'puter repair

On Wed, 05 Mar 2008 18:44:36 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, Errol Groff quickly quoth:

That's what I said (in between tears of laughter) when I saw it a few days ago. I quickly snagged it for my own.

Seen "your ass will be laminated" a few times around. Little better play on assimilated, IMO.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Some split at the relief stamped into the top of the cans, others blow the rubber seal at the bottom. Al lot stop working before they blow, but dome the top of the can, instead of splitting on the relief lines. some guys make a living repairing out of warranty motherboards:

It also starts the standby power supply for wake on lan and similar needs.

Nothing. Why should I? I've been out of the military for almost 30 years now, and I didn't work in security.

My slightly anal bookkeeper back-up his data at least 4 times a day to a zip drive in addition to a RAID mirror. I back-up my drawings as I work on them to a thumb and documents once a week or so but I have hard copies. We've gotten bitten and were lucky but the lesson stuck.

I didn't mean to be flip to you, I want to make an impression! It's not a matter of "If", it's a matter of when!

I recently received a truckload of Dell W2K and XP Pro systems. Every one of them has a blue screen telling me they can't find files needed to boot, or are dead.

That has been floating around online for at least ten years.

P.S.: Just wait till they try to delaminate your ass! :(

Thanks for the interesting site! I've had caps blow and sound like a gun shot.

My first thought would be to open it up and check that all connectors are fully seated. Pay special attention to any cables from the power supply to the system board.

Dell? Sorry. :-( They tend to be less standard than any three other PCs combined.

Good Luck, DoN.

Sounds odd - but is a keyboard plugged in the correct hole ? - some won't work without a keyboard or mouse.

A plug or board within might have dislodged -- take out the case screws and see if you can spot something a G force got to.

I bet on the cabling... Some motherboards are picky.

Martin

Mart> My other computer just died... FWIW, it just completed a 2000 trip. Ran fine

We have lots of Dell commercial grade equipemnt at work. Except for Optiplex 620's having a distressing tendancy to lose their power supply on a power cycle we see excelent reliability.

The major problem I have had over the last 10 years or so (since ATX took over) has been power supplies. AT power supplies, and PC before them, usually lasted five or more years. Very often a WHOLE LOT more. I am seeing flakey and failed power supplies within warranty on many consumer grade systems - and a whole lot more that fail just out of warranty. ANd they fail on the "professional grade" stuff too. Often exactly the same power supply.

As far as DELL is concerned, their consumer grade stuff is definitely more troublesome in my experience than a lot of others. Add to that the fact their "restore disks" very often do not have all the required drivers for the system they are supplied with. (e-machine stuff is every bit as bad). Their laptops have been more trouble than the desktops. (also true of HP/Compaq) When they sell on price, you cannot expect any more than that. Yes, the "proffessional grade" stuff is better but I'm not a great fan of the company or it's products. And I deal with systems every day. Power supplies are the biggest problem, no matter what manufacturer, followed by hard drives and RAM. With the exception of AMD processors, I have not had a CPU problem in over 5 years (except one on the ASUS board referenced below). With the exception of AMD specific boards and DELL computers, I have only had 3 motherboard failures in the last 5 years, and 2 were DOA. The other was an ASUS board owned by a client who has the damndest luck with ANYTHING technical. Ended up with the motherboard, processor and power supply dead on that one and I suspect the power supply was the culprit but could not prove it. Replacing ANY TWO of the three parts would NOT get the system running. Could be the motherboard went out and killed the PS, but that doesn't exactly explain the CPU.

A woman at my church asked me to look at her computer. A small electrolytic exploded in the power supply and shot out through the fan. That bad power supply destroyed the hard drive, the CD-ROM drive, the RAM, the CPU and the motherboard. The only thing that was still usable was the cheap case.

I thought that you would know something about the ASA as they were the Armies version of the NSA. They specialize in electronics.The top ten percent of the Army and you did not make it ?? All ASA soldiers had a minimum of a top secret clearance and they served in Vietnam and in combat. Fighting for our country. Most of their operations are still classified. Spooks and Spies are always listening. Millwright Ron

I thought that you would know someting about ASA as thy are the Armys version of the NSA. They specilize in electonics

Yawn.... ... .. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZz

Great, you have data. Have you done a full bare metal bring up boxes from scratch, put programs and data on them and get back in business restore?

That is from duplicates of os, tape backup, applications software disks as in the office burned to the ground, the original cd /dvds are gone, paper files with license keys, ect.

Back when I was doing the IT thing, I had tape, spare tape drive, interface cards, duplicates of install media, configuration data, ect and once a year I'd do a disaster restore drill.

Wes

For me to get a box up from scratch to functional in less than an hour. I have customized XPP with the full OS and basic applicants on an unattended DVD, start it up and walk away. Generations of back-ups and originals are in a big fireproof safe and my thumb drive is in my pocket. We're pretty good but not perfect.

Did you tell her it was a message from God? I would have...