Tag: computer

Getting back to normal

So, I know you’re wondering – did the restore DVD ever come in? Well, I was afraid it might not. The day after the picture tube arrived in lieu of my DVD I received a phone call from the service lady I spoke to the previous day. She said that they’d had a complaint just like mine that day! Someone else had received a picture tub instead of DVD as well! I was afraid I’d find another large box on my porch the next day. But no! The next day there was a padded envelope in my door. Yay! DVD for me!

Thursday, then, I was able to restore my computer back to Windows Media Center Edition. As soon as that was done, I installed the video card and then transferred all of my files from the SATA drive I’d copied them onto. And as soon as that was done? Yup! Time for my fix! I played City of Heroes for an hour or so and enjoyed it immensely.

Ever since then I’ve been tweaking the computer to get it back to where it was before (or better). I’m currently deciding on skins & desktop colors. I’d been using “Brick” from Winders Classic (we use that at school) but wanted a change. Before then, I had a Seventh Doctor color scheme (lots of red & yellow like the logo). But now I’m going with black/white/gray. I have a few skins for QCD that work with it (one even has purple on it – yay!) Now to find something for Trillian that does the same.

(Hmmm, you know, I really like tweaking my computer. I’m glad I’ve now got this restore disk so that I can do this all over again when things get unweildy. Heh.)

Sony’s new DVD technology…

OK, so today my restore disc was supposed to arrive from Sony. I get home and find not one, but two boxes outside my door. An itty bitty box and a large box. So, of course, I figure the itty bitty box has the DVD. Heh, I figured wrong.

The box that held the box.
This is the box that supposedly held my restore DVD. The umbrella is there for scale purposes.

So, I think maybe they’re just into over packaging. However, it was rather heavy. Could there be a manual with it? I opened the big box to find a slightly smaller box inside of it. And it’s not really the shape one expects DVDs or even DVDs and manuals to be in.

The box inside the box.
Here’s the box that was in the bigger box. A bit more oblong than one would expect.

Well, I opened that box to find something I just didn’t recognize.


It was definitely NOT a DVD.

I had to laugh. Sure, I’m upset that I can’t fix my computer today, but to be sent a picture tube rather than a DVD… Come on, how can you mistake this for a DVD, warehouse people?

So I called Sony and talked with a very nice service lady. She’s sending FedEx to the school tomorrow to pick up the picture tube and overnighting me another attempt at the DVD. Plus she’s returning me some of my money since it didn’t wind up being overnighted originally. Here’s hoping it arrives ASAP!

(Oh, the itty bitty box was a new barcode scanner. Yay me!)

Computer techs are cursed

My dad has noticed that whenever computer techs do upgrades on their own equipment, all hell breaks loose. Upgrading 20 computers for a lab, no problem. Changing video cards on your home computer? Big problem.

When I bought my Sony VAIO PC last summer, it had everything that I wanted except a decent video card. Of course, I bought it all the same, despite the onboard video. But my main addiction, City of Heroes, didn’t play corrently on the VAIO. Bugger. No matter, I decided to upgrade the video. I couldn’t use the card out of my old PC – it was AGP and this computer only has PCI-E and regular PCI slots. So I found an ATI PCI-E card for the computer and installed it.

ATI and City of Heroes are not the best of friends, but my game played. Sure the video card occasionally crashed (well, the driver software did) and I’d lose picture. But it was a rare thing. And sure, sometimes after being off, the card wouldn’t send data to the DVI port and I’d have to turn off the computer blind. But I coped.

But then the fan started going bad. Bleh. I was afraid it would stop altogether and the chip would burn out, so I purchased another PCI-E card online. Yay for NewEgg.com! I found a nice nVidia card to replace the ATI. nVidia and CoH are lovers, you know.

Now, before I installed the new card, I uninstalled the ATI drivers. I know what a pain in the ass conflicting drivers can be. And I pondered, but only pondered, installing the nVidia drivers before I swapped out the old and installed the new. And did I even think about dropping down my resolution? Nope…

So I turned off the PC, uninstalled the ATI card and installed the nVidia card without a hitch. Then I turned it on. And it went into Windows XP without a hitch. Except that once WinXP opened up, no picture. Wrong resolutions for the card! 1280×1024 without drivers is very hard to maintain. So did WinXP automatically switch down to one that worked? Hell no. Incompetent piece of shit software…

No matter, says I, I’ll just see what keystrokes are required to run the driver software disk. I put the disk into the laptop to see what it does. But the piece of shit driver software doesn’t have nice alt-key commands for running it. Still, it does beep when you move over the options. I think I might be able to get it to work blind. But I can’t. Bugger.

What’s a girl to do? Well, go into Safe Mode and change the resolution, of course. Except that the VAIO has NEVER been able to go successfully into Safe Mode. And yesterday was no exception. Grrrrr.

OK, next choice is going into VGA mode. Except I get told by WinXP that it’s missing a key file to do that. Good news – my laptop has that file. Bad news – how am I going to copy it onto the PC? Didn’t have any luck doing it through the network – I never bothered to share the C drive and when I tried the hidden share, I, um, forgot my administrator password. (And bugger all if I didn’t remember it later on after I’d passed the point of no return. Stupid ass tech.)

No matter, I’ll just use a Win98 boot disk and copy it that way. Oh yeah, SATA drive. Duh! The DOS on the Win98 disk hadn’t a clue how to view a SATA drive. I decided I had to go to school and get BART PE and a WinXP Pro disk. And to comfort pissed off treen, I also went to Taco Hell for take away. (I’d been working since 3:30 on this gathering disaster and it was after 5pm by then.)

My first thing to try once Leo and I had eaten supper was BART PE. I was able to copy the file that the VGA mode said that it needed. Only the bloody file was already there. *sigh* But attempts to boot into VGA mode still resulted in black screen, and worse, now when I tried booting into Safe Mode, it rebooted instead of just sitting there showing off all the drivers it loaded.

I’d done some research online and suggestions were to do a WinXP repair if you can’t successfully go into Safe Mode. I follow the instructions and things are going OK, until it reboots and goes into Windows – black screen! Still hasn’t dropped down resolution. I haven’t a clue if it’s asking me to type stuff or key buttons or just wait for it to finish. When it gets to a point of inactivity, I turn it off and try going into VGA mode. Ah! Now I can see a picture. And it says that Windows upgrade is restarting. And just sits there. Bugger all.

A second attempt at the upgrade leads to the same results. No way to get into VGA mode while its installing. And when rebooted, it just sits there. Of course, I later realize why this might be so. My computer had Media Center Edition. XP Pro with bells on, but still no XP Pro like I’m “upgrading” it with.

So now I’ve borrowed a computer from school with a SATA drive and copying my documents, videos, and MP3s onto that computer’s HD. And I’ve just wasted $35 to get the Sony VAIO recovery DVD shipped to me overnight (which really means I’ll get it Tuesday since it’s the weekend now). So hopefully on Tuesday I can get my computer back to where it was when I first purchased it. And then get all my stuff back onto it.

Man, I’m gonna miss City of Heroes while I wait for this. I did try installing it on my laptop, but the graphics on here are so bad it’s black & white. Heh. If all goes well, though, I shouldn’t lose any data in this fiasco. At least, I hope not!

Geek.ME!

So, here I am, watching the Olympics in my living room on my big TV (the little one is in the bedroom). And how am I typing this? Am I using my work laptop? NOPE! I’m working on my BRAND NEW LAPTOP!

I bought an Averatec 3700 series laptop. It’s itty bitty & cute. And it’s white!

Oh yeah, I’m a geek, I should state the specs, too. 1.8GHz processor (AMD Sempron), 12.1″ screen (part of the itty bitty & cute aspect), 512MB RAM, 80GB HD, DVD+/-RW/CD-RW drive, and only 4 frickin’ pounds! It’s refurbished, but so far, no complaints.

I wanted something ultra-portable and I liked the look of the Averatecs I’ve seen. Dad also got one – his is much the same as mine, but he bought his new. Smaller HD, no DVD burner, but just as cute & itty bitty.

I decided I finally wanted my own laptop, rather than using the work one. First off, the work one isn’t ultra portable, so I wasn’t doing a whole lot of transfer to home with it. And I really didn’t like having “personal” stuff on my work computer. So last weekend, I uninstalled the Semagic, mIRC, GAIM and other “personal” programs (plus documents & MP3s) from the work one. At work, it’s used for cloning computers & designing/updating the school website.

When I figured my taxes, I realized I was getting enough back from the Feds to afford a new laptop. So I did lots of research & shopping before I finally decided to get my Averatec. I ordered it last Friday (from geeks.com, of course) and it arrived today. Yay!

In addition to my laptop, I ordered a laptop pad (the Lapinator). It arrived on Wednesday and I got to try it out with dad’s laptop then. It’s great – perfect for these itty bitty laptops. And also very light. Don’t know if it’ll fit in the laptop case – I’ll find out Monday or Tuesday.

I also ordered a laptop case, as you might have guessed from above. It’s supposed to arrive Monday, but I didn’t know that UPS delivered on holidays. Hope it does!

The cost of all of these items was still less than the refund I’m getting from the feds, so yay me! I think I might get a set of white headphones to go with my laptop, too. 🙂

I’m really happy that this has arrived as soon as it has. This way I can spend all weekend watching the Olympics & customizing my new laptop. Works for me!

A Tech Christmas Poem

Tomorrow when my users check their e-mails, they’ll see this poem.

A Poem for Christmas by Trina, aged 34

‘Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the school
Several computers were on
And that wasn’t cool.

The computer techs were nestled
All snug in their beds
While visions of Open Source Software
Danced in their heads.

When out in the night sky
There arose such a blast
‘Twas thunder & lightning
Neither of which were forecast

The computers went down
The servers shut too
And several network hubs
All went “boo hoo!”

Some computers when down
Will never wake up
And this costs us moolah
Which we never have enough*

So the moral of this poem
If it isn’t obvious to you
Turn off your computers
Oh, and Merry Christmas, too!

*Yeah yeah, not the world’s greatest rhyme. So sue me!