[nylug-talk] Downtown Hardware Shops

[Matt Williams]

On 8/31/06, phantom21 at mindspring.com <phantom21 at mindspring.com> wrote:

> Just out of curiosity, did you test the power supply?
>
> Sometimes that is the problem and not the motherboard.
>
> Mark

Well, I'm not a hardware expert by any stretch of the imagination, but
here's what I did:

When I power up the machine, the LED comes on, the fan starts spinning
and everything seems to be starting up normally. There's just no video
- at all. I switched out the video card (ATI Radeon 9600 + nVidia
GeForce 6200) and tried hooking up two different monitors to each
card. That was pretty much the limit of my "testing".

I 'built' this machine myself, but by 'built' I mean that I bought a
processor attached to a motherboard attached to a case. Then I plugged
in my RAM and all of my drives and cards and installed Debian from a
burned CD. Everything just worked (on the hardware end). I have no
problem fiddling with the software/configuration with some help from
Google, but if the hardware doesn't work, I'm totally clueless...

On 8/31/06, alex at pilosoft.com <alex at pilosoft.com> wrote:

> We (Pilosoft) usually have lots of various motherboards/etc laying around
> as spares. We don't really 'sell' things but we'll help out if it comes to
> it.
>
> Alex Pilosov    | DSL, Colocation, Hosting Services
> President       | alex at pilosoft.com    877-PILOSOFT x601
> Pilosoft, Inc.  | http://www.pilosoft.com

Hey, thanks. I'm happy to pay for parts and/or help. The processor is
an Athlon 64 3000+ (Socket 939), so I don't know how common those
boards are. If you've got  something available, great. Otherwise...

On 8/31/06, Ajai Khattri <ajai at bitblit.net> to NYLUG wrote:

> What about Cables & Chips at 121 Fulton Street?

Thanks a lot.  I'll check them out.

Also, I know that some people on the list do freelance work...

If I buy parts for a new desktop, I'd be glad to pay someone to hang
around while I put things together and make sure that I don't start a
fire, fry my new hardware, etc. I assume that this would take 2-3
hours including a SLED installation. If anyone would be willing to do
this, please send me an email off-list and let me know how much
cash/beer would be required to make ths happen.

Thanks again.

~ Matt