The other day I bought a PC game. It is a restaurant management game where you serve endless waves of customers who order from items on your menu. Fine; the game is fun, and it has re-play-ability; just delete and create a new username to go at it again.

There were two demo games on the CD as well. I installed one of them; it was another management click-fest game, and I had 60 minutes of playtime to try it out. It was fun, and if I see it in the bargain-bin I may buy it if it is under $7.

Here's the deal though; when that 60 minute demo ended, my screen flickered and then went black, while at that same precice instant my speakers crackled and popped. I will swear that an arc of static electricity swept across my monitors face!

Hmm... no problem, I guess. That must be how demos end. So I go to dial up and check my email (yes, I am on 56K dial-up). But instead, I get a message that there is no dial-tone; error '608' or something.

After running every Windows troubleshooter and Norton diagnostic, I arrive at the conclusion that my PCI Modem has been fried. Hardware problem. It's never a Hardware problem! Iguarantee you your problem is always software related.

So, against my better judgement, I open my PC tower case and yank my PCI modem card. I dust it and inspect it. Hmm... not really much to it. I vacuum around inside my tower and pick dust-bunnies out of various fan blades with a Q-tip cotton swab.

Upon getting ready to replace my pci modem card, I notice that there is another PCI slot on my motherboard; PCI COM port #4. (I had just taken my modem out of PCI COM port #3).

So on a hunch, I stick the modem into number-four instead; I slap everything back together and reboot. Presto! I'm back in business; my modem is working fine again.

Weird. So did that darn Demo fry my COM port?