Yesterday, a surprise delivery happened. Surprising enough that yesterday was Labor Day. Got the USB 3.0 expansion card, not that I really need it anymore (as the issues are pretty much gone). But, since I have it, I might as well install it. But I didn’t until this afternoon as Red Fox was talking to me (someone I haven’t spoken to since my birthday. Thank God he’s still alive!)
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Next day (today) came, after getting breakfast down me, I unplugged everything from the back of my computer and laid it down on my bed. Had to go out to the garage to get a Phillips head screwdriver for this job. After I got that, I located one of the black
slots (farthest from the video card, so the new card won’t choke up the fans). Unscrewed one of the panels, got the new card out of its anti-static wrap, and slid the card perfectly into the slot. WOW! This is a LOT easier than it was installing that Ethernet card in mother’s computer!
Replaced the screw, and felt I was done.. though I forgot the card needs to be powered with a SATA power cable. Searched through the case, not really finding one. Uhh, am I fucked?? I don’t have no free SATA power cables in this case! FUCK!!
Looking at the non-functioning DVD-RW drive, still confused why it won’t
work. Obviously it needs another cable (a SATA data cable) for it to work, yet I don’t remember even seeing one attached to it when I was unplugging everything.
Knowing I was out of options, I carefully took the power cable off of the drive and tried attaching it to the new card. Was a pain to get it at a certain angle for it to go in, but I got it.
While I still had the case open, I decided to do a search on my phone of how to install a CD drive (just to see if it actually needs a SATA data cable.. and it does). Think my brain is fucking with me of never seeing one attached.
Well, the only way I can get it to work now, is to find some sort of SATA power cable extender.. and wow, they actually exist! Then buy a standard SATA data cable, re-attach both and boom; the drive should work again.
Before I put the side panel back on, I wanted to replace the main AC power cable with the spare I got from the new PSU. Reason being, there’s an opening in the cable where it connects to the computer (and you can see the wires). You must understand though, this is a cable I’ve had for many, many years. It has worked great for that long, and has showed absolutely zero issues (even with these exposed wires). Perhaps I got extremely lucky it didn’t cause a fire (or short circuit the quite expensive parts inside the case), so it’s time to replace this very old cable (on a ‘just incase’ scenario).
But for it being months since I upgraded, I have no idea where I stored the thing. Looked everywhere in my room. Did find one, but it’s not as long as the damaged one. Found the still unopened 500W PSU I bought by accident, opened it up and grabbed its spare power cable! WOOT! Now the cable is replaced, and I feel safer.
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Side panel back on, computer back in place, reconnecting the USB cables and other
things– wait, where’s the cable that’s connected to the Bluetooth dongle for my wireless headphones?!
The thing fell off my atomic clock, and it wasn’t in the mess of cables (or on the floor).. like it had completely disappeared off the face of the Earth. Nearly a half an hour after frantically searching, I finally found one end of the cable (thanks to buying an Amazon Basics cable, the logo told me what I would find when following it to its source… OY!! THERE it was!
Plugging everything in and turning my computer back on, MR Portal immediately launches when I got into Windows (and it’s been doing that ever since). Not what I
wanted, but AAY!! The card WORKS!! 😃
Now my USB capacity has increased to 13 ports (instead of 8), with the new card dedicated to powering the VR headset.