Dec. 29th, 2005
Random weird news and things!
Dec. 29th, 2005 11:30 amTelemarketing call saves man's life. No, really.
Also,
The definition of stupid, courtesy of Paw Paw, MI: Man whose car is stuck in mud puts toolbox to hold down accelerator, gets out to push.
Also,
The grocery store bagger puts the sealed container of insecticide in the same bag as your food! What's the way to deal with this? If you said "take it out and spray it in his eyes", you're Robert Carroll of Orlando, Florida!
Also,
(Check the file name if you don't get it)
Also,
Just in case you cook in the dark.
Also,
Dutch police baffled as to how zoo thieves stole 24 boa constrictors.
Also,
The definition of stupid, courtesy of Paw Paw, MI: Man whose car is stuck in mud puts toolbox to hold down accelerator, gets out to push.
Also,
The grocery store bagger puts the sealed container of insecticide in the same bag as your food! What's the way to deal with this? If you said "take it out and spray it in his eyes", you're Robert Carroll of Orlando, Florida!
Also,
(Check the file name if you don't get it)
Also,
Just in case you cook in the dark.
Also,
Dutch police baffled as to how zoo thieves stole 24 boa constrictors.
A saga of computing support.
Dec. 29th, 2005 12:51 pmSo, we finally fixed ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
torrain's computer, last night.
For those just joining our saga, starting one night early in December, the machine simply shut itself off mid-use, and then it would not turn back on. The power button on the front did nothing - the switch at the back would turn it on, the disks would spin up, and then it would turn itself back off. This machine is roughly 4 months old and has had no problems in the past.
EDIT: We changed the power cord, we changed the outlet, we plugged other things in to the same outlet. It wasn't that. Also, it *did* happen at the store, repeatedly, using their power cords and outlets. This edit added because lots of people guessed that, and it wasn't clear enough, I guess, that we DID repeat the problem at the store, and I hadn't mentioned that we'd tried that. This was definitely a PC problem.
For shits and giggles, how about you tell *me* what you think the problem might have been, at each step of the way, here.
Trip #1
We took it into the local computer repair shop where I bought it to get it looked at. I'm thinking bad power supply, right? Ten minutes of hardware repair, covered by the warrantee, we go home.
Well, we pulled the power supply, replaced it, and the problem kept happening. To troubleshoot, we started pulling the power from devices. Unplugged the CD-ROM - no change. Unplugged HDD#1: No change. Unplugged HDD #2: No change. Unplugged a little tiny power cord running from the front of the case: Bang, problem solved. A little investigation revealed that we'd just unplugged.... the little blue LED that lights up the power button while the machine is in use.
So, we think this is weird, chalk it up as a warrantee repair, and go home. Plug it in, turn it on, it runs.torrain is happily puttering around on it, and suddenly it turns off again. Same symptoms.
Trip #2
Back to the store (who are good people and who I highly recommend for all your computer needs) to tell them it's happening again. We drop the machine off because it's late and they won't get to it immediately.
They call the next morning. It's working now - what were we doing to cause the issue? I tell them, and the call comes back two days later: They can't duplicate the problem. It's been running fine for two days straight, under pseudo-normal use, CPU Burn-In, and everything else they can think of. I take the PC home, plug it in - and it's completely dead. No power at all.
At this point,torrain is grinding her teeth and swearing. She moves her old, obsolete PC into her room to take the new one's place of honour.
Trip #3
At this point, we're thinking bad motherboard.torrain and dolston take it back into the store - I'm not along for this trip, since I've got another commitment. It's looked at on the spot by the puzzled and frustrated denovan... who can't duplicate the problem. It's working PERFECTLY. He gets set to send it home with a new power supply again, when suddenly it dies. Same thing as before - power button on the front stops responding or only works occasionally, system power comes on briefly and then turns off again. torrain breathes a sigh of relief that the problem is happening again, and since they dont' have this motherboard in stock any more, it's sent off for replacement.
A week and a half pass.
I get a call fromdenovan telling me that the machine is back. He's swapped out the memory just in case, plugged it in, and run it, again without issue, for two more days.
I take it home. It's DOA. At this point, being a clever monkey, I realise that the only thing we're doing is moving the case - and so I pick up the case, turn it around, put it down, hit the button, and bang, it's working perfectly again. This is over Christmas. The machine dies every few hours. In all cases, jiggling the case solves the problem for another few hours.torrain uses the machine like this for a few days, until the store opens again, yesterday, and
Trip #4
I take it back in, secure in my ability to replicate the problem at will now, and knowing that it's obviously something physical.
Except that once I get it into the store, it works again and we can't make it break.
Now's the time to take your final guess as to what the problem was, here. Bear in mind that we've replaced power supply, motherboard, and RAM so far, and that it's been happening both at home and in the store, intermittently, and that moving the case solves the problem temporarily.
( the solution )
Total time elapsed: most of a month, between sending it away for repairs, the time it took to test it in the shop, and the usually 2 day turnaround of getting it home, having it break, and taking it back again. Total cost: under warrantee. Chance that we'll know this one for next time: Pretty close to 100%.
torrain's computer, last night.For those just joining our saga, starting one night early in December, the machine simply shut itself off mid-use, and then it would not turn back on. The power button on the front did nothing - the switch at the back would turn it on, the disks would spin up, and then it would turn itself back off. This machine is roughly 4 months old and has had no problems in the past.
EDIT: We changed the power cord, we changed the outlet, we plugged other things in to the same outlet. It wasn't that. Also, it *did* happen at the store, repeatedly, using their power cords and outlets. This edit added because lots of people guessed that, and it wasn't clear enough, I guess, that we DID repeat the problem at the store, and I hadn't mentioned that we'd tried that. This was definitely a PC problem.
For shits and giggles, how about you tell *me* what you think the problem might have been, at each step of the way, here.
Trip #1
We took it into the local computer repair shop where I bought it to get it looked at. I'm thinking bad power supply, right? Ten minutes of hardware repair, covered by the warrantee, we go home.
Well, we pulled the power supply, replaced it, and the problem kept happening. To troubleshoot, we started pulling the power from devices. Unplugged the CD-ROM - no change. Unplugged HDD#1: No change. Unplugged HDD #2: No change. Unplugged a little tiny power cord running from the front of the case: Bang, problem solved. A little investigation revealed that we'd just unplugged.... the little blue LED that lights up the power button while the machine is in use.
So, we think this is weird, chalk it up as a warrantee repair, and go home. Plug it in, turn it on, it runs.
torrain is happily puttering around on it, and suddenly it turns off again. Same symptoms.Trip #2
Back to the store (who are good people and who I highly recommend for all your computer needs) to tell them it's happening again. We drop the machine off because it's late and they won't get to it immediately.
They call the next morning. It's working now - what were we doing to cause the issue? I tell them, and the call comes back two days later: They can't duplicate the problem. It's been running fine for two days straight, under pseudo-normal use, CPU Burn-In, and everything else they can think of. I take the PC home, plug it in - and it's completely dead. No power at all.
At this point,
torrain is grinding her teeth and swearing. She moves her old, obsolete PC into her room to take the new one's place of honour.Trip #3
At this point, we're thinking bad motherboard.
torrain and dolston take it back into the store - I'm not along for this trip, since I've got another commitment. It's looked at on the spot by the puzzled and frustrated denovan... who can't duplicate the problem. It's working PERFECTLY. He gets set to send it home with a new power supply again, when suddenly it dies. Same thing as before - power button on the front stops responding or only works occasionally, system power comes on briefly and then turns off again. torrain breathes a sigh of relief that the problem is happening again, and since they dont' have this motherboard in stock any more, it's sent off for replacement.A week and a half pass.
I get a call from
denovan telling me that the machine is back. He's swapped out the memory just in case, plugged it in, and run it, again without issue, for two more days.I take it home. It's DOA. At this point, being a clever monkey, I realise that the only thing we're doing is moving the case - and so I pick up the case, turn it around, put it down, hit the button, and bang, it's working perfectly again. This is over Christmas. The machine dies every few hours. In all cases, jiggling the case solves the problem for another few hours.
torrain uses the machine like this for a few days, until the store opens again, yesterday, and Trip #4
I take it back in, secure in my ability to replicate the problem at will now, and knowing that it's obviously something physical.
Except that once I get it into the store, it works again and we can't make it break.
Now's the time to take your final guess as to what the problem was, here. Bear in mind that we've replaced power supply, motherboard, and RAM so far, and that it's been happening both at home and in the store, intermittently, and that moving the case solves the problem temporarily.
( the solution )
Total time elapsed: most of a month, between sending it away for repairs, the time it took to test it in the shop, and the usually 2 day turnaround of getting it home, having it break, and taking it back again. Total cost: under warrantee. Chance that we'll know this one for next time: Pretty close to 100%.
(no subject)
Dec. 29th, 2005 01:09 pmEliot Weinberger's "What I Heard About Iraq in 2005" - a roughly chronological list of things happening in, around, and about Iraq this year.
It's a good read.
It's a good read.
(no subject)
Dec. 29th, 2005 08:02 pmNew critical exploit on all Windows machines Win98 and newer - runs through the obsolete-but-still-there WMF file viewer.
This is not limited to IE. It will also infect Opera and Firefox users - one source says "older versions of Firefox", the other just says Firefox. It's done by surfing to a web page containing an infected JPEG or GIF file, and installs and runs a bogus anti-spyware tool that tries to steal your credit card information while installing more stuff on your machine, even on up-to-date patched XP SP2 machines.
There's a half-assed fix so far:
This is not limited to IE. It will also infect Opera and Firefox users - one source says "older versions of Firefox", the other just says Firefox. It's done by surfing to a web page containing an infected JPEG or GIF file, and installs and runs a bogus anti-spyware tool that tries to steal your credit card information while installing more stuff on your machine, even on up-to-date patched XP SP2 machines.
There's a half-assed fix so far:
According to iDefense, Windows users can disable the rendering of WMF files using the following hack:
1. Click on the Start button on the taskbar.
2. Click on Run...
3. Type "regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll" to disable.
4. Click ok when the change dialog appears.
iDefense notes that this workaround may interfere with certain thumbnail images loading correctly, though I have used the hack on my machine and haven't had any problems yet. The company notes that once Microsoft issues a patch, the WMF feature may be enabled again by entering the command "regsvr32 shimgvw.dll" in step three above.
(no subject)
Dec. 29th, 2005 08:08 pm"And Batman was injured and trying to get steady when Abraham Lincoln came back with a machete..."
It's made it halfway around my Friends list before I finally clicked on it, because I hate Flash cartoons.
This one is good.
Really, really good.
Go watch it.
It's made it halfway around my Friends list before I finally clicked on it, because I hate Flash cartoons.
This one is good.
Really, really good.
Go watch it.