My confidence is restored

I had pretty much given up on fixing or making a new computer. I've hit problem after problem and we've already sunk too much money into it. Last night I had decided to put all of the parts that we had bought plus the scrap from my old computer onto Ebay so we could at least get a little of our money back. I knew that I would get more money for my old parts if I could say for sure in my ads that I have tested them and they at least power up.

All of the guys are out camping on a Boy Scout retreat, so I have the house to myself. This is key, because I never would have done this next part if anyone was around. I get really stressed out when I'm working on repairing a computer, so I prefer to be alone when I do it. First, I tested our old power supply, and as I suspected, it didn't work. That hit the garbage pile. Next, I suspected that there was a part of the motherboard that was bad, so I messed around for an hour or so to confirm it. In this process, however, I discovered that everything worked (almost) without this part! I was so close to getting it fixed at this point.

I was able to get video, but I couldn't for the life of me get the keyboard to work. I tried four different keyboards (they're still sitting around the living room) without luck. I went downstairs to go to bed at this point. I called Matt to see if he had made a decision about buying a new set of computer parts, to tell him he might not have to worry about it. I came back upstairs to finish my glass of Mountain Dew, and the computer was calling my name. I downloaded the schematics for the motherboard, messed around with some jumpers, and I still couldn't get the keyboard to work. My final desparation attempt was just to jiggle the keyboard port a bit. It worked!

In short, I'm posting this from my computer again. I'm so happy, and I no longer think that I should abandon the computer field as a job lol.