ONLY A FOOL CHANGES SOMETHING IN A WORKING COMPUTER

This is offered to all those who have gone before me or will follow into the abyss. May you find comfort in my story.

It starts with my feeling that the sound card that shipped with this computer, although it works fine, is hammered crap. Not that you'd notice.

I do voice recordings way at the other end of the house and to make a long story short, can't move the microphone to the computer or the computer to the microphone. So I have been recording 'on location' into a CD burner then walking the CD to the computer where I copy into my editing program.

It'd be much easier to run a long wire from there to here. I bought the wire and adaptor. And it fit and was long enough. 100 feet.

But my old sound card didn't have what's called a LINE INPUT. I could probably get away with using the microphone input and just turn all the equipment in the studio way down. But then I lose a microphone hookup for Skype and it's prone to distort running a line level into a lower level. You following this?

I do my diligence and find a midprice sound card which collects raves for its sound quality and ease of installation.

You can see it coming, right?

Well, I've been inside this computer more than a few times. PHYSICALLY, it was a piece of cake. I then loaded the drivers. I stepped onto a mine.

I lost the ability to record anything.

I tried everything.

There are control panels and defaults and settings and I thought I got them all right. I READ THE INSTRUCTIONS ALL THE WAY THROUGH. Went online and downloaded newer drivers. Looked at forums to see if anyone else was having a problem like mine. Nope.

I called customer service. 47 minutes on hold. The guy comes on in a stereotypical nerd voice and I can hear him typing into HIS database asking MY questions. Not clue one.

And so, as I describe in detail what I've tried, I click on some setting and.... it works.

As a funny end to the story - on SKYPE (VOIP - telephone on theinternet) you can call a recording machine and it plays you back right away to be sure your settings work. I did. It did. I called my business associate and friend. He says, "BOB, I can't hear you. Bob, are you there?" I AM talking. "Bob?" I text message him that I'll call back. Hang up. He calls me back. "Hey Bob, I was kidding you."

Funny. He really got me.

And the computer didn't.

Then, maybe because I wrote this on the same computer, it turned on me. Not long after I wrote the above. Big woe. Lost both sets of drivers. Rollback. Reinstall. Try every permutation of settings.

Continue with hope, losing faith. Haunt forums, pleading for knowledge and an assist.

Hours pass, completely absorbed.

And then, I hit the right combo. Magic. It all works the way I want.

Humbled, I bow before the Gateway in awe and Thanklitude 2.1.