Had my main computer almost ready to go again and then... my wife's computer was knocked out by our cat who dumped a glass full of apple juice into it. Trouble shooting time, video card junk, memory junk, and serial ata disc drive circuit junk. But the CPU is ok and the power supply is ok. The computer was custom built for her and her Sims 3 program. So had bought a new mother board, CPU (faster and better), new memory and a new video card for her. Of course not available locally so had them sent in.

Carefully put it together, double and triple checked all connections and powered it up, or at least tired to. Power supply giving idle power so push the on button, and nothing happens... no arcs, sparks, fans or drives start up. Trouble shoot some more, and not fully sure of the power supply so tear my computer down and pull it's power supply out and try it. Still nothing so out with the volt meter and check for shorts and voila, the motherboard has a direct short on the five volt main line. Thank god for the safety circuits in the power supplies.

So, now my computer is torn apart, her computer doesn't work yet. Got a return ok'd on the CPU and motherboard and ordered another set from a different supplier. Tomorrow put my own computer back together and hope it still works! Not a good day.

Finally fixed up my wife's unit today, might as well be a completely new unit, new motherboard (best ASUS around), new memory, new CPU (i7), new video card and finally a new power supply as the original one was unstable and caused me a problem with Windows as it caused a hard stop during installation of a driver. So she has her Sims 3 back and it flies now. She is happy.

Mine wouldn't boot properly after putting it back together, refused to use the Windows drive to boot from. Took a while but fixed it so still reinstalling FSX planes, scenery, and LINDA (programming it for the different aircraft loaded). Should be back together some time tomorrow if nothing else goes wrong.

Now my wife's laptop is giving her problems, will look at it soon as well. Keeps me busy keeping her units working as she isn't too careful on where she moves files from and too. I have tried to get her to use shortcuts and not drag and drop but no luck. Doesn't like to use the keyboard or the right mouse button!