magic.rox

For the last 6 weeks, my main computer has been broken.  In that time, I think I have spent a lot more time with my wife than normal.  It has been a good thing, but we do spend entirely way too much time together.

I finally got my computer fully running last night, and what a mess that has been.  Let me outline what happened:

My motherboard crapped out - cooling fans failed leaving too much heat inside the case, a few capacitors failed.

While in the shop; power supply failed - still under warranty, they had to send it to the manufacturer and wait for another to come in - this in itself took 4 weeks.

Main hard drive failed - When I finally got the computer back, my main drive with all music and pictures crapped out.  I couldn’t access it.  Took it in and they were able to recover the data.  The drive still works and is in use now.  Nobody knows what happened exactly.

Then starts the issues I had to deal with once I got the machine back:

This new motherboard an ASUS model A8V-X would not recognize one set of IDE devices I had connected.  No matter which port.  I finally found out that both items were jumper-ed to be master devices, moving the jumpers to “cable select” fixed this issue.

My SATA drive, which is 500gigs seemed to be invisible to this system.  It would recognize it in the BIOS, but not in Windows.  When I looked further I saw that many people have had this same problem with ASUS motherboards.

It seems that ASUS has taken the cheap approach to using new technologies.  There is no SATA controller, it has been combined into the IDE controller.  The BIOS sees all SATA devices as IDE devices.  If you’re trying to use a SATA-II device, you’re out of luck.  This is what I was originally trying to do, and the system would hang at boot and if I enabled it in Windows, the system would freeze.

All documentation states that this is SATA-II compatible, but it isn’t.  I had to “jumper” the drive to change it to a SATA-I device.

Needless to say, I’m never buying an ASUS product again.  The only reason I strayed from Gigabyte, who made the motherboards on every computer I’ve had is because I couldn’t get another one for my AMD socket 939 processor.

I have one other problem to contend with, I’m getting some sort of interference in my sound card.  It comes out whenever my processor is performing tasks.  A minor problem, but still it’s an issue.

I have been working diligently to get everything back on my computer, but it will take me some time (about a week) to get everything back to the way it used to be.

I have a problem, which showed itself in a bad way last night.  I can’t help tinkering with computers.  I need help.

Rachel had a meeting with My Sisters Closet after work, so I was home by myself until about 8:30.  Because of the current issues with our main computer, we only have the laptop right now.  When we purchased the laptop it came with Windows Vista Home Basic pre-installed.  Neither of us had any experience with this new (at the time) operating system.

After a day or so of tinkering and trying to figure it out, Rachel decided that she wanted XP on it.  I was fine with this, as she was going to be the main user of the computer anyway.  I wiped the hard drive and put a clean install of XP Pro on it.  Not til later would I realize that doing this would void the warranty on the machine.

I went on a hunt for drivers for the many devices a new laptop has and came up short.  When I contacted dell for help, that is when I found out about a interesting clause.  If you downgrade the OS on a machine purchased from them, all support is rendered void.

At first I didn’t care at all.  Since issues have occurred with my other machine, I’ve become somewhat paranoid.  I wanted to get the computer reverted to it’s original state.  I contacted Dell again, and they sent me a set of discs that actually re-imaged the machine to it’s original factory state.

Rachel and I had talked about this, she was very hesitant about the change.  Since I have some experience with Vista under my belt now, I feel much more comfortable with it, if  you didn’t know it’s just XP of a different color.

When Rachel arrived home last night, I was about an hour away from finishing this changeover.  She was furious and actually made me think for a minute that she was packing up to move out or something.  Over the years I have done several things to computers that have hurt her.  I deleted (on accident) a majority of her papers for her masters degree and other various files that were important to her.

The sad part is that I do this with out even thinking about it, like it’s just a everyday sort of thing.  The whole time I was doing this, I thought she would be happy when she got home.

I was wrong.

Yesterday, the new motherboard I ordered arrived.  I spent the majority of last night replacing what I believe is a bad motherboard.

The new one is significantly different than the old one, as the connections are in different places and it has different ports, i.e. PCI Express.

After connecting and tightening everything I plugged the power in to test, nothing.

I’ve gave up.  I’m tired of spending countless hours upon hours to try to fix it.  I’m taking it to an expert in a few hours.  I hope that the new motherboard is fine, or my old one is okay.

I’ve also given up on something else.  I’m not going to build any PC’s anymore.  In this date and age, and since we get educational discounts through Dell and Apple, we have decided to now purchase computers instead of build.

I hope the costs to fix this problem aren’t huge.  If that is going to be the case, we are probably going to just buy a new computer.

While diagnosing my computer last night, the real problem revealed itself.  My motherboard is cracked, or broken in some way.

I was testing my 4 RAM chips individually, to ensure my RAM was the problem when something happened.  The computer just quit.  It wouldn’t turn on, nothing.

Since I’ve had many power supply failures, I thought it was worth a shot to test it.  I found a thread on how to test a power supply by running a jumper between the green and a black wire on a power supply.  If it is good, the power supply will turn on, if it is bad, it won’t.  My power supply came on.

Since I know my processor is good, and I have tested most of my RAM, it’s just a matter of deduction from there.

Finding parts for a computer built 3 years ago is surprisingly hard.  Newegg only has 2 motherboards available, but both seem very cheap.  Looking around the internet, I found many suppliers but most of them were out of stock.  So I went to the “last resort,” eBay.

We found a OEM model that includes 8x AGP.  The auction ended in 10 hours, but I decided to “buy it now.”  Hopefully this thing will be as good as the reviews I’ve seen for it.

I also purchased a new IEEE 1394/Firewire card and 3 new 80mm cooling fans.

Now it’s just a matter of delivery and assembly.  I wanted to dis-assemble everything to prepare, but Rachel wants me to relax tonight as we have a early start tomorrow.

We are now discussing purchasing, dare I say it, a Dell for our normal “personal” computer.  This way we can separate everything physically.  I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, but finances have dictated otherwise.

This wouldn’t be possible without the help of Editor B.  I want you to know that I will always feel in your debt for the things you have done for me.

I hope to keep on track for Holiday season availability for ROX season one.

After doing some research about what could be wrong with my computer, I have come up with 2 possible problems.  Either my motherboard is bad in some way, or my RAM is bad in some way.

I found some software to test the RAM, and sure enough it found some “problems.”

But it can’t tell me for sure which chip is bad, so I have to do further testing to discover which one it is or if it is the port and not a chip.

I hope there aren’t any problems with my motherboard, if that is the case I will need a new PC.  My processor’s chipset has been obsoleted and I cannot find many parts to fit it.

My computer has a problem.  It has gotten better over the past couple of weeks, but it is still there.

It will restart at random times, after reboot i will get a message saying that “the system has recovered from a serious error.”

I have read articles on many websites about what this problem is exactly, and tried some of the fixes.  It has eased the issue, but not helped it disappear.

I think I have a hardware issue, but I can’t pinpoint it just yet.  My first thoughts is that it is my RAM or a possible crack in my motherboard.

With 4 hard drives and a dual core cpu, my computer creates a lot of heat.  I have 4 cooling fans to help, but I think I have overloaded my cases’ ability.

If it gets any worse I think I’m going to take it to a shop to get an outsiders’ opinion.  This is my last option, because removal and re-installation of my computer is a PITA.  I have 2 printers, VCR, 8-track player, Scanner, Monitor, Mouse, Keyboard, Speakers, CAT5 cable, Microphone, and a 7 port USB hub to connect.  Lots of cables, so many that I need 3 power strips just to power everything.

Today I finally fixed a problem I’ve had for almost 2 years!

I use flickr for uploading of many of the pictures I take for online storage.  It keeps ‘em safe.  Logging into my account has been nothing but confusing though.

When I set up my flickr account we used AT&T for our DSL, and therefore my email address was with them.  After “the move” I changed email addresses to a yahoo.com domain name as we weren’t in AT&T’s service area anymore.

For some reason, I could not change this information with flickr, which is owned by yahoo.

They eventually let me change my contact email to my yahoo.com address, but not my login information.

Today I successfully changed the login information.

One less username and password I have to remember.  Thank god!

There are many creative minds at work at the CSR.  Many of us enjoy the video production/editing fields.  There are 2 ladies with Ph.D.’s, a jewelry maker, and the list goes on from there.

For most of us, the CSR is just a stepping stone.  I hope it is for me, as I’m tired of assembling NSSE survey packets.  It’s mind numbing work, and when you’re scolded for speaking, it’s just that much worse.

A fellow co-worker makes his own music.  It’s electronic and kind of a mix between new age and techno.  It’s the best thing I’ve heard or seen in a while, so I thought I’d share.  I think with the right exposure, this kid and his music could really go places.

He’s a little leery of allowing it to be downloaded so I have a selection of his songs setup for streaming, but I have been made aware of some issues.  This will only work with IE, as it’s setup with Windows Media to stream.  I’ve personally tried Safari and Firefox with no luck.  So you are warned!  I am currently working on a way for all platforms to play, but I don’t have it in place yet.

Listen Here: Music by Luc

If anyone out there has any better ideas, please let me know!  I tried last.fm, but to add one of their “playlists” you have to have a minimum of 15 songs.

I have made some strides in this new website development.  However, there are some things that I still have problems figuring out.

I have figured out this Joomla CMS tool that I am now using, but I need a graphic designer to remove some “white space” from my tattoo picture.  I would also like a version of it that is white, and one that is inverted from its current colors.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been attempting to revamp my website.  I found a tool that in theory should help me do that.  It’s called Joomla.  It’s an open source database/document management/website tool.

There are many, and I do mean many great plug-ins and add-ins for this monster.  From blogging to e-commerce, this ones got you covered.

 

However, there is one problem.  I don’t have any extensive experience with these systems and way this product works.  It relies heavily on server side scripting languages and protocols such as PHP.  So I am starting from scratch with this one.  The only way I learn something like this, is to dig my head into it and see what happens when I click this or delete that.

That has been easier said than done.  Until this week, from what I knew it couldn’t be ran on a home computer.  I thought it had to be used on a web server (at least a computer with a server OS).  I found a program that emulates that your computer is indeed a server, it’s called WAMP5.  With that installed I could play with Joomla to my heart’s content.

I’m starting to learn more and more about the software every day, and I think that within a few months, a new website for LML Video Services will be born.

I just need to figure out a few more problems first.  It seems that my hosting service, Infosaic Technologies, has some strict guidelines for things such as these, many of the plug-ins and add-ins will not install correctly and it seems to be a permissions type error.  The tech guys had to actually install the software for me.  I keep prodding to see how I can get them to help me, but that’s an ongoing process.  I don’t want to leave them, as they’ve been good (and cheap) to me over the past 2 years.

If I don’t get the hosting problems resolved, there must be another way.  Hopefully I can find it.

After finishing my last slide transfer job, the client asked me if I could transfer 120mm negatives.  My scanner had been good to me, but I needed an upgrade and a way to take some money off of the books so the tax man wouldn’t eat me alive.  I told him that I would get back with him after the upgrade.

The CSR where I really work, just upgraded a scanner and I really liked the one they went to.  It’s a HP ScanJet G4050.  When I researched it, I loved it even more.  With the ability to scan up to 16 35mm slides at a time, and also do medium format stuff such as 120mm, I went for it.  Also since my previous scanner was an HP, I had some familiarity with how their software and systems work.

I always try to read reviews very carefully before purchasing such a product, and I should have listened.

Many of the reviewers just spoke about problems with Vista - I figured such a problem, and that’s why I don’t plan on upgrading for a long time.  There were some though that should have brought up a red flag.  They spoke of problems installing the software altogether.  XP SP2 and IE 7 have thrown a wrench in HP’s software since they both came out.  I had problems with my old scanner because of this, but I didn’t think it would affect a new one, with different software.

I installed the software and everything went fine.  I scanned a few bank statements, but ran into a problem after the third, it would just freeze.  Alas, a problem.  So I tried the first thing to come to mind, uninstall and re-install.  That’s when I came into a world of trouble.  The software wouldn’t fully uninstall.  So I had to manually delete everything (including registry entries), just to re-install.  HP doesn’t support their products (except computers) on the weekends or past 6pm Mountain time, so I was SOL.  I searched deep for solutions, but only found clues.

I even installed the Vista software that came with the scanner, and it worked the same way, perfect several times and then freezing.  I gave up for the evening and decided to make a fresh start in the morning.  I installed the full software suite that I downloaded from the HP website and ta-da, it works now!

I might go to Canon or Epson for my next scanner.  Hopefully that will be several years down the road.

Recently I have been scanning slides for a new client.  He worked with my father at Westinghouse/ABB back in the day.  He has given me over 700 of these babies, and let me know via email last night that there are more.

With my single slide scanner I have been making headway, but it’s very time consuming.  My slide scanning services have been utilized very much, so this is one area I will be improving on once I have the funds.  An automatic slide scanner runs about a cool grand.

There’s only one trick to scanning slides.  It’s not easy to find which side is the “correct” side.  Most of the time, the only way to correctly distinguish the back from the front is if text of some type such as signs are reverse or not.

After being a Windows Media Player freak since day one, I have finally switched to the “dark side” full time.  That dark side being iTunes.

This is not a revolt against Microsoft by any means, just a change of venue so to speak.  Since the file tags for digital media have changed allowing album covers to be associated with them, I have been all about it!

The only reason we have iTunes is for my wifes’ iPod, which she hasn’t used for well over a year.  I stuck with Media Player until something changed………..like iTunes, Media Player has a “store” where you can purchase music, videos, etc.  It’s called URGE, and it’s a Viacom/MTV/VH1/CMT thing.

Everytime I open up said Media Player it takes a few minutes for it to “download the URGE catalog.”  I don’t even use it, so why do I need to download this catalog?  I have tried constantly to remove it, with no luck.

If I could only use iTunes with my mp3 player.  It has it’s own program.

Well………….not literally.

I came home from work today to discover my computer was shut-off.  I like many others, leave my computer on all the time.  Due to power saving features etc. it seems easier that way.

Ever since I built this computer I have only had one problem continuously, my power supply.  For all of you non tech people the power supply is what splits the power to everything located in your computer.

The case to this computer is very cheap, and came with a cheap power supply.  After about 6 months the original died.  This is not an easy item to purchase online, much like a car.

There is only one computer shop on my side of town, so I went there to purchase another one.  I was told they only carried one type of power supply.  So I purchased one and was on my way.  It fried the next day!  So I brought my ‘puter in and was “mad as hell!”  They happily replaced the defective unit and even installed it for me.  Well this one died and I didn’t want to buy another POS model.

So after informing my wife of the issue, we went over to the olde’ east side of town and purchased a good quality 500w power supply.  This should be enough for my 4 hard drives, dual core processor (thanks B!) and numerous cards.

Only time will tell how “good” this one is.

My next purchase will be a new case, as mine has almost bit the bullet.

Our household and my business recieved some nice upgrades this week.

Our new heat pump was installed Wednesday, and took all day.  It was amazing to watch the guys rip the old POS out.  What was even more amazing is the technology that goes into this piece of HVAC equipment.

 
The difference is amazing, as we can’t even tell when it turns on.  The best part is that we are now saving a boatload on our home heating and cooling costs, thus saving the environment a little.
 

We will be receiving $650 in rebates, divided between a tax credit next year, and a rebate from our electric company.

I also purchased another hard drive to expand my capabilities for video transfers.  This brings me close to having a terabyte of storage space.  (For those of you who don’t know what a terabyte is, it’s 1,000 gigabytes, or 1,000,000 megabytes or 1,024,000,000 bytes.)  I am now at 900 gigabytes, divided into 4 hard drives.

This new hard drive is a SATA (Serial ATA), which I have had no experience with.  So far it seems to be much better, as the data transfer rates are almost double from the standard IDE connection.  This makes editing video, rendering video and burning DVD’s that much faster.

My only problem with the SATA connection is more of a windows problem.  When a “hot swappable” device is attached to a windows PC, an icon is automatically placed in your “tray.”  I am very anal about my computer and this icon bothers me because I don’t need it, or want it!

I have done some searching on this subject, and found some clues, but nothing that has erased this icon from my desktop thus far.

I have resisted to have anything to do with myspace.  I have thought from the get-go that it was for teenagers and just plain sillyness.

For some strange reason, one of my good friends, Craig, started an account for moi.  He could of just signed it up as a personal thing, but no, he used my business!

I have tried to make it a nice place to show off my skillz, but to my surprise I have pictures of cars, and comments that are crazy as can be on there.

So down this road I go, where I stop?  I’ll never know.

I must have to say that myspace has many capabilities for networking.  That is currently what I am working on with it.  If I can get the word out regarding my business, the possibilities are endless!

Another chapter in my ongoing computer problems.  I was actually writing a post regarding this when I received the infamous “blue screen of death!”

I discovered what actually killed my power supply.  Somehow (still a mystery to me) my power settings were disabled and deleted from my computer.  This created a painful situation for it.  Imagine if you had to run non stop 24/7 for months at a time, how would you feel?

In the end, I had to completely delete and reformat my C drive.  This is a problem for the majority, but I actually used to do this for fun.  Plus having 3 hard drives makes this task very easy, as I just move everything to the other drives, and back them up onto DVD just to make sure I don’t lose anything.  I am almost up and running again, as I am still working on my big job.

I am working on building a new PC, it will just take time.  I want this to be a pure “business” machine, which means I must use business funds.

I swapped my “new” POS power supply for another today.

After speaking with the tech, he informed me of what could have caused this little disaster.  He informed me that the 12v section of the power supply went bad.  He then went on to tell me that when the L2 cache of the processor goes bad, it tends to short out the 12v supply.  He also told me that it generally takes a week.  (This is one of the few situations where I don’t know a whole lot BTW.)

He recommended to run some benchmark software for 24 hours.  When I first started running it, my CPU became hot, 95° C.  So I adjusted some BIOS settings and re-ran the app.  Now the temp is holding steady, in the mid 50’s range.

I hope this has solved my problem, but there is no real way to diagnose it (from what I know).

If it becomes the worse case scenario, my processor (an AMD Athlon X2 3800+, Toledo Core) is still under warrantee.  I also have my “old” processor sitting around as a backup.

This situation has proven to me that I need, not want, a backup computer.  I cannot run my business without it.  That is my next step.

My ‘puter is down again.  My diagnostic abilities are somewhat limited at this point, but I strongly believe it’s my power supply again.

I wasn’t upset when the original one died, as it was a cheap case/PS combo.  I have read many times that when purchasing a PC case with power supply, the power supply should be changed immediately.

This ticks me off though, as I was told by this PC shop that the power supplies they sell are workhorses, and do not fail.  I’ve had the thing a friggin’ week!

As soon as I leave work (8:30am) I am off to the shop to get another, as it has a 1 year warrantee.  If the next one fails, I am not going to deal with this shop anymore.  They have not failed me until now, but I don’t have the patience anymore.

So much has happened since I last posted.�� This will be a mish-mosh if you will, of thoughts, ideas and updates.

Personally this has been a trying week for me.�� I had an interview at IU for a position, but due to the weird hours I currently work, I accidentally overslept and missed the interview.�� It was a way out of this crazy lifestyle I am currently living.

We have a new problem with the house, flooding!�� The last couple of weeks has been very rainy in Bloomington.�� We knew the house had flooded when we purchased it, but thought it was a one time deal, we were wrong.�� I called some “waterproofing” companies.����That was��a joke.�� The first company said that they would rip all of our concrete block walls out and replace them, plus they would sell me some backfill rock that is “patented and revolutionary” for only $5995.�� I can understand this in extreme situations, but this isn’t major flooding.

I had my dad get a hold of my step-uncle (long story) to take a look at it.�� He did, and told me he thought it was leaking at the point where the water line comes into the house, which is directly under our front door.�� I ripped out everything in the vicinity and did not find any significant signs of a place for water to come in, but cleaned the area and sprayed some “stuff” on it.�� I guess after tonight we’ll see the results, as it’s been raining all day.

I have met a kind spirit at work, something that is lacking majorly here.�� His name is C.J., he’s a very interesting man, who happens to be the same age as my father.�� He is into the same things I am, and we always have something to talk about.�� The other day he gave me a video monitor he no longer used (an upgrade I needed badly).�� I will miss him when I leave.�� I will make sure to give him all of my info when that happens though.

I received a new client for my video business.�� He told me over the phone he has over 80 tapes he wants transferred to DVD.�� I received his first shipment last Tuesday and have been working constantly on them.�� I sent him a shipment of 8 DVD’s today.�� I hope he enjoys the care and hard work I put into his family’s memories.

I have learned that I do have some limitations when it comes to transferring video now, so I am hoping to correct these issues as soon as the funds become available.�� The current plan is to build another computer, using some of the available parts I have on hand, and moving some from my current computer.�� I don’t need a power machine, just a decent one.�� So I’m checking out my options.

Yesterday I shut off my computer and did some wiring work, installed a new surge protector and my computer wouldn’t come back on.�� Turns out my power supply had went bad.�� I was somewhat scared because this was one thing I hadn’t done on a computer yet.�� $42 later, I have a bigger power supply installed (by me).

I must say something about Editor B’s speech.�� I was not there, and only saw a snippet from Anderson Cooper 360, but I’m sure it was amazing.�� After watching almost every episode of ROX, I have a good idea of how he spoke.�� I hope XY got it on video?�� It’s still hard for me to understand how it is taking so long to recover.�� All I have to say is Andrew, how long did it take Florida to rebuild and recover?�� I know I’m merely speculating, but come on, without New Orleans, this country wouldn’t be anything like it is today.�� What do you think made westward expansion possible?�� We the people need to remember that.