Reading zen's journal

Bad Installations 101: what not to do, or...My Godam’puter
My [geek] Identity
by Zen P. Living-ground

There's an expression: "The painter's house needs painting, and the cobbler's children are barefoot." Well, the computer tech's machine is a piece. My Godam’puter is fucked. It really is a piece of crapola. I made it myself, thank you very much. No, it’s not only cause it runs Windows; although, oddly enough that is part of the reason why it sucks.

The story with the OS is that I bought an OEM copy of 2K on Ebay. The full install copy, still in the plastic--and to his credit the seller was correct--run me about $125. Not f****** bad I thought. Even payed for it via PayPal. At the time it was great. Well, upon installing it it stopped being so great. At first, the more programs I installed, the more bogged down and lithargic it became. Things didn’t work right, or at all.

The root of this problem was the “permissions.” Easy enough fix that seemed to clear that roadblock.
But there still remains this very annoying, warying problem of how the shortcuts don’t work. Most of the icons respond that there is no link, and what I’m requesting is quite impossible, that "[my_program].exe has generated errors and will be closed by Windows". Sometimes, I can go to the individual program folders and locate the .exe icons from there, relocating them to the desktop.
Sound confusing? Well, it’s quite simple, just a pain. And it doesn't always work.
More often, the program stops working. I use Sound Forge all the time; well, used to. I have to keep reinstalling, and uninstalling it. Then There’s the same problem with the Nero; which came with the DVD burner. Age of Empires, and other games won't work. Then there’s the bastard step child, MS Office, where powerpoint won’t work.

Normally, I could give a f*** about .PPT, but for the thorn in my side. I have 1 particular slideshow in .ppt that is well worth seeing. It is called “How Fast Must You Be Going...(In Order to do This??)"
As expected it's of a car wreck. But not one of those skimpy, sad, American Highway wrecks which would traditionally involve a drunk driver. No, this was one of those spectacular tragedies available only on the throughways of countries where the speed limit hovers near the speed where airplanes are raising their flaps for take-off.
In this filmstrip, it shows what is eventually recognized as an Audi; the Autobahn Edition to be sure. It quite literally exploded upon impact of the first tree, but not before permanently embedding the driver's door into the trunk. Therethen torn in two, the car, well, if one pictures 2 pinballs bouncing off the trees in this grove, then she will get a firm overstanding of how this car went through that blackest of forests. Perhaps not so amazingly, those 10 or so slides seem to convey conclusively the tacit response to that question: EXTREMELY fast.
And that is why Powerpoint is important.

For the others, even though Nero really, really sucks cause it won’t let you copy a copywrighted discs, the CD burner, and other features are pretty cool. It's a dam comprehensive set of software that comes with the MadDog Multimedia Burner. ((Hmmm...ain’t that a greeat name for a product: Maddog Burner...haha)) And hell, I can't live without Sound Forge, or the other programs I can't live without...my capture card, Photopaint, Premeire, etc.
...and I can't use them.

So of course, The problem is that this version of Windows is “optimized” for a computer much different from my own (and the 4 others I tested it on); none of them worked/works with this copy of the OS. Suffice to say, this is one of items that differs significantly from a defective blender. And, yet another example of why buying local is a much better idea. In fact, anyone upgrading their operating system should always let a trained professional do it. They say “it’s easy...” but I do NOT find that to be the case, and I’ve installed many operating systems. Envariably there’s always a problem. If you’re not trained, don’t let anyone tell you it’s easy.
With that said...
Caveat Emptor, I know, but this is only the tip of the iceburg where my machine, and this buyer, is concerned. The moral of the story can’t even be: don’t buy OEM OS software.

I guess the moral of this story is: trained professionals only. I have gotten paid for computer work, so I am somewhat professional. Point is, even professionals make mistakes, and have errors in judgement. I won't go into specifics, but I think that everyone can think of a mistake that some professional or another has done. We're only human.
--but I also think that

The other half of the equation is that I'm using a shitty motherboard. For those who don't know, the motherboard, also called a mainboard, is vital to the constant, continuous, consistent operation of one's computer.
Every single bit of data passes through the tiny, microns-thick ribbons of copper epoxied onto the silicone board. Singly, this one component has the most parts, and they almost all are soldered.
Look at the motherboard for a second. It has a North and South bridge. Each of those has so-called bridges are controlled by processors. Other functions like the memory has it's own processor that leads to the North bridge processor. There is another processor for the video, aka agp, port. Of course there are more, sucessively smaller, processors and registers all over nearly every single inch of that one board.
To my mind, the computer truly is a marvel. It is an amazing thing, especially considering the speeds of modern ones. However, these things have limited lives these days. The old ones were designed, literally forever, if it need be. The modern ones are built with a predetermined shelf life. My computer has outlived it's shelf life, and therefore it must be replaced.
However, I would be remiss as a writer and journalist, if I said that was the only reason for retiring this thing.

I'm using an Abit KR-7A(Raid), with an AMD Athlon 1900 XP+ central processor unit. It is now about 6 years old, and is no longer supported by the manufacturer. First I'll say that from the beginning, I've had nothing but problems with this board.
One of the reasons I picked it was for the on-board "r.a.i.d." Redundant Array (of) Inexpensive Disks is a configuration of 2 or more hard drives working as one single drive. The type of r.a.i.d. I was using was "striping." This is where the data is broken up onto pieces, or stripes, and written on to the drives alternately between the number 1 and the number 2 hard drive. I wanted the r.a.i.d. for use with my Pinnacle DV-500 video capture card. The raid function never seemed to work properly. I used it to stripe data, sure enough. Not one dropped frame. However, I lost all of the video capture that I did using the raid function.

About 3 or 4 years ago, I updated the BIOS. That seemed to make little to no change.
One of the problems is that when the power is disconnected, or if one turns it off at the switch in the back, it loses its settings in the CMOS. This means that it "forgets" all the BIOS settings, in addition to the r.a.i.d. settings. It then won't recognize the "stripes" on the drives. Once unplugged, all becomes lost, literally.

One of its problems is that the chipset cooler, the North bridge chipset, a fan, has been working sporatically. Even a brand new one, attached directly to the power supply still is working inconsistently. It has a little tiny heatsink, but the fan is what keeps it cool.
It's important to recognize different symptoms when diagnosing and troubleshooting a faulty computer. Sporatic, or infrequent problems are the hardest to fix. However, one of the simplest things to do when trying to fix a sporatic problem (sudden lock-ups, or shut-downs, etc.) is to open the back and give it a good vaccuuming. Even without opening it up, vaccuuming the air holes can usually help tremendously. Most people never think about it, but when your holes are stuffed up, air can't circulate, and therefore it traps heat. Also, dust can build up in the fans. This can stop them from working properly, and contributing to a high temperature.
Additionally, motherboard components, like the north bridge logic processor, a smaller, slower cpu will heat-up the same as the central processor. There for, cause it moves all the data between CPU and ramm and the hard drive, it heats up. It needs proper cooling. In if doesn't have that, it can mimic other problems like faulty ramm, or overheated cpu.
Extended heat over prolonged periods will damage the chip, irreparably.

There's no on-board sound. At the time I was using a great sound card, a Sound Blaster. Didn't need it. But as the Sound Blaster is such a pain to set-up, as it's the Audigy 1 card, media center, I just leave it out. So now it's just annoying.
It also didn't come with an onboard ethernet port. That I didn't figure I'd ever be using, but it would've been nice to have it.

I didn't actually order this thing. I did choose this specific model number, and had the person ordering it get it. This board, priced at about $135 at the time I got it, was purchased in exchange for work I did for a company in town, Starr Lite Computers.
I performed a bunch of work around the building, and outside. I put up lights in the windows, and did general maintenence. But at that point I was on probation, and it was strict. Due to a serious error in communication, there became a huge problem. Events snowballed, bad luck and timing overtook things, and it was decided that I have no further doings with the owner of the store. There was problems with my "continued involvement" with her. She was a convicted felon, on parole, and I was on probation, myself for a felony.
Her stupid words led to a world of trouble for her, and I both.
Cutting off dealings with her, we cleared the slate except for this board. That was the last outstanding thing. I had to tell them, a third party to call the owner and her partner, and have then drop ship the board to a separate location.
Weeks go by, and I don't hear from her or her partner. I'd just assume let it fricking die anyway, for all the trouble that it caused me.
Then out of the clear blue, about 3 months later I get a call from the partner. I always liked her cause she was cool, and absolutely trustworthy. The other, that fat slob, was a slug.
The partner calls me and asked if i ever got the motherboard. I said no. So she asked again which I wanted. I told her which one. So, in like 7 days, it arrived on my doorstep.
I was happy to get it. I loved it originally. But little did I realise that Abit sucks. They suck because even though it was warrenteed, I still couldn't return it cause I didn't buy it. Technically, it was resold by a company, and I had to bring it back to them, and have that company send it in on the warrenty.

But again, I can't have anymore dealing with this company. But it's not even due to that that I couldn't return the board to Starr Light. It was because the company is out of business.
Tamra, the partner, was telling me the story of what happened to her partner.
Apparently, being a thief by nature, and old habits dying hard, the woman embezzled monies from the till. She had been doing it probably since day one. Eventually T. finds out, and confronts the other one. The resolution is that she sign the business over to her. Unfortunately, the business didn't last more than 2 months after that.

Or maybe it's not Abit, the company. Perhaps this particular board is just cursed. I could believe it. I might seek to explain why it's seemingly impossible to install another OS on my machine, or to get it to do what it's supposed to do.
My ghost hates Windows. Almost be a funny thought if it weren't for my sad computer.

I'll bet that just took 5 years off my life--but GODDAMM if it wasn't worth every second