Had quite a bit of real life this last weekend. Had to put together a set of cardboard Roman armor for the little guy's Latin class, moved the main board from Big Blue down to OfficeMax, installed a new board in Big Blue, spent about 5 or 6 hours trying to track down a persistent IE 7 problem on OfficeMax. Couldn't nail the thing down, I think it has something to do with the blocking software I've got installed on the system, but there's a number of registry keys that have become 'read only' in regards to IE install/uninstall processes, and it's messing up the works. However, Seamonkey seems to be doing the job...
Add in two trips to Fryes for parts (one to return a system board that although cheap turned out to be no bargain) and a Patrol Meeting (and the guys are still loving it!) it's surprising I got any sleep at all.
Now I'm running into a BSOD glitch when I try to add in my NVidia card. I'm kind of used to having multiple monitors - and so far I haven't spotted any way to disable the on-board video adapter. Something's causing a problem - I think it's the old ATI vid drivers I had before, when I had an ATI AGP card providing video. (Another thing - it looks like the current trend is to have loads of USB slots. However, on the board I ended up with I don't have a PARALLEL printer connector. Quite odd... and it goes to show you need to pay as much attention to the minor stuff as well as major capabilities. I was looking for a Core2 Duo board, found it at a price I was willing to pay, and kind of missed an obvious lack.)
So hopefully blogging will get back to the regular schedule (or lack thereof) in the next couple of days.
Thanks for your patience!
J.
Comments (3)
Wish I could help you. You have _no_ idea how much I wish I could help you!
We've had problems at work - husband's laptop crashed. He bought a new one from the Notebook store - a Fujitsu that has all the bells and whistles for $999 with a $200 rebate(with either Microsoft Pro or Vista - your choice). He added on a few goodies including a 3 yr warranty and came out at the $999 - even _with_ the rebate!
His new "toy"...ok...so he really _does_ use it for work!
http://www.notebookshop.com/product_info.php?products_id=455
Also a link to the Jeff Levy site - he's a Saturday afternoon talk show person. He really seems to know his stuff. This is the second laptop we've bought from the notebook shop, by the way. They're good people to deal with.
Finding a good mechanic and a good computer repair person can be a trick - they need to be _capable_ and _honest_. One or the other isn't so uncommon - both together ... not so easy to find! And of course, you have to know enough to evaluate both, and _that's_ a trick as well.
Posted by suek | October 23, 2007 11:20 AM
Posted on October 23, 2007 11:20
Last thing you do before you take an old video board out: remove all the drivers and software for it! Did the old 'board swap of forgetfulness' a couple of times in my life... *sigh*. On forgetting the parallel port: get a USB to parallel adapter. Actually for any on-board port that has a USB adapter, shut off the on-board port and put in the USB equivalent: frees up IRQs and associated DMA conflicts. Not for use with hard drives unless they are of the 'archive' variety (use synchtoy and just archive data once in awhile). The plethora of adapters for USB is mind-boggling....
No worries on light blogging... my last two posts have eaten up my time for different reasons. One for researching it, the second... well, now it is scramble time to lay in a supply of a medication that is going out of production. The medication itself is safe, effective, legal and the rest... the marketing dept of the company making it scored an A-1 CF. You would think that they would listen to 9 months of complaints... but nooooo...
Posted by ajacksonian | October 23, 2007 3:14 PM
Posted on October 23, 2007 15:14
AJacksonian -
I pulled the drivers, but it looks like the BSOD is caused by the video card (which worked fine in a PCI slot in another system) conflicting with the system board (which has a PCI-Express slot) and near as I can tell the system board won't activate a PCI video slot without a PCI-Express video card already being resident in the system. Even then, the system isn't terribly stable. Hell of a way to force an upgrade... (I am also suspicious my power supply might not have the integrity it should at this stage of it's life...)
I've got a USB-Parallel adapter on order. As far as adapters go - this one has to be just about the most embarrasing one with this one a close second. And with everything from rechargable shavers, beverage coolers and warmers, missile launchers, aquariums, massagers and the like, there's no lack of a USB device for pretty much any interest.
Re drugs - best thing I ever found for my back was Orudis KT - which got discontinued in the 12.5 mg size. Ah, well.
J.
Posted by JLawson | October 23, 2007 9:39 PM
Posted on October 23, 2007 21:39