Dorothy, From watching how the jetstream, I think it has persistently come close enough to your end of Oklahoma that you get the gray, gloomy clouds on the edge of the cold fronts that are dropping snow and ice north of you. Way down here in southern OK we've had more sun than last year, but in the last week or so, the sun has become increasingly rare. Keith, You're welcome. I'm getting pretty concerned about y'all up there in central OK. This is the driest I remember seeing your part of the state in winter in several years. I understand exactly what you did and why. I'd probably do exactly the same thing if I was a dry as you are. When my soil gets so dry in drought periods that rainfall or sprinkler irrigation rolls downhill on the surface of the ground and isn't even absorbed, I know I've waited too late to start watering. I think it is always better, even (maybe especially) in winter to water the dry ground. If it gets too, too dry and planting time is approaching, it can be hard to keep the soil moist enough for seeds to sprout. The big mistake I made in one dry spring (may have been 2003 or 2005) is that I planted and watered sparingly waiting for rain to fall to give the seeds and plants more water. Well, rain never fell and by the time I realized that I should have been watering more heavily to get them off to a good start, the were pretty stunted and pathetic. It was a hard lesson to learn, but it made me a better gardener in succeeding dry years. Don't even mention those photos of those big old black clouds. They are fascinating but in a horrifying and very scarey type of way. I hope and pray we've learned enough about conservation and no-till commercial farming that we never put ourselves in that predicament again. Can you imagine the mass hysteria, especially on the part of the media with its 24-hour-news-cycle nowadays if we had something like that occurring? If you haven't read the book about the Dust Bowl days that I've linked below, I highly recommend it. I reread it once every 2 or 3 years to remind myself of how bad it was and what all those folks went through. We throw the word "diaster" and "catastophe" around pretty loosely nowadays, but those people who endured the Dust Bowl years really lived through a catastrophe and it lasted for years. Some of the old-timers here have told me stories about what it was like here in our county, and it wasn't pretty. One of them lived on land adjacent to ours and she tried to explain what it was like to have the big clouds of dust ruin the laundry you'd just washed, or blow through the cracks in walls, etc. into the house and cover everything with a fine layer of dust. She was a very small child then so I'm not sure how much she remembers directly and how much she remembers from hearing her folks talk about it later on their lives. I just can't imagine what it was like to endure 8 long years of catastrophe. My dad did tell me about the pure agony of watching crops fail over and over, which was a disaster for folks who essentially raised all their own food. So, if couldn't grow a crop, you couldn't eat. One thing that sticks in my memory from photos of those days is just how painfully thin everybody was. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: The Worst Hard Time

Lisa, Oh the lake looks so sad. Not to worry. You are the woman who always has an overflowing rain gauge while mine is collecting dust and dead bugs. I have faith in the weather there. I think OKC will get good rainfall in April-June. Let's hope that faith is not misplaced. LCDollar, Poor Lake Canton. I was watching the news from that part of the state last year as the lake levels fell. I don't blame the local residents for being upset. I don't think we should steal water from one part of the state to help another unless it is a truly desperate situation. We have had low-flow toilets since we built this house in 1999. We even had them back in Fort Worth long ago. It is one of the easiest ways to save water---almost effortless and well worth the investment. We do practice water conservation and always have, but I see plenty of people with sprinkler systems watering so much that water is running down the road. That drives me crazy. We catch water in rain barrels and buckets too and I try to make it last as long as possible. Lake Texoma is not at the lowest level it ever has reached, but it is headed in that direction. Without good spring rain, I think it will reach a new low elevation. It will get worse in a few months when one of the North Texas municipal water districts starts piping water out of it again. They have that right, and they've done it before, but since the lake is already so low, the residents and business owners around Lake Texoma aren't going to like it one bit. They are trying to be proactive and find ways now to restrict the amount of water piped out of the lake and to restrict how often the lake is used for power generation. Both of those items already are covered by long-established laws and rules, so I don't know that the "Save Lake Texoma" group will have any success in getting the restrictions tightened. In bad years, some areas almost go to war with the various entities fighting to get their share of whatever water is available. Down here in southern OK, we have had to fight the efforts of various water municipalities that have tried to force OK entities to sell water to them. I am a native Texas and I love Texas, but I want for them to work to create more reservoirs and better conservation and deal internally with their own water shortages. I want them to keep their hands off our water! I have watched ever since we bought our land here in 1997 as the growth of the D-FW metro area has grown by leaps and bounds and they have not begun construction on one new reservoir even though they have grown several million in population. We need for rain to fall in western OK and in western north Texas. They need it desperately and will be in trouble long before the rest of us are if they don't get good spring rains. The drought to our west is one reason that Lake Texoma is so low....there's not enough watering flowing down the rivers and into the lake. Dawn

Quote "it powered on fine" So it is fair to say you heard the POST beep? I see on that board you have a 24 pin power connector but up in the top rear corner of the motherboard behind the 9 pin DIN and USB hubs there is also a 4 pin power connector. Check this is seated correctly. He seems to be tucked in between the cooling fins and a black item, is it possible you missed it? Not doubting you by any means but at times even the silliest thing can cause frustrations. Is the Corair RAM on the Asus QVL compatibility list? Asus boards need very specific models of RAM to work properly. Beautiful machine, I drooled all down my shirt while writing this.

how much to repair/overhaul? what exactly will be done, ie scope of work? how much to replace? are there any efficiency advantages, safety advantages with the new Monitors? in other words,what is advantage of new versus overhauling old? is there a life expectancy of these type heaters? IMO