Fry's Ordeal

The day pumpkin and wifey left for Taiwan, June 6th, 2010, my computer started wheezing and beeping. I could tell that what was happening was the CPU fan was starting to fail, causing thermal overheating and thus the warning beeps. Since it has been about 4 years since the last time I upgraded, I figured it would be a good time to build a new computer. I usually do all my own upgrading, putting together a new motherboard, CPU and ram since it is pretty simple stuff to do. This particular upgrade turned out to be the upgrade from hell as you shall see.On Monday morning, I scanned the latest Fry’s ads for motherboard/CPU specials. There was a good special going on with a AMD Phenom quad 4 processor. I hopped in the car for the 25 minute drive up Hazel Ave to the Fry’s in Roseville to make the purchase.

An hour and half later, I was back home, busy putting everything together. I didn’t waste any time and by early afternoon, I was ready to flip on the power switch. I turned it on and nothing happened. I checked all my connections and knew something wasn’t right so I figured that it was worth a trip back to Fry’s. At the service desk a technician took a look at the computer and found the problem right away. There is a secondary 12v power supply connection on the Gigabyte motherboard that I had missed, probably because it was a 6 pin connection and my power supply had only a 4 pin connection. I asked the technician if it was okay to plug in a 4 pin male to a 6 pin female and he said "Oh sure, no problem." Okay, I could accept that and feeling a little embarrassed, I packed up the unit and took it back home. As soon as I got home, I turned on the power and it did the POST (power on self test) with no problem. Okay, that’s good. Next step was the operating system install. I put in the Windows XP disk and started the install. Usually when I get to this point, the job is pretty much over since the operating system installs itself and just asks me to plop in a CD when it needs a particular driver. However, this time, I got the blue screen of death at about the halfway point. WTF? I checked all my connections and everything looked fine. Now what? Time to take it back to Fry’s. This time another technician took a look at it and said, "I know what your problem is. You have to install Windows 7." "Are you sure?", I asked . That seemed kind of strange. "Oh, yes. Look right here." And he showed me on the side of the Gigabyte MB box a sticker that said Windows 7 compatible. Okay, I guess he must be right so I packed up the unit and took it back home. I had to pay $100 for Windows 7 Home Premium edition, I justified this purchase because I had always promised myself that eventually I would replace my aging Windows XP system. I put in the disk and the install bombed with a memory address error at about the halfway point. Not again!, I thought to myself. That same afternoon, I got in the car yet again for another trip to Fry’s. By this time, I am starting to get frustrated. Some people would already be dropping their unit from a 20 story building but I am not the type to be easily defeated. I was determined to get it working. At the service desk, I told the technician that I was having problems installing Windows 7 and could they do it for me. Certainly, for $100. Okay, I guess I have to do it. I dropped off the unit and drove home. There was something nagging in the back of my mind about Windows XP not being compatible with an AMD Phenom quad 4 processor and when I got home, I called AMD directly and the support tech guy said that is absolute nonsense that their Phenom processors only work on Windows XP systems. In any case, the next day, the unit was ready for pickup. When I got to the service desk, I asked the technician if he encountered any issues during the install. "Nope, everything was fine," he said. "Are you sure?", I asked. How come he didn’t have any problems and I did? Was there something magical going on? Life wasn’t fair. I took it home and powered it on. It didn’t even get as far as the initial windows splash screen before a memory error came on and when I rebooted it, I got the blue screen of death. Something like bad_pool_not_equal. I was starting to get a little fussy. How many trips have I made? 4 and counting. That is 20 miles/trip which is 40 miles roundtrip or 160 miles. Time for trip #5. At the service desk, I explained my problem and also pointed out that AMD quad 4 processors should work fine on Windows XP. "We have to do some diagnostics", the tech guy told me. Well, duh! How come that wasn’t done during the Windows 7 system install? I can’t imagine that install going without a hitch. "Don’t worry, we’ll find the problem." Famous last words. In any case, I had to leave the unit with them and wait for the results. The next day which was Friday, I called to ask how things were going. "Still performing diagnostics", the support desk answered. "How long is this going to take?" "Try calling tomorrow." Alright. I suppose I could deal with one more day without the computer . After all, I have 4 other computers at home so it is not like I am left high and dry. Regardless, I was anxious to get this issue resolved. The next day, I called in the afternoon. "Sorry, the guy working on it is not here. Try again tomorrow." Now I am getting pissed. See how long it took? I could have gotten pissed back on Wednesday when the Windows 7 install bombed. And looking back, that should have been when I trusted my instincts and thrown in the towel. But I don’t give in very easily. But the operating system issue was bugging me. Why should I have had to buy Windows 7 if it was supposed to work with Windows XP? I decided that it was time to return everything. I should get a refund on the operating system install because the tech guy gave me wrong information and I had an email from AMD supporting my argument. I got to the support desk and showed the tech guy the email from AMD. Okay, he said. He was getting ready to give me a screwdriver to dismantle the system right there to remove the MB and other parts so I could return it. Just before he handed me the screwdriver, another tech guy, Josh said, "I was the one who worked on it and everything works fine." Okay, I wanted to see proof. He turned it on and it seemed to boot fine . However, he did mention something about a graphics dll file in windows system32 that had to be replaced. That’s weird but okay, what else could I say? No charge on the diagnostics but this was definitely going to be the last time. I took it home and booted up. It froze midway during the windows startup. That’s it. No mas. I promptly removed everything and placed all the parts in the original packaging and jammed up Hazel Avenue to return it. The woman at the service desk was getting ready to refund me everything including the operating system install but there was just one little problem. I had forgotten to include the I/O thermal plate. Without that tiny piece of metal, she wouldn’t give me a refund on the motherboard. I did get a credit for everything else and drove home to pick up the remaining piece. Altogether about 7 trips back and forth for a computer upgrade. I resolved that I was never going to Fry’s again for computer parts or service. And so ends my 8 days of hell with Fry’s.