Computer Futures

Sold a computer today, for two hundred dollars. My wood-flooring friend needs a box for contracts and he put cash in my hand, for a change. I already have an old Celeron, and all the spare parts. Its the 'two-hour' on-site setup that will really eat into the profits. Hey, it's a good nickel either way.

My own system crashed two days ago. First a blue screen stop error titled 'kernel_data_inpage_error.' That occured during a heavy disk read/write. The next time I ran a POST, it hung while detecting the IDE drives, after the memory check and processor detection. I did get windows fully running one more time, but it looked like my 3.0 was fried.

My approach focused on the processor and motherboard. I bought a new Intel board from Fry's with a 3.0, 2mb cache, 800FSB, fan and heatsink for $179. When it only had one IDE channel, I flipped out and banged my mag-lite on the chassis a few times. After I cooled down, I went back to Fry's and bought a PCI IDE card. That work-around, didn't, and I took everything back to Fry's. They were unbelievably nice and gave me a full store credit.

I should have tried a POST with no drives, but that was almost my last shot, after I swapped out the lithium battery and re-set the CMOS. The problem traced back to my secondary IDE drive. The system will not boot with it connected. Doesn't matter whether the drive is set to master or what IDE channel it sits on. Even ruled out the ribbon data cable. Now I have over two hundred dollars in store credit at Fry's. And a spare 3.0 from another retailer that I bought today, along with an MSI 478 motherboard that has no video.

All I need for my friend's computer is a dial up modem. I haven't decided what to do with all the excess inventory, except take the MSI motherboard back for a refund. Spent so much time on my goddam pentium that I missed the big move down on STP. I set a sell limit order for $44.88, then resisted the temptation to put in a market sell order at $44.00. The stock closed at forty, and is down after-hours. The only reasons I'm still cool are because I'm seeing Dr. Jiminez in ten hours, and because the last two trading sessions in STP have had huge pre-market action. I did have a feeling that all the day-traders were trying to squeeze out the door at once, and didn't act on it. Live learning...