so good. Next I put the board into the new case, put the CPU in and proceeded to put the heatsink (a Volcano 7) on. Here's where it get's ugly...

While pushing the clip down my screwdriver slips out of the little clip notch and makes its way down about 3 inches of the motherboard knocking off little transitors and such in it's wake of destruction. I decided "OK, that's not good. I'll just hope that was for something un-important like the onboard sound" and continued putting everything together. Plug it all in, power it up, and NOTHING!!!

I'm pretty sure in my first time slip of the screwdriver, messing up $100 worth of board from my own pocket, I screwed up something for the northbridge.

Anyway, the next day I ran out and bought a new boards. Just a super crappy super cheap ($89.95) "Elite Group" motherboard. I put it in, get the basics on it, and power it up. YAY! I get life! So I go ahead and put everything else on, boot it up again, jump into BIOS and bump the FSB up to the 133 MHz it's supposed to be at, power down, and begin to prepare for a format/install using my other system. I get done with the drive prep, turn on the computer, and nothing... just the video BIOS staring back at me... to make an even longer story short, this board WILL NOT boot at 133 MHz, no matter what I do. I take it back to the shop, not even he can get it to work. He pulls down another of the same board, still nothing.

I say "fack it, give me the ASUS". Now, $250 later, I once again have a working system...

:( Ouch... I always hate using a screwdriver to push down the clamp. I always try to use something that slips down over the head of the clamp so that if it does get a little squirrely on me, it ain't goin too far, but it could still happen. Sorry to hear about your luck. That makes me cringe just reading it. Glad you're back up and running again tho. by the way... what ASUS board did you get?

Asus A7N8X. N-force 2 baby :)

'tis a good board, really good board. I just didn't want to spend this kinda of money :( Now if only I had another stick of RAM I could run dual channel... no, that would mean more money

I don't like using screwdrivers either, but sometimes you just have to make do with what ya got :p

You know what sucks even more? Purchasing $150 of A+ books, then spending $240 on the A+ Core Hardware exam and getting a 71%, only to find that those damn books didn't show you some terms that you needed to know. So after 'failing' the exam, I forgot my wallet at CDI, walked to the train station to find that my wallet was gone. I asked CDI for my results (they show what areas I needed study on) and they said "Sorry, our printer isn't working! Whats your address? We'll mail it to you." so 2 months later I call CDI and ask them where the hell my results are and they say "Sorry! Our printer is still broken!, and oh, if you still want your results you have to come back, show us your Exam Transaction Number, and 2 sets of personal ID".... after a small arguement she's like "We'll im just doing my job!"... One month later they go out of business and their location is now the "Sylvan Learning Centre". I shall never do business with CDI college again. See, my luck is worse than yours.

That would suck... that's alot of money...

I studied for my A+ in my highschool, bought a single book (A+ for dummies), and paid $50 for the exam...

Wow. Thats a good deal. I am still in high school, and I can't get prices like that for the examination. I just bought a new book by Michael Meyers, so hopefully I'll pass the second time! (if not there are many vehicles travelling at decent speeds on the way home...) ;) How did you end up paying only $50 for your A+ Exam?

It was because we were the pilot program (I was in the first class offered) they wanted as many of us to take the test as possible, so the school actualy footed the bill. For those who couldn't afford the $50 you could actually take the test for free!