How to Replace a Motherboard

Really now, are you sure you want to do that? Don’t you know that divorce isn’t the answer? You get one divorce and all you’re going is setting yourself up for a string of divorces. And what about your kids? Yeah, I saw that; you’re talking about replacing their motherboard. Don’t you know that you can’t replace a kid’s mother? Why, you might get another woman to do the housework, but she’ll never be his mother. The most you can expect is that they’ll develop a fondness for her as a step-motherboard.

You know, you’d be a lot better off just fixing the relationship you have. In the long run, that’ll work out better for everyone. After all, whatever problems you have in this relationship are going to get carried over into the next one. Just ask any woman, all the problems in your marriage are your fault, not hers.

If you do decide that you have to replace her, remember, replacing a motherboard can be pretty expensive. You’ve got to figure in alimony, child support and the horrendous fees that lawyers charge. I guarantee you, you’re not going to win out on this deal.

What if you lose custody of the little hard drives? You know, she might get them. Then, it won’t be so much an issue of replacing the motherboard as replacing the fatherboard. Yeah, have you thought of that? That’s a big deal. You could end up out on the trash heap, all alone, without anyone to connect to. Then what’ll you do?

So, like I said, you’re better off fixing the motherboard you have, instead of replacing her. Now, you really can’t fix her, all you can fix is you. Yeah, that’s right, you can’t change her at all; at least not in a direct way. The only thing you can do is change you, and hope that the changes in you will bring about a change in her.

Actually, that’s more effective anyway. The problems you have with her probably have a lot to do with you. Are you sure you’re giving her the right input? How about your power connection, is it good for her? Maybe you’re filling up her memory with so much garbage, that the good stuff can’t come out. You’ve heard it, “Garbage in, garbage out.”

Steps to Replacement

Okay, so I haven’t convinced you. Well, if you’re still going to replace your motherboard, here’s how to do it.

1. You’ve got to power down the system before doing anything, and get everything disconnected from the case. Open it up and you’ll see the motherboard laying there.
2. First of all, make sure you have all your documentation in order. You’re never going to get things to come out the way you want if you don’t have the right information.
3. Next, find yourself a good lawyer. These things can be tricky, and you want to make sure that you have the right protection. You’ve need one that’s well grounded, to protect you and the new motherboard from a shock.
4. Get everything out of the way that could cause problems. Motherboards can be a bit hard to get to, with everything in the way. So, if there’s anything between you and her, be sure to disconnect it and take it out of the way.
5. Remove all her connections. You don’t want anything keeping you from getting her out of there, once you unscrew her.
6. Unscrew the motherboard. Not all motherboards are held in with screws, but most have at least a few. There are probably a bunch of standoffs, which she’ll need to be lifted off from. That can be touchy, as unhooking one standoff can cause another one to grab hold.
7. Once you’ve removed the old motherboard, you can install the new one. It should go in right where the old one was. You’ll need to reconnect everything to her and reinstall all the little cards. They may not connect in the same places as the old ones did, but the connectors will be the same.

Conclusion

Replacing your motherboard can make your computer hotter. Be sure that you keep her well ventilated so that she doesn’t overheat. Hopefully, everything will work out okay and you’ll enjoy your life with your newer, faster motherboard. If not, you’re stuck with her, you’ve already thrown the old one away, so there’s nothing you can do about it.

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Note to the reader: If you don't know what a motherboard is, it's the main circuit board in a computer. I just twisted the meaning a bit to write this. 

The Computer Equipment Challenge

Have you noticed how computers are getting more and more connections on them? Maybe if you’re relatively new to the world of computers, you haven’t. But, for those who have been using PCs since the beginning of time, there’s a definite difference between those early dinosaurs and their modern cousins. Not only do we have color monitors and fancy accessories, but the computer companies are conspiring to get us to buy more of them.

Yes, for those who are into conspiracy theories, this is a true one. It’s not the government this time, nor is it some secret society it’s big business that’s conspiring against you and me. Yes, the major computer manufacturers have gotten together in a secret meeting and decided how to get into our collective pocket.

Of course, this meeting was so secret that they kept Apple out of it. The rest of the computer community has never accepted Apple as a true member anyway, with their different operating system and their trendy styles. No, Apple’s aren’t real computers, they’re just for kids who want something that looks cool; or, so say the major manufacturers.

Anyway, the purpose of this ultra-secret computer summit was how to wrap up more and more of our lives in our computers. Yes, computers are truly taking over the world, and the computer manufacturers are helping them do so.

The theory is to make our whole lives center around the computer. That’s why so much effort has been put into making the computer an entertainment center, instead of a work center. The first step of the plan was to make everyone do their work on computers, so that they could control our work. That tool control of 1/3 of our lives. The current step is to take over our entertainment.  That’ll take care of the second third of our lives. Then, the final step will be to take over our sleep, giving the computer control of our whole day.

There are still some technological issues to be worked out for sleeping on the computer, but you can see the effects of their alpha testing every day, in workplaces around the world. People sitting in their cubicles and dozing off at work. Here you thought it was boredom, but it’s all part of the plan.

“So,” you ask, “what’s in it for the computer companies? This is a great theory, but where’s the profit?” Aha, that’s the part that’s been kept the most secret. Yes, all this is ultimately about increasing the corporate coffers of the computer corporations. You see, as they take over more and more of our lives, turning us into virtual people, they offer more and more products to lead us gaily skipping along the path to slavery.

Have you noticed how many connections there are on the back of your computer these days? Why, early computers might have had half a dozen, not half a hundred. It’s gotten so crowded back there, that they’re starting to put connections on the front of the computer as well.

There they sit, dozens upon dozens of connections, just looking at you, and challenging you to buy enough toys to fill them all. Yes, that’s what’s going on. They’re trying to get you to buy enough whistles and bells to connect to your compute, so that you never have to leave your chair. Why, I’ve heard that they’re getting ready to start offering soft drink dispensers, right in the computer. That idea was brought about by the super-cooling systems which are now being offered for power users.

Think of it, if you ever do manage to get enough things to fill up all those connections on your computer, you won’t be able to move; you’ll be hemmed into your chair. Especially if you take USB seriously. I mean, really, who needs a connection that can handle 127 devices anyway?

Don’t say you weren’t warned. When you find your life being overcome by the computer, remember what you’ve heard. Rise up! Throw off the encumbrance of the evil computer! Get your life back!

What to do with that Overly Talkative Person

Everyone knows one, that person who you get on the phone, and they never seem to stop talking. Even worse, they never really say anything, although they use an awfully lot of words to do so. Their greatest skill in life seems to be taking up your time, listening to them talk about the minute details of their battles with the hairdresser.

Oh, if we could just find a way to get rid of that person… well, not really get rid of them, but an easy way to get away from them when we need to. I mean, don’t they realize that other people are busy? Where do they find the time to spend hours on the phone, saying absolutely nothing of value?

Of course, you could just insult them enough that they leave you alone; that would solve the problem. But, somehow it always seems that these people are people who we need in our lives for one reason or another. Breaking off the relationship with them could have some dire consequences, which of course is why we put up with them in the first place.

Never fear, there is a solution, and you don’t even have to go to jail for killing them. Modern computer technology is being applied to this frustrating problem even as we speak. Scientists in a hidden lab in the middle of nowhere are applying voice recognition software to this baffling problem. Their goal is to develop a computerized response system to be used with these people, freeing your time for more important activities.

The secret to making this work is to recognize pauses in their speech. Granted, there may not be many of them, but those few that exist are there for a purpose, so that the talked can ensure that the listener (that’s you) is still on the line. In those few brief moments, they are expecting to hear you say something, anything, just to verify that you are still alive. This is where our secret scientists come in.

The program they are developing will analyze that talkative person’s speech patterns, looking for likely places where a response might be expected. It will then automatically provide an appropriate sounding response, to fill in that moment of silence, making it seem as if you were still listening.

What makes the system so effective is that it uses your own voice to answer. When setting the system up, the user is directed to pre-record a series of short responses, which the program will use. Simple things like “uh huh, “and then what,” “really,” “well, I don’t know” and “that’s absurd” top the list of common phrases which the program stores in its memory, ready to use at the appropriate moment.

Think of the time savings this revolutionary device could make for your life. When aunt Suzie, brother Charles or your nemesis from High School call, all you have to do is switch on the program, and go on with whatever you were doing. They’ll never be the wiser.

Can’t Keep up with Those Software Updates

Computer prices have dropped tremendously. Why, the computing power you can get in an el-cheapo today would have meant buying a mainframe computer a couple of decades ago. Then, you’d probably have to hire your own programmer to do what the average home computer can do today. Not only are you getting more for your buck, but you’re having to use less bucks to do it.

While computer prices have dropped, software hasn’t. A software update today, to upgrade your favorite program to version 18.3 costs as much as it did when you upgraded it to version 2.1, oh so many years ago. That’s a bit if a win though, considering that everything else has gone up.

The software manufacturers have obviously learned a lesson from Henry Ford and his corporate cousins. That is, they’ve learned the lesson of the model year upgrade. By upgrading their software, they can make sure that most everyone has to buy their product over and over again. It’s pretty sneaky, if you ask me. I mean isn’t a word processing program a word processing program? What is there to upgrade?

But, if you don’t upgrade, then your software won’t work on your new computer, which of course has a new operating system. Since the old software and the new operating system don’t speak the same language, the software crashes and you can’t do anything. Of course, I really think that they could talk to each other, at least in development, until the programmers added an intentional glitch to keep them from talking to one another. That’s something else they learned from the auto makers, it’s called planned obsolescence.

Planned obsolescence shows its ugly head in another manner as well. Every once in a while, one of these great software houses makes a change to their file format. Now, all the files you have carefully preserved for the last umpteen years are no longer valid. Your new program doesn’t want to read the old files, and of course you don’t have the old program anymore, because it’s been replaced by the new one. Oops!

Yeah, well, they usually create a patch for that, which allows your new version to read the old version’s files, but that doesn’t guarantee that it’ll read them correctly. It could just as easily turn the file upside down and backwards, flatten the layers, take out the attributes and change the language to Kurdish.

Thanks, software houses, for making our lives so interesting. Truly, the cost of the new computer was nothing, compared to the cost of all your updates.

Oh, and just because you bought the update, doesn’t mean that you’re out of the woods. The next bigger and better version is right around the corner. In fact, it might come out at any moment; say, as soon as you install the new one you bought.