Well, I got my computer up and running last night, after a very minor problem that proved to be a major pain in the ass. Even though my RAM looked like it was fully seated in the slot, and the clips on the motherboard fit perfectly into the notches in the RAM, it wasn’t actually seated all the way. I was afraid I had already pushed too hard on the RAM to get it seated, and I was sure it was installed properly, so I spent a lot of time messing with different video cards, swapping out power supplies, checking hard drive cables and PCI connections, etc.
Whenever I powered the machine up, I just got a series of long beeps from the BIOS. And none of the beep codes are documented in the motherboard manual, so I went to Ty’s to borrow his ‘net connection and try to figure it out. According to Award’s site, there is only one series of beeps (one long, two short) that signifies a problem, and that’s a video problem. Also according to their site, “Any other beeps are probably a RAM (Random Access Memory) problems.” How damn vague can they get?
So after I came home from Ty’s, I decided to move my RAM to another slot, even though I had used the slot specified in the manual when using a single chip. That didn’t work, so I put it back in the original slot and snapped the clips back into the notches in the chip, but after that, I pushed really damn hard on the RAM, and it snapped in another millimeter or so. It was then that I knew my problem had been solved. I turned the power supply back on and hit the power button, and the damn thing powered up. =)
The extremely cheap soundcard I bought isn’t working yet, though. The driver CD that came with it apparently (according to Windows) doesn’t have the correct drivers. I even tried downloading drivers from the manufacturer’s website, but they don’t work either. I’m sure it’s just defective, but it’s not worth killing somebody over a $10 part. I’ll just exchange it next time I’m in Orem.