So I'd been maxing out my computer these last couple of weeks, working on the Seekrit Project. I had been gonna buy a new computer as soon as the new printings paid all the way out (they still haven't), and so I decided it'd be a better idea to buy some new RAM and see if I could get my system to limp along for another couple years. It'd started flaking on me; photoshop had to be re-installed, and I was starting to worry about drive failure as well, things being almost seven years old and all.
So I bought the ram from Ebay, and it arrived this evening. I put it in.
And I promptly fried my motherboard.
Oh yes, I've tried everything. She won't power up, not in the slightest. I even stumped Tier 2 support at Apple, to the point where the nice lady was telling me to try googling for the answers. My only other option is to drive it to the Ann Arbor Apple Store and spend 4 hours and $50 in fuel, and another $100 in Genius Bar fees to find out the same information. Yes, I've well and truly done it, and with only a single week to go before the new series is set to launch.
Fuck.
So, I think I'm going to order a new iMac tonight. While I *possess* the money to buy a tower, everything I've read or been told (including Paul's firsthand experience at the Design Center) tells me that I can get by, handily, with just an iMac. This is quite good news, because it saves me between $700 and $1000 depending on the system I buy.
Here's hoping the data's still intact on my internal drives so that I can just hork it down onto the new model.
Blearrrrgh. the rest of the week's going to be mighty interesting.
I think you'll be happy with the iMac -- my mom got the 20" version to replace her old (bondi blue G3) iMac, and it has a serious amount of Snappy, more than my MacBook Pro does, and that's plenty fast for me. (Granted, I don't do anything really heavy with it besides play Civilization IV, but....)
Standard buying rules apply, of course, which means don't pay Apple for more memory. Get it from NewEgg.com instead. They're fast, reputable, and cheap.
UGHHHH!!!!!!!
Man, I didn't know one could fry a motherboard by adding more RAM. Buying an external drive with that too?
Oh holy moley! Could the timing possibly be WORSE? It's a little scary how high on my list of "horrible things that could happen to me" a major computer meltdown is -- below major illness or a death in the family, obviously, but probably way higher than it ought to be. I'm crossing my fingers that you'll be able to get your data back intact. (Seriously, you SHOULD be able to.)
I have an iMac from just before the Intel switch, and I could not love it more. And, hey! Once you get the new mac, we can use the little built-in cameras to videoconference for free! I've been using iChat with a writing buddy and I'm starting to come around to the idea of doing authorial brainstorming in chat rather than by phone. (One word. Chatlogs! It TAKES NOTES FOR YOU.)
You know, Chicago has an Apple store, too.
However, you've already stated that you don't have time for that nonsense, so it's a moot point.
Having recently had 3 separate bouts of non-functional electronics, I totally sympathize. Okay, two really, one was entirely caused by me. I'm vainly trying to avoid spending money hand over fist trying to keep my tech functional. But hey, at least we get shiny stuff, right? Good luck with it.
Do you think it's the fault of the ebay RAM? I suspect that my (non-mac) laptop wouldn't have conked if I'd coughed up for a non-generic replacement AC adaptor, but maybe I'm being paranoid. I am sufficiently cowed that if I buy a spare camera battery I won't go the generic route. Are they manipulating us into brand loyalty?
Oh yes. I'll definitely be buying brand-name from now on. Ironically, I bought the RAM separately and will be installing it myself. However, this time it's going to be with one hand firmly on a piece of metal. I may even pop for a ground strap, just to be sure.
I was really bummed to hear about your recent Dell Disaster... That's a real bummer, because I've had really good luck with them so far.
Bleargh, electronics. This is just more of a reminder to wean myself off of them. Fortunately for the comic, there's still a ton of paper-and-pencil work left to do, so life's not as rough as it could be.
There is another idea...
Get yourself a MacBook Pro, and a nifty flat panel monitor.
You can use the laptop anywhere, and at home you can simply plug in your mouse, keyboard and big honkin' monitor, and have a kewl base station. I will very likely never buy another Mac tower (but will continue to buy Apple computers and iPods)
An iMac can handle anything you really will throw at it. We use them for production work, and the only problem I see is that under heavy use (10 hours a day), they will tend to overheat after about 3 years. The cooling fans start to die. Installing RAM, or a new HD is pretty simple.
I suggest getting an external drive enclosure to have on hand for this type of emergency. When the computer dies, yank the drive out, drop it into the external enclosure, and you still have immediate access to the data from any other computer.
Need to borrow a Mac laptop? It's only a 800 Mhz G4 TiBook, but you can use it for a while. Just let me know.
Ugh! You have my sympathy. We had a similar issue at work with a dell and using off-brand memory. $400 dollars later, we had replaced the hard drive and the memory and did a complete reinstall of everything. All because the computer didn't like the non-dell memory.
On the upside, we just got the 20in iMac ourselves and its great. We use the computer pretty heavily for web and graphic stuff including Photo shop, Illustrator and Java programing and haven't had nary a problem with it. We did get a deal on memory upgrade when we purchased it - you might consider asking them if they have any deals currently.
Good luck!
I did toy with the idea of a lappy, but declined for two reasons: one, the track record in this house for lappys in general and mac lappys in particular is really quite abysmal, and I can only afford this kind of a cash outlay maybe once every seven years, so I'd rather buy for a long-term investment. Second, I already have a windows lappy that I got, for free, when my work went out of business. It's old, and completely devalued (hence the "free" part) but it makes a very nice beater, roadtripper, and Powerpoint machine. So between Paul's TiBook, and my lil' Dell, we really don't need another in the house; all I need is a workhorse stationary box.
Thanks very very much for the offer of your TiBook, though -- it would've been a couple notches faster than my old G4. Good to know about the iMacs, too. And yes, yes, the Emergency Backup Drive is a mandatory thing around here. Not only do we have the big 200G external tower that Paul and I share, but once a year, at Christmas, we do a house backup on a separate drive and leave it at Paul's parents' house, in case of something really horrible like a house fire. We have a healthy fear of systems crashes in this house.
That's actually why I'm not in a state of panic right now. Even if my internal drives are hosed, which -- knock wood -- they shouldn't be, I'll only lose a day or so's worth of work because I had just backed up the Seekrit Project on the external, and all the Vogelein stuff is backed up in like three separate places. Everything else is expendable at this point.
Thanks for the sympathy and advice, everybody!
Been there, done that. Lovely little blue spark from Goblin's nose to the motherboard. It sucked.
A good grounding strap can be had for less than $20, last time I checked. I finally stopped being macho and got one when I realized it would be the cheapest piece of computer gear I own... still is. That kinda put it all in perspective for me.
Good on ya for the multiple backups.