Bad day for computers

[Staz]

3/31/04 was a bad day for competers for me.

The day started out fine. Everything was good. Then at about 4:30 PM UPS showed up. They had 2 FDD drives an SATA HDD and a copy of Win XP Home (OEM).

Well some of you may know that I have been putting together a computer of second hand parts for my nephews as a Jr. High graduation gift. For those that don't know: They are very under privilaged but very proud. I wanted to build them a computer but thier parrents wouldn't allow it. So my wife asked if I could put one together out of spare parts and they agreed.

So slowly I have been either upgrading either my or my wifes computer orr picking stuff up second hand.

Here is what I had:

Demon ATX windowed case
Enermax 351 PSU
1GHz AXIA T-Bird
256MB PC133MHz RAM
Radeon 8500
Network Everywere 10/100 NIC
AOpen 16xDVD rom
coolermaster HSF
and an MSI KT7 Turbo mobo that I bought off Ebay about 45days ago with a "Not DOA garuntee"

Yesterday I got 2 FDDs, a SATA HDD (for my system) and WinXP. That meant that I could put my old HDD in thier machin and install my old copy of win 98 on it as well.

Well I started to ptu the HDD in my system but found that I had to disassemble the whole thing (remember myPC in a drawer ). So I decided to just take out the HDD and put it in the nephews PC and install Windows and get it all set up for them. I put it all together. Booted off a start up disk. Did FDISK, deleted the old partition and made a new partition. The I used the Win98 disk to reformat.

I had check temp in the BIOS and they were fine. Everything seemed to be working great. When the reformat got to 99% the screen corupted. I waited a few minutes then rebooted. Upon reboot the fans spun but not the CPU fan (it was spinning beofre) and I got no video signal and the post code LEDs were all dark. So I shut down and reset the CMOS. Still nothing and no DLEDs. So I shut down and cleared the CMOS and unplugged it and let it sit for about half an hour. When I starte3d it back up it stopped at post code 0000 which is bad CPU. Also the CPU fan was now spinning. So I put in my T-Bred CPU and it still didn't run but since the mobo only supported up to a Palimino CPU I wasn't surprised.

I disconected everything except MoBo RAM CPU VGA and PSU and it still didn't work. I went to mu 1GHz Duron machine and started swaping parts. the RAM VGA CPU and PSU from the K7T MoBo all work on the PC Chips MoBo and all the parts from the PC Chips mobo give me the same 0000 (bad CPU) post code on the K7T Turbo. I huess the MoBo is bad but sinse it wasn't DOA and it has been over 45 days I can't see asking the guy for a refund.

So I decided to for get that system and put mine back together. Well I decided to place the pump and radiator in another room to make my PC silent and I didn't have all the parts to do that so I just used the HSF from the nephews computer. worked fine. I also installed the SATA HDD and the FDD. I had purchased an FDD for the sole purpose of installing the SATA driver while installing WinXP.

I started the system up, started the install for XP, and pushe F6 at the approriate time. When it told me to insert the disk it wouldn't read it. After several attempts I decided to troubleshoot the FDD. I pulled 2 working FDDs from other systems and changed cables and broke out the multimeter to make sure that the FDD was good to go and I still couln't get it to work. After about an hour and a half of fits to make you cry I check to BIOS to find the FDD controller disabled (how come it kept showing up on the boot screen?).

Onec I got that figured out the install was straight forward but by now it was 2:00 AM and time for bed. Today I did my best not to touch a computer and spent most of the day putting together a jigsaw puzzle.

How was your Day?

P.S.
Anyone know a good board to get? I was really hopeing to get them a good quality KT133A board with lost of OC features, Like an Abit KT7 or an IWill KK266. But now I am ready to just get an ECS K7S5A Pro with no OC features and be done with it. Any sugestions?

[dabaerman]

MSI K7T266 Pro. Pali's to 1900+. won't take T'bred
but a good board. I can find one for $30-$35 shipped.

I did have a better day.

[mookydooky]

I spent most of the day fixing my garage door opener. The motor broke so I had to replace it. I dragged one of my friends to Home Depot and bought a new one and bugged him to install it.

[dod]

Staz, you deseved better luck than that. Why is it when you try to help someone there's always something goes wrong?

[stigweed]

that's why i try and help people as rarely as possible with computers - if anything goes wrong after that its YOUR fault (I'm not saying ur nephews would say that, but i mean in general).

So i got myself elected as computer rep at college. 400 undergrad computers under my responsibility. great.

[Jazz]

An asus a7v266. Newegg has them on refurb for 35$ with free shipping all the time. The board does everything lan, audio, gf2 video and has an agp slot to upgrade.

[Staz]

Originally Posted by mookydooky

I spent most of the day fixing my garage door opener. The motor broke so I had to replace it. I dragged one of my friends to Home Depot and bought a new one and bugged him to install it.

Did you get the screw type or a chain drive? The screw type is so much quieter, this may not seem like a big deal but when you pull in the driveway at 4:00 AM the screw type won't wake up the wife.

Once durring a power outage I had to get out of a garage. So my cousin and I spent about 15 minutes takeing apart the bracket where the door conects to the opener. After we got it off and the door open and the bracket down we noticed a simple pull chain release. We figured we better put it back together befor his dad saw it. By the time we got it back together the power was back on. Go figure.

[Staz]

Originally Posted by dod

Staz, you deseved better luck than that. Why is it when you try to help someone there's always something goes wrong?

I don't know. Read my sig.

[Staz]

Originally Posted by stigweed

that's why i try and help people as rarely as possible with computers - if anything goes wrong after that its YOUR fault (I'm not saying ur nephews would say that, but i mean in general).

So i got myself elected as computer rep at college. 400 undergrad computers under my responsibility. great.

I know what you mean. I built my Mother-in-law's computer. Now I am tech suport for someone that blames everything on the machine and its maker. It wouldn't be so bad except she lives 2300 miles away and does things without telling me. I built the system and set it up for her one time when I was out there on Vacation. It worked great. But she is a tech suport nightmare.

Here are 3 examples of stuff she has pulled on me:

1. (The most common) Where is my file? I downloaded something or I saved something and now it is not there. This stupid computer is stealing my stuff. So I try to get her to search for it but sometimes she doesn't know the name. Or I try to get her to download it again and see where it goes. Ussually it will tell her that it is already in her "C:\Download" folder and ask her if she wants to overwrite it. Then she tells me that she looked for it and it isn't there, so I ask her what the name in the download dialog box is. Then she goes "Oh thats the problem, I wanted to download xxxxxxx but this isn't it. This is just a bunch of letters and numbers, it doesn't even spell anything." I tell her that file is the one she wants and she tells me that's stupid.

2. She calls me up and tels me she has no sound. So I ask her if all of her cables are pluged in. Yes they are. So I ask her she has done anything new to the computer. She just bought a new monitor. I tell her that shouldn't affect her sound. Go through about half an hour of troubleshooting and it appears that sound is playing but nothing is coming out of the speakers. Finally I tell her to check the cables again. She tells me they are fine and she can see them right here. I tell her to humor me and go hand over hand and check the cable and make sure that nothing happened to them when they put the new monitor in, make sure there are no breaks or tears or weak spots. She tells me the cables are fine they are brand new. I tell her to check the plug that goes into the back of the computer and make sure it is in the right jack, the green one. Then she tells me that her speakers don't get pluged into the back of her computer they get plugged into her monitor.

WTF!!! She tells me her new monitor has speakers that hang on the side of the monitor and they are just so cute but there is no sound coming out of them. So I am pissed now after almost 50 minutes she now decides to tell me she got new speakers. So I ask her why she didn't tell me this before and she says "Well I told you I got a new Monitor!" I said "Yeah but you didn't tell me that it had new speakers on it!" She replies "You said it didn't matter that I got a new monitor"

Ok so back to troubleshooting the new speakers. Where do the cables from the speakers go? "They go into the monitor." OK there has to be another cable that goes from the monitor to the back of the computer. "There is" Does it go the the green jac on the back of the computer? "No, it goes to some big blue conector and it has 2 screws holding it in" OK that is your video cable. Is there another cable that goes from the monitor to the small green jack on the back of the computer. "No" Well there has to be a cable going from the monitor to the green jack on the back of the computer. "That cable won't fit there, it's to big" Don't touch the video cable! Check the box the monitor came in and look for a small cable that can go from the monitor to the small green jack on the back of the PC. "I can't" why not? "the guys took it" What guys? "The guys fron Circuit City. I paid for home dilevery and set up." Well if you paid for set up and your stuff worked befor they showed up and didn't work after they left why are you calling me? "Because you built this piece of crap."

OK Fiine Wilma! Whatever! Do you still have the old speakers? "Yes but I don't want to use them, I want to use these." OK fine just take the cable off of the old speakers and plug it into the computer in the little green jack. Now take the other end and look for a small green jack on the back of the monitor. "It doesn't have one" It has to have one "well it doesn't" does it have any other jacks on the back of the monitor? "It has a black one with a speaker sign next to it" Well plug it in there. "well you said green this one is black" Just plug it in. Do you have sound now. "Yes" Goodbye, click.

3. She is a virus writers dream. She opens every attachment without question. She never ever updates her AV program. And she doesn't care.

One time I got an email from her aand it had an .exe attachment. So I scanned it for viruses and it was one. The discription given for the virus was that it was a small fireworks display that was mildly ammusing but sent itself to everyone in your inbox everytime you clicked on it.

I called her and asked her and yes she had been playing the fireworks display and she thought it was pretty and if it didn't do any harm to her computer she was going to continue to play it. The fact that it sent itself to everyone seemed like a bonus to her as she was going to send it to some friends anyway cause it was so pretty and now she didn't have to do it.

After receiving dozens of these each day for a week I had had enough. I remove everyone from my contact list but her and then clicked that stupid virus over a hundred times. She finally got the point.


Ok enough about my Mother-in-law. Do you have any of those 400 undergrads that are that bad? Any horor stories?

[Staz]

Originally Posted by Jazz

An asus a7v266. Newegg has them on refurb for 35$ with free shipping all the time. The board does everything lan, audio, gf2 video and has an agp slot to upgrade.

Thnx Jazz but that is a DDR mobo and I have PC133. I didn't really start this thread to ask for MoBo recomendations. I just wanted to express what a bad day it was. However if anyone knows of a good overclockers MoBo that I can get retail and use with all of my current stuff (PC133 RAM and T-Bird CPU) I am all ears.

[mookydooky]

I got the screw type. I have no idea how sturdy it is. While building it, I noticed that the screw is pretty thin at the joints. I hope it's strong enough to last a few years.

[mookydooky]

I occasionally build computers for my friends and occasionally for my brother. Part of the deal is, they can't call me for tech support. I even add a litte thing to the My Computer properties so it says "Need help,? Dial 1-800-SHOULDABOUGHTADELL." Whenever anyone call, I say, "right click on My Computer, then click Properties. Now, what does it say on the bottom?"

They'll reply, "Ha ha, very funny. I need help."

"I'm not going to help you, that was part of the deal and you swore you wouldn't need it from me."

"Fine!" Then they'll hang up.

I have one friend whose computer would crash anytime he opened more than one window. He didn't call me up to tell me this for a whole year. I only found out when I went to his house and tried using it.

[mookydooky]

Originally Posted by mookydooky

I got the screw type. I have no idea how sturdy it is. While building it, I noticed that the screw is pretty thin at the joints. I hope it's strong enough to last a few years.

Just got done configuring all the functions for the garage door opener. The stupid instructions are annoying as hell! Something that should have taken me 10 minutes took me about 3 hours. I swear, it took me at least a hour to get the keypad to function correctly so it'll open both doors, and not at the same time. Then it took me 2 hours to configure the built-in door opener on my minivan. What a headache that was! I kept doing the EXACT same thing over and over and over again. At one point, one button opened both doors. After 2 hours of frustration, something took and everything started working the way it's supposed to.

[robbie]

Well, as far as tech support goes for copiers some of the things that I hear that annoy me are,

1) Where can I get some WHITE toner (do I need to explain this?)
2) How do I install the toner (there are pix and how to's on the inside of the front cover) (( oh and they've have 100,000+ copy's on the machine so they've put serveral cart's of toner in it.))
3) As they walk in and out of the room with my back too them they say "that thing jams all the time!" before I EVEN TURN AROUND they are out the door. Soooo I just usually IGNORE people that walk into the room. You'd be surprized how often they ignore me. I usually don't get a hello.
[/rant]
Rob

[danrok]

I see the same thing when I'm out and about - customers who don't even return a greeting. Then when they need something badly, they manage to find out my mobile number and call me like they're my best mate all of a sudden. LOL

[stigweed]

Originally Posted by Staz

Ok enough about my Mother-in-law. Do you have any of those 400 undergrads that are that bad? Any horor stories?

Wo forgot about this thread for a while.

The people at college haven't been giving me any trouble. In my position I'm not someone to piss off and most of them seem to be pretty computer literate. One girl got threatened by the RIAA for usin bit torrent and had her connection suspended for a while but I didn't get told about it till afterwards. Another girl has a windows 98 IBM thinkpad with a PCMCIA xircom net card - can I get the right drivers for it? yeah right.

Finally we had problems with one girl whos pc was only occasionally picking up an address from the dhcp server (on win xp home). I looked at it a few times then deferred to the college employees who are paid to do this stuff and know what they're doing. After a couple of days they came and checked the net cable and couldn't work it out. They basically said try someone else's laptop on it and see what happens. She doesn't talk to me much anymore...

I cna't see many horror stories happening because the most common faults are IP addresses expiring (which cna easily eb sorted over the phone) and if its more complicated they're all within 5 minutes walk.

Fresher's week in october will be a nightmare though. We have to check all their computers for virii and update windows and their AV before they can be connected. There's about 150 of them coming to our college. The guy last year said it took him all term to get sorted.

[Áedán]

Originally Posted by stigweed

Fresher's week in october will be a nightmare though. We have to check all their computers for virii and update windows and their AV before they can be connected. There's about 150 of them coming to our college. The guy last year said it took him all term to get sorted.

There's some nice network switches that deal with this stuff really well. If an unknown device is connected to them, they shunt it across to a seperate VLAN, so it's not connected to the main network. That seperate VLAN can deploy AV and updates. Once that's all done, the server on the seperate network can tell the switch that the device is safe, and the switch will then swap it across to the main network.

Consultants are also a problem in the same way. A number of companies have ended up with virus infections through an external party connecting a laptop to their network.

[stigweed]

THe switches college us can remotely enable and disable any port and they're all named according to which building/floor/room they're in. So there's no risk of people connecting wihtout being scanned it's just the pain of having to scan them all first.