Ironworks Gaming Forum - We are back! The backup server died on Feb 18th

Welcome back my friends! I've missed you all. a LOT.

Well, as you all remember, our server was getting blue screens of dead (BSOD) and finally failed late last year. And
I had a friend let me borrow his old motherboard. (a 2.4Ghz Pentium 4 I think it was) Anyway, on Feb 12 and 15th, I
awoke to see the router's 'server' light blinking real fast--too fast--constantly. I turned on the monitor, and the screen was
frozen. had to hard boot both times...

No OS errors or anything.. It wasn't the router either.

Now it's February 18th.

I wake up, and same thing. So i hard reboot it. nothing. Power supply is on, but the motherboard won't even POST.
(means booting--showing how much ram ya got, hardware, etc). tried 2 days to figure it out.. Nothing.

I'm stressing out bad, KNOWING I have no way to buy a new motherboard etc until we get our tax return (which was due any day)
but I'm also in bad pain, (for those that don't know, I have chronic back pain/hips--real fun stuff). So that
just makes it worse. Totally defeated I feel like just giving up, saying I don't know what to do..

So I call Donna at work, (Wifey) :) and tell her the bad news.. She then informs me we got our tax return!!!! (electronic deposit)
I was like "OMG". Freaking amazingly good timing. But she says I can only spend $500. (We have most of the $ spent for bills and crap already)
So I go to Newegg.com and price out:

A new Motherboard eVGA
2.666Ghz CPU
4Gig Ram (The backup server had only 512mb btw)
Hard drive (old one was OLD.. and IDE)
Video card (old Motherboard didn't use PCI Express) (got a Geforce 7800 500mb ram for 35$!)

So it came 5 days later, then I realize the motherboard didn't have a floppy connector.. um... and you
MUST have one for raid drivers during Windows 2003 Server install. I found out a USB floppy works.

So I go buy one. another $40. (BTW, Office Depot was selling one for $99!!!!!! I told them about themselves and left. :P
So I get home, dropped in the motherboard, began hooking everything together, and started hooking
the power supply to the motherboard except...... NO FREAKING 8 PIN CONNECTOR!

I dropped everything and just looked into the air... you know that dead stare, like "you're f'ing kidding me. RIGHT"

* I actually totally forgot about that. AND the fact the old power supply wasn't even powerful enough to handle
the new hardware. So I bought a new PSU.. 750watt.. ANOTHER $120.

So I'm at like $900 now.. lol, and Donna is pissed off. says 'there better not be anything else!' hehe I felt the same way....

Feeling good, but now thinking "Will the freaking PC Case be evil and warp its metal so I can't connect the motherboard to it?
Naa.. lol. It all went in like a charm, connected everything up. Hey, at least the bloody DVD Burner was ok. HA!

I decided to do a fresh install of Windows 2003 Server, took a few days with it, tweaking everything even better than
before!

And now here we are, 3am, and the payoff is AMAZING! Notice how insanely fast the pages load?
NOW I can begin again my plans for upgrading Ironworks Forum! (decided to put it on hold with the really slow hardware, as the updates will tax it more)
And now it can handle it... TIMES 100! :D

What I REALLY need is some help, Remember I began a 'server donation fund' bar but it took it down--I put it off. Guess I shouldn't have!
I spent nearly $1000, but I talked with Donna, and said if I could raise $400 we'd be OK. We just can spend any more.

But we have a ROCK SOLID Killer, state of the art server now. with multiple cores, and will last us for many years. I thought you all were worth
that. And I love having Ironworks Forum here. I've known MANY of you for more that 10 years. (That's so awesome)

If you can send a donation to help out, It would be extremely helpful, and please the Wife.. (there are benefits with a happy wife, eh?) :D :D :D
I'll throw up the donation meter in a bit.. Then I'm gonna go watch Ax Men, and pass out. It's 3am here hehe.. Night!

PS: I'm making a video in a few days of the new server--showing ya what we had, and what we HAVE! It's a beauty!