My Geek Fu is strong.

[SirPeale]

My motherboard has been flakey as ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- lately, what with random shutdowns.  Was kind of mystified by it all until I started having problems with my USB.  It was then that I figured out I was having power problems.

Pulled the power connector off the motherboard.  Hm...doesn't want to come out...Gr...ah, there we go.  Ah, now I see why!  It's all melty.  Just on the +5V lines.

Crap, can't do anything about it right now.  Let's just jam it back on there...hope it holds on a bit longer.

Lasted maybe a month, then the restarts and USB problems started again.  Ah, ---fudgesicle---.

Kept reseating it.  The uptime kept getting smaller and smaller.  Finally it would be up maybe a couple minutes.  If I was lucky.  It would even reboot on the BIOS screen.

"Crap," said I.  "This won't do."  JoyMonkey sold me a board a couple years back.  Pop it in.  Haven't hooked up the drives yet.  It fires right up.  "Cool," says I.  I turn the computer off, turn away, then turn back.  The computer is back on.  "Huh?" I exclaim, as I smell it: magic blue smoke.  ---fudgesicle---!

I have no idea what happened.  Suck.  The board is dead.  Now I'm down two boards.

So on Friday Cool Guy finds an old HP on the side of the road.  Old old, like 333MHz or something.  I ask that if it's DOA can I have the motherboard so I can rape it for the ATX connector.  He says sure.

Cracks it open...no hard drive.  "---fudgesicle---," says he.  "I'm not going to bother with this ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---.  You want it, it's yours."  Hands me the motherboard, and proceeds to rape the case of all screws and fans.

I start to unsolder the ATX connector.  It's *slow* going.  "Want a hint?" says Cool Guy, pulling out his propane torch.  ---fudgesicle--- it all!  Not like we're going to use this board again, anyway!

Connector comes off in about six seconds.  We proceed to burn the ---fudgesicle--- out of the board and pull everything off it.  Fun!

So tonight, with great trepadation I take my precious and carefully remove the old connector.  I could give two shits about the connector itself, but unsoldering all 24 pins cleanly is proving a real ---smurfette---.  Finally I realize I'll never be able to remove all the old solder without putting on *more* solder.  Once I do that, it pops right off.

Solder on the new connector.  It's thru-hole soldering, which means that not only are connections made on both sides of the board, they're made *inside* it as well.

I finish, so I install it in the case.  Don't hook *anything* up.  It's either going to work the first time, it won't work at all, or it'll release more magic blue smoke.

Plug it in...---fudgesicle---...forgot to turn off the power supply...but wait...motherboard light is glowing...that's a good sign.

Fire it up...holy ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---, it's working!  Go into the BIOS and check voltage levels.  Everything was *very* low before, esp. +5V.  Now everything is 5x5.  ---smurfing--- SWEET.

Typing on it now.  Have Asus PC Probe running, taking polls of the system every five seconds, so if it hiccups I'll know about it.

While I was at it, the CPU fan had quit a while back.  It was fine when I hooked it to another one of the fan plugs, so I knew it wasn't the fan itself.

Examined the surrounding circuitry...hm...there's an electrolytic cap right in it's path.  I know I've got replacements, let's give it a shot.

Crap, I hate thru-hole soldering.  I can clearly see one pad just fine.  The other side has none on either side.  Hope this works...

Hey, my fan is spinning!  Full speed!  All right!

*pats himself on the back*

[missioncontrol]

damn this story didn't even have a helpless princess to rescue or dragons...... I should have waited for the movie........

[Harry Potter]

I just skipped to the end.

Something about doing a guy up the back. 

[DrewKaree]

crap
---smurfette---
---steaming pile of meadow muffin---
---fudgesicle---
---smurfing---

This has been a test of the BYOAC auto-censor.  In the event of an emergency, a message would be posted telling you where to stick a ---fudgesicle--- on your ---smurfing--- person.  Thank you for giving a ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---, you ---smurfette---.  That is all

[missioncontrol]

you forgot --missioncontrol--

[DarkKobold]

Is that really a filter?

---steaming pile of meadow muffin---
damn
---Bad words, bad words, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when saint censors you?---
missioncontrol
---fudgesicle---
tits
beer
skank
---smurfette---
Your Momma
---stingray---
Ez Cheese

[missioncontrol]

Is that really a filter?

yep... it's my only claim to fame...

I'm a --missioncontrol--