Tonight I was raging that I couldn't seem to get any of the new games I downloaded off of Steam to work. At first I wanted to blame Steam, and than I just raged at the companies of the games I was trying to play. It just didn't make sense that I couldn't get my games to work. I know my computer isn't the latest, and greatest, but it is still pretty good since I upgraded my video card last month to a Nvidia 550ti GTX.
I kept trying to download new drivers, and update direct x. Every time after about thirty seconds my game screen would go black, and my tv would say no signal. I would shut down my computer by holding in the power button, and once I rebooted it would give me a message that my Nvidia drivers may need updating. It was making this gamer rage big time.
I grabbed another beer. You know beer always helps when you are already angry. It just didn't make sense. I searched Google, Nvidia forums, and etc and no one was complaining that the video card or drivers weren't working for Portal 2, or Witcher 2. It made me drink even more.
I tried playing in windows mode, and the same thing. By this time I was ready to chuck my computer out on the highway from my back patio. I was really getting a full rage going on.
Now it is time to explain how I finally got it to work. It was no ones fault, but my own. Lets go back to a month ago when I first installed my new graphics card.
First I had another raging moment trying to remove my old graphics card. I finally saw this little flip switch which obviously locks the card into the motherboard. I push it down, and it breaks off. I drink a beer, and rage a little while I think I just screwed up my motherboard, and may have to end up upgrading my whole computer.
Luckily the card came out, and I was able to put the new card in, but I had to remove a second steel plate from the back. Leave it to murphy's law that it falls, and I can't get it out. I figured no problem it is just floating on the bottom of my tower.
The problem is I now have no way of locking my card into the slot. It seemed pretty secure, but a few days ago after setting up my webcam on my tv from my old monitor I jiggled around my desktop trying to figure out where the wire to my webcam was.
This is where my problem started, and I didn't even realize it. In the process of tilting my desktop I jarred the video card loose when I lost signal. I opened up my case, and reinserted my video card securely back in the slot. I figured problem solved.
My video is working again, but I mostly just played with Seesmic, and Google + the last few days. It seemed to be working just fine. I decided just to open my case again, and take a look to make sure the card was properly seated.
That is when I noticed my case was really hot, and my video card. I look at the fan connection, and try to look to see if the fan is working on the video card. This is when I see those two metal pieces jammed between my video card, and case. They made it so my fan stopped working, and my video card was shutting down from overheating.
I remove the two pieces, and load up Witcher 2, and it works perfectly. I shut it down after fifteen minutes or so because I really wanted to play Portal 2. I load it up, and it works perfectly. Can you believe I caused myself that much rage over something that simple?
Anyways I am loving Portal 2 so far, and look forward to talking about it the next few blog posts.
