I was in the middle of doing some scrapbooking earlier today when my sister called to tell me something was seriously wrong with her desktop computer. Funny thing is I already have her laptop here because it’s so gunked up with viruses it needs a serious cleaning. I’ll most likely end up backing up her stuff and taking the easy way out on that one with a reformat, but I’m waiting on her new power cord to come in since her old one quit working on her.

So when she called today I thought oh no here we go again.  What did she do this time?  She dropped the system off about an hour ago, and after I finished the tweaking I was doing to our own computers, I settled down to working on hers.  I was pleasantly surprised to see she hasn’t gunked this one up.  Her problem is actually a very simple one.  Somehow she’s suddenly missing two jumper caps on the motherboard.  I snitched two off one of my computer, tested it, and she was running fine again.

Now normally I keep a whole supply of extra parts around here.  I’ve got a box of random case screws, nuts, bolts, etc that I need for various repair jobs.  I was positive I had at least a handful of extra jumper caps in there as well, but apparently I was wrong.  I searched high and low on old motherboards I still haven’t parted with, and it looks like I’ve already used all the extras I had.  I called her to tell her the bad news.

I can have your computer fixed in two seconds, but I have to order the parts. 

Doesn’t that always suck?  Now I have to order an entire accessory kit for $20 just to get the 2 jumpers I need unless I can find some on Ebay.  On second thought I think I’ll swing by the computer repair shop in town tomorrow to see if they’d be willing to part with two.