I HATE Hardware

The last thing I saw last night was something about "Do not turn off or remove the power cord from your computer" for some no-doubt-critical update. This morning, my desktop doesn't POST. It hangs right at the point the RAM count happens.

Now, I don't think an OS upgrade can effect POST, so perhaps it's a bad RAM chip. But I pulled all but one chip this morning and it still didn't boot. Then I replaced that chip and it still failed. So the odds against it being the RAM seem high.

Meanwhile, on my new system that I'm building to replace the motherboard whose hard-drive controller blew 6 weeks ago, the replacement motherboard doesn't POST at all: no BIOS announcement, no nothing.

Power's coming through a UPS, which should condition it adequately.

At the moment, I have no desktop. I _so_ don't need this.

Oh, and you have to be nuts to buy new chips and motherboards before next Thursday, when Intel launches their new chips and AMD will undoubtedly respond with huge price cuts.