Log 2016121401

The Robot's new motherboard, memory, CPU and Blu-Ray optical drive was installed today.  The hardware end of it took about 4 hours to assemble.  There are jumpers on the motherboard that have to be set just right.  The CPU has to get enough thermal paste in order to interface correctly with the heat sink.  Should it be too much, the paste could squeeze over the top of the CPU and get into it's contacts,  And then there's the chassis (the computer's case) where all the zip ties redirecting a mess of cables away from it's 11 cooling fans had to be cut, then reassembled and redirected.  It's always a delicate procedure because everything in the chassis has to get stripped almost all the down.

The power LED light couldn't be connected to the motherboard.  The motherboard uses 2 jumpers for that and the chassis has 2 wires, but it's plugged into a 3 jumper harness.  I'm hoping that I can get a converter for it soon.  The old mother board had a digital display that I could see through The Robot's transparent door.  It read the CPU temperature, but also it sent me error codes if the computer wouldn't boot up.  I regret that the new motherboard doesn't have this, but I might be able to get something aftermarket for it?

Right now, I'm working on the software end of things.  To my surprise, Windows is actually working.  But it's doing that with the previous 32-bit version.  The Robot was upgraded today to a 64-bit system, so Windows has to be reinstalled after I make a back-up of my personal documents, map repository, TV shows and movies.  It's a big transfer.

When I installed the Blu-Ray drive, I removed a DVD-RW drive so it could take it's place.  So far, the Blu-Ray isn't working, but that's because I forgot to connect power to it.  I then took the DVD-RW drive and tried to connect it to my external kit and connect it to my laptop.  It's getting power as I can open and close the drawer, but the IDE data connection isn't reading and I haven't got a sound from the operating system indicating that it knows it's there, but won't install the device's driver.

What The Robot got today was what I'd refer to as a "re-build."  Some people can field strip Chevy's.  I do computers.

Log 2016121001

I installed the new SATA RAID expansion card in The Robot.  Now all four hard disk drives run from it. However, one thing that was predictable was that I had to re-install my operating system again.  It probably took the change as if I installed a new motherboard (always have to reinstall for one of those).  I use what's known as the "address" field on my task bar.  It can also be used to search.  The default search engine for it is in Internet Explorer and I'm unable to open that application to make the change.

Getting those four drives unplugged from the motherboard and into the new SATA RAID did nothing for my RAM (memory) problem.  The new hardware with the drives plugged in it should have allieviated the system's RAM usage.  It needed a new RAID anyways, but the next step is to take each memory stick out their sockets and firmly re-insert them one at a time.  When I go to boot up the machine, that might do the trick.

Log 2016021902

My HP BF69WM laptop computer only has one slot for a memory DIMM.  It came from the factory with 4GB.  Well, I finally upgraded it to a 8GB DIMM.  So far, I haven't seen much improvement.