One of the most common questions that people these days ask me regarding their home PC’s is how to have it startup and go straight to the desktop. This used to be the only option, and when Microsoft did us the favour (!) of allowing us to have multiple accounts, very few people embraced this enhancement. Read more…
My desktop PC that I use for software development has been taking longer and longer to boot recently. It got to the stage that I could start it, go downstairs to make a coffee, come back upstairs with the coffee, and drink it before I could do anything useful with Windows. (OK, so I *know* that there’s an argument that trying to do anything useful with Windows is an exercise in futility, but that’s not the point of this post….!)
The moment that I’d been dreading over recent months finally came, when I couldn’t stand this startup rubbish any longer. It was time to reinstall my operating system!!!
Finally – I’m back online! 
It wasn’t as easy as I’d (naively) expected though…!
It started with my ‘budget’ case which didn’t have enough screw-in posts for the new Intel motherboard. No problem though – I simply stole some from the old case. Then, one of the screws jammed in the post and wouldn’t screw in, but wouldn’t screw back out without bringing the post with it – and I’d fitted most of the 11 screws by then…!
Once I’d got the motherboard in place, another ’subtle’ point hit me – there was no keyboard connector! Since I only had an old Microsoft keyboard, the connector was PS2 only, so we made a quick trip to PC World for a new keyboard. [On a side note, I was tempted by a cordless desktop but I found the prices ridiculous!]
Finally, I got back home and started fitting the side cover of my case (with it’s monster 25cm fan!!!) only to find that it was sitting on the over-sized heatsink that I’d installed on the CPU! At this point, I decided to do a test before going any further. So the fans came on (and lit up with unnecessary, but strangely comforting blue LED’s) but nothing else. No disk activity, nothing on the screens, nothing. It was still dead, but with just a little more life. 
As luck would have it, a few years ago I purchased a kit consisting of two products – MicroScope for diagnosing sick PC’s, and POST-Probe for diagnosing dead PC’s! According to this, the CPU was preventing the system from going any further. One more trip to PC World (returning with a nice, new Intel Core 2 CPU) and the system booted!
My first obvious problem was that as Windows started, it was still clearly looking for the old keyboard and also ignored the mouse, so when it asked me if I wanted to re-activate Windows, I was unable to answer Yes or No! Eventually though, it sorted itself out and let me continue. When it asked for drivers, I knew that I was clever and had the handy ‘Intel Driver CD’ – if only the DVD drive’s driver had loaded at boot time…! 
This was easily sorted though, with just a simple re-boot! 
So I now have a nice, cool (running 40% cooler than the old one) PC with a fancy new Microsoft keyboard!
Watch out for me trying this out on frequent posts in the near future….
-John.
P.S. Please don’t ask me to post photos of the new machine – I might think the LED’s look nice, but I’m too old to be particularly proud of them…!