Almost as if in cue with the commencement of my exams, my PC died a silent death yesterday!

After a vigorous and inspired session of studies, I decided to take a well-deserved break and go online. After all, I hadn’t used my PC (I’ve named it P4MONSTER),  for over a week since I was in my native place (now, that’s another bloggable topic – but later, folks!) due to familial pressures. I thought a break and a blog post would free my mind.

Only to my eventual despair!

As usual, I switched on P4MONSTER, ignored the ‘Windows’ option in my boot menu typed my username and password, and logged into my Kubuntu Intrepid screen. I logged into Pidgin automatically and had barely opened firefox when the system hung. The number-pad lights started flashing in maniac fashion. I shrugged and restarted the system – an occasional cranky moment for my MONSTER. But I knew (s)he’d be back in action!

The blue Pentium 4 boot screen loaded up. With a few differences, nonetheless. There were white, horizontal lines popping up, shaking all through, over the boot screen. I knew it’d be a monitor issue and waited – to no avail. The blue boot screen (with greyish-white lines) remained unchanged (apart from a Brownian-motion-ish movement in the lines!). I restarted my computer about ten times, still no change. I couldn’t even log into the BIOS menu.

Flustered, I opened the box up, removed and reinserted the RAM. Tinkering with all the parts, checking if all of ‘em are in the right place, I dusted the whole box up and powered it again. This time, I could get into the BIOS menu, but no further. That confirmed it – my Intel Xtreme Onboard Graphics died a painless death! INTEL 865 GBF has been out  of production for over a couple of years now, there’s  no other good motherboard in the market to host my 2.4 Gigs P4 processor! Prasanth confirmed my hypothesis and I’d no option but to cover P4MONSTER  with a white cloth and bid tears (I did that!). It’d been my buddy – my trusted friend, for five years and a month.  Apart from minor issues, it had never let me down! I was broken and shattered.

Now what?

I’ve saved up some money to buy a laptop (I’m eyeing a Dell Studio) but the money’s in Fixed Deposit and won’t mature in a while. At the moment, I’m coaxing dad to buy a new system after the exams and he’s almost agreed.

But don’t worry guys, I don’t need a PC at my place to blog regularly! Keep visiting, there’ll be regular updates that’ll still make you smile .

And, wish me luck for the exams! The first exam (Computer Communication) went well.

UPDATE:

I tried switching on the PC again (after a couple of days) and it magically WORKED! However, the Graphics issue with the motherboard is real and my system is really in the verge of a collapse.