My computer has crashed! I know I should keep quiet about it since I do freelance computer consulting and repair, but what else am I going to post? Fixing it has consumed all my thought. This is the second Intel motherboard I’ve had problems with.

A small capacitor fell off the first one and after that it would crash anytime the hard drive and CD-ROM drive were reading at the same time. After about a year of that, Windows stopped working and It hasn’t been able to run anything but Linux since.

I got my second computer with an Intel motherboard from an architect who had bought it new four years ago. He gave it to me because there was something wrong with the power supply and it was no longer under warranty. After replacing the power supply, I made it my primary computer and gave the old one, with Linux installed, to my mom.

I had the computer for about four months when my hard drive started producing a strange grinding sound. However, I had a lot on my mind and didn’t have time to pursue the cause of the noise. It was no more than two weeks before both hard drives, my system drive and my data drive, crashed. It turned out to be a problem with the power supply.

In retrospect, I should have noticed the pattern, but I didn’t. Now, several months after this computer ate two of my hard drives, my computer has crashed again because of a problem with the power supply. Actually the problem is with the motherboard. This motherboard has killed every power supply I’ve connected to it.

Those of you who didn’t sleep through high school physics class know you should never get any voltage on a ground wire. When I install a new power supply I get 5 volts on one of the ground wires. After it crashes, I get 0.04 volts on the same ground wire.

I wouldn’t even be able to post this if it weren’t for my gaming computer, the Cherrywood PC. I named it that because of its particle board case that is made to look and feel like real cherry wood. However, when I designed this computer I didn’t think it would ever be running for more than two hours, In fact, due to poor ventilation, it will overheat if it has to run for more than ten hours in a twenty-four hour period.