How to screw your P.C. the PPRuNe way
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How to screw your P.C. the PPRuNe way
Clearly there are some very knowlable people who visit this particular forum and offer sound advice. What scares me though, are the likes of FL310 who seem to be well intentioned, but nevertheless offer such tips as
Wow, I find such broard brush statements quite frightening. It's a bit like going in to a flying forum within a computer bulletin board and asking "My aeroplane seems to have a problem, what should I do?" and some jack-of-all-trades says "Get is as high as you can, roll inverted and pull through. If the wings clap hands above your head, I read somewhere that it's probably the main spar."
As I said, there's some good info to be gleened here but If you think your dog is REALLY sick go ask a vet. If you've got an aviation question and you need good advice come here to PPRuNe (Just like the Wannabees and Journos do), but for really problomatic P.C. questions there are many computer-related bulletin boards that are their professional equivalent to PPRuNe.
....... open the case and check all cables inside, all cables from the motherboard, all harddrives, floppy, zip drive etc
look at the dust around the machine, pull the cards and use a smooth brush to clean everything.....yes, everything, take the RAM out etc.
As I said, there's some good info to be gleened here but If you think your dog is REALLY sick go ask a vet. If you've got an aviation question and you need good advice come here to PPRuNe (Just like the Wannabees and Journos do), but for really problomatic P.C. questions there are many computer-related bulletin boards that are their professional equivalent to PPRuNe.
Last edited by Les Bee'un; 13th Apr 2002 at 00:07.
Les ,
I don't think your analogy really holds. Whether or not you can boot your Windows 98 installation is not really as critical as whether your aircraft will stay in the air. So where's the harm in trying a few things to see if you can fix a problem? Perhaps FL310 should have warned about the risk of static damage to components while cleaning - but then again I've been messing around inside PCs for years and never managed to fry anything. And even if you do cook a part - well the only single component inside a PC worth more than £100 these days is the processor itself.
Most of the problems people ask about here can be fixed with a clean installation of the OS – but people generally don’t want to do that because they don’t backup their data regularly. So a bit of messing around is usually in order to determine whether something can be salvaged.
Now if you really want to screw up a system take lessons from me. At the beginning of this week I managed to kill a colleague's installation of NT 4.0 and spent a day trying to undo the damage. Then later in the week I managed to render one of my own installations of Windows 2000 totally unbootable. Another day's work to resurrect the system.
Anyway, from this week’s experiences I’ve learned two things….
1) If you’re going to install Norton Antivirus on a Windows 2000 SP2 system running IE 6 make sure you disable the Norton “Script Blocking” facility before you establish a dial-up connection.
2) Do not install Roxio Easy CD Creator 5.0 on a Windows 2000 SP2 system – it’s more trouble than it’s worth.
3) If you do make the mistake of installing this Roxio software on a Windows 2000 SP2 then NEVER try to install/upgrade the Intel Ultra ATA drivers. Don’t even think about it!
I don't think your analogy really holds. Whether or not you can boot your Windows 98 installation is not really as critical as whether your aircraft will stay in the air. So where's the harm in trying a few things to see if you can fix a problem? Perhaps FL310 should have warned about the risk of static damage to components while cleaning - but then again I've been messing around inside PCs for years and never managed to fry anything. And even if you do cook a part - well the only single component inside a PC worth more than £100 these days is the processor itself.
Most of the problems people ask about here can be fixed with a clean installation of the OS – but people generally don’t want to do that because they don’t backup their data regularly. So a bit of messing around is usually in order to determine whether something can be salvaged.
Now if you really want to screw up a system take lessons from me. At the beginning of this week I managed to kill a colleague's installation of NT 4.0 and spent a day trying to undo the damage. Then later in the week I managed to render one of my own installations of Windows 2000 totally unbootable. Another day's work to resurrect the system.
Anyway, from this week’s experiences I’ve learned two things….
1) If you’re going to install Norton Antivirus on a Windows 2000 SP2 system running IE 6 make sure you disable the Norton “Script Blocking” facility before you establish a dial-up connection.
2) Do not install Roxio Easy CD Creator 5.0 on a Windows 2000 SP2 system – it’s more trouble than it’s worth.
3) If you do make the mistake of installing this Roxio software on a Windows 2000 SP2 then NEVER try to install/upgrade the Intel Ultra ATA drivers. Don’t even think about it!
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Stagger - Unless I've misread the opening post, I seemed to detect a fair bit of irony. I don't think the comparison was meant literally. At least, not the life-threatening bit. Although to many people nowadays their PC/mobile/laptop/PDA would appear to be!
I will take you to task with the price bit. Many of the visitors to this bulletin board are going more than the full nine yards attempting to pursue an aviation career. £100 may well represent another blood-letting entry in their logbook. Sure, you are right that budget PCs and current components are readily available. To you a “ton” is obviously an amount that you can right off. But spare a moment for the Wannabees and take a gander at the cost of some of the component parts of an average PC:
Pentium IV 1.8 GHz CPU £212
Generic RIMM (512Mb) £269
nVidea 64Mb GeForce 3 £139
Asus (mid range) m/board £132
Poking around willy-nilly inside a piece of kit that you can ill afford to replace (in lieu of flying) is not good advice. So, you fry a component part of an essentially redundant piece of kit.
Yeah maybe – if you subscribe to using a sledgehammer to crack a nut or buy a new car when the ashtrays are full.
I will take you to task with the price bit. Many of the visitors to this bulletin board are going more than the full nine yards attempting to pursue an aviation career. £100 may well represent another blood-letting entry in their logbook. Sure, you are right that budget PCs and current components are readily available. To you a “ton” is obviously an amount that you can right off. But spare a moment for the Wannabees and take a gander at the cost of some of the component parts of an average PC:
Pentium IV 1.8 GHz CPU £212
Generic RIMM (512Mb) £269
nVidea 64Mb GeForce 3 £139
Asus (mid range) m/board £132
Poking around willy-nilly inside a piece of kit that you can ill afford to replace (in lieu of flying) is not good advice. So, you fry a component part of an essentially redundant piece of kit.
- When was the last time you tried to obtain a replacement part?
- Have you seen the price of EDO RAM (if you can readily find it)?
- ****ed a BIOS flash on a chip that’s soldered to a motherboard?
- Ever enquired about the cost of data recovery (and the dubious success) from a knackered HDD?
Most of the problems people ask about here can be fixed with a clean installation of the OS
Pat Pong
The point I was trying to make was that poking around as FL310 suggested and doing a bit of cleaning is unlikely to result in any hardware damage - as long as you guard against static - and have a reasonable idea about what you're doing. And that even if you do fry one component it's not the end of the world. Although I did point out that in 10 years of messing around inside PCs and being extremely lax about static protection I have never damaged a piece of hardware. Although – I did give you couple of examples of how I’ve recently screwed up OS installations.
Ok, there maybe people out there with new high spec systems with some bits inside them worth more than my £100 figure but if you have a brand new system you should be getting hardware troubles sorted under the warranty.
£100 is a significant amount for me - I don't have a large income since I'm a scientist not a professional pilot
- but compared to the cost of calling in a professional service technician or buying an extended warranty for a system £100 really isn't that much.
). For the record, replacement internal keyboard for a Latitude C600 was £34.95 - and took about 20 minutes to install.
I've bought and installed many components over the years so I'm not talking from a position of total ignorance. Hard drives, CD-drives, floppy-drives, motherboards, processors, fans, power supplies in addition to all the easy stuff like memory modules and PCI cards. Of course, you can run into to trouble if the system is really old – compatible replacement parts might not be that easy to buy – but then there should be plenty of them knocking around in unused old systems that can be bought second-hand for very little.
I will concede that whether or not to open the box should be determined on a case by case basis - a general recommendation to have a poke around is just plain silly - but on the other hand there's no need to be terrified of having a go if you have some idea of what you're doing.
You suggest that a clean installation of your OS is like using "a sledgehammer to crack a nut or buy a new car when the ashtrays are full. " This is ridiculous - a sledgehammer damages the inside of the nut and a new car costs money! The only thing a clean installation should cost is time - and often it takes less time than tinkering away with the installation trying to solve a problem. Having said that I usually try the tinkering approach myself only to later give up and do the clean install so I end up wasting twice as much time as I need to. Frequently it turns out that a clean install is not only the most efficient solution – but it may also be the only truly effective solution. Again this needs to be determined on a case-by-case basis though.
The point I was trying to make was that poking around as FL310 suggested and doing a bit of cleaning is unlikely to result in any hardware damage - as long as you guard against static - and have a reasonable idea about what you're doing. And that even if you do fry one component it's not the end of the world. Although I did point out that in 10 years of messing around inside PCs and being extremely lax about static protection I have never damaged a piece of hardware. Although – I did give you couple of examples of how I’ve recently screwed up OS installations.
Ok, there maybe people out there with new high spec systems with some bits inside them worth more than my £100 figure but if you have a brand new system you should be getting hardware troubles sorted under the warranty.
£100 is a significant amount for me - I don't have a large income since I'm a scientist not a professional pilot
- but compared to the cost of calling in a professional service technician or buying an extended warranty for a system £100 really isn't that much.- When was the last time you tried to obtain a replacement part?
). For the record, replacement internal keyboard for a Latitude C600 was £34.95 - and took about 20 minutes to install.I've bought and installed many components over the years so I'm not talking from a position of total ignorance. Hard drives, CD-drives, floppy-drives, motherboards, processors, fans, power supplies in addition to all the easy stuff like memory modules and PCI cards. Of course, you can run into to trouble if the system is really old – compatible replacement parts might not be that easy to buy – but then there should be plenty of them knocking around in unused old systems that can be bought second-hand for very little.
- Have you seen the price of EDO RAM (if you can readily find it)?
- ****ed a BIOS flash on a chip that’s soldered to a motherboard?
- Ever enquired about the cost of data recovery (and the dubious success) from a knackered HDD?
I will concede that whether or not to open the box should be determined on a case by case basis - a general recommendation to have a poke around is just plain silly - but on the other hand there's no need to be terrified of having a go if you have some idea of what you're doing.
You suggest that a clean installation of your OS is like using "a sledgehammer to crack a nut or buy a new car when the ashtrays are full. " This is ridiculous - a sledgehammer damages the inside of the nut and a new car costs money! The only thing a clean installation should cost is time - and often it takes less time than tinkering away with the installation trying to solve a problem. Having said that I usually try the tinkering approach myself only to later give up and do the clean install so I end up wasting twice as much time as I need to. Frequently it turns out that a clean install is not only the most efficient solution – but it may also be the only truly effective solution. Again this needs to be determined on a case-by-case basis though.
Last edited by stagger; 13th Apr 2002 at 09:50.
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for really problomatic P.C. questions there are many computer-related bulletin boards that are their professional equivalent to PPRuNe
Regarding the nature of the advice, if you're paying the £950/day that my company would charge for my time then you've got an idea of what you are getting and right to expect that the advice is worth it. However, when it come free and anonymous then you've got no such guarantee - so think it through. Don't like the sound of what FL310 - or anyone else - says, then don't do it! You're getting what you pay for, so caveat emptor!
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well LB, there are some colleagues who ask for help. I am working with computers, building and repairing, planning and setting up, maintaining and developing networks, software and all kind of additional peripherie since about 1976. A time when the floppy was 8.5" in diameter, the harddrive was a 5MB - 20kg unit for about $7500 (at todays rate). The Z80 was the processor and the screen had a proud 12"diagonal.
Bill Gates did not even dream about MS-DOS these days.
Gone through all the guarantee advises, followed most of the strongly recommended procedures, very often there was no solution available.
Having learned the hard way (no, not with damaging parts....) how to look inside problems, find alternatives and solutions, in 1983 I started the first own business. These days the first 80286 was born.
We introduced in 1984 a so called Saturday screwing club (hey, not what you mean...) and after some time more and more interested people came and joined. Building and repairing, upgrading and tuning of PC was the task.
All my ideas here are based on the experience and knowledge gathered over the years.
There is no need to discharge any statics...while you open the cabinet you have to touch the frame and thus you discharge anyway. Ahh, the motherboard is not connected to the frame? wrong, it is still connected through the cables to the power supply and thus no discharge will happen by touching only the motherboard.
A brush will destroy too much? wrong, more damage is done by packing and unpacking and wrong handling while building the machine. A soft brush (as I recommended) will remove all the dust and whatever has accumulated there over the time.
Ever checked the fans of a 1 year old PC???? You will improve performance by keeping them clean.
There is more reason to be grounded when touching a keyboard, and I am very sure that out there are some people who have experienced the unpleasant situation of feeling a discharge while starting typing. (Also there are solutions available)
I have never ever given any advise where dangerous work is involved. Destroying valuable parts is the last I am interested in. My hints and suggestions are intended to give an idea of what to do and how to approach a problem before expensive replacements etc are considered or necessary.
If someone feels that the given info is too sensitive or beyond ones capabilities, he/she does not have to follow, as simple as that. There is a shop around the corner which will take care about your machine (of course there is one here as well
)
Don't you think it is better to give people an idea about what to do than leaving them in the dark and have them damaging their MIG (most important gadget)?
Waiting for replies, there is no problem for me to stop all this and offer it only to these who are interested.... 
Bill Gates did not even dream about MS-DOS these days.
Gone through all the guarantee advises, followed most of the strongly recommended procedures, very often there was no solution available.
Having learned the hard way (no, not with damaging parts....) how to look inside problems, find alternatives and solutions, in 1983 I started the first own business. These days the first 80286 was born.
We introduced in 1984 a so called Saturday screwing club (hey, not what you mean...) and after some time more and more interested people came and joined. Building and repairing, upgrading and tuning of PC was the task.
All my ideas here are based on the experience and knowledge gathered over the years.
There is no need to discharge any statics...while you open the cabinet you have to touch the frame and thus you discharge anyway. Ahh, the motherboard is not connected to the frame? wrong, it is still connected through the cables to the power supply and thus no discharge will happen by touching only the motherboard.
A brush will destroy too much? wrong, more damage is done by packing and unpacking and wrong handling while building the machine. A soft brush (as I recommended) will remove all the dust and whatever has accumulated there over the time.
Ever checked the fans of a 1 year old PC???? You will improve performance by keeping them clean.
There is more reason to be grounded when touching a keyboard, and I am very sure that out there are some people who have experienced the unpleasant situation of feeling a discharge while starting typing. (Also there are solutions available)
I have never ever given any advise where dangerous work is involved. Destroying valuable parts is the last I am interested in. My hints and suggestions are intended to give an idea of what to do and how to approach a problem before expensive replacements etc are considered or necessary.
If someone feels that the given info is too sensitive or beyond ones capabilities, he/she does not have to follow, as simple as that. There is a shop around the corner which will take care about your machine (of course there is one here as well
)Don't you think it is better to give people an idea about what to do than leaving them in the dark and have them damaging their MIG (most important gadget)?
Waiting for replies, there is no problem for me to stop all this and offer it only to these who are interested....
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Minor comment: Not all of us are computer experts. Certainly not I. By posting a thread here as I've done in the past, I actually desire to hear from various folk who take the time to post a reply. Some of those are like me, others are better informed. I've learn't alot from reading this section of PPRuNe. Thanks too, 310!
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I am also a computer novice, and I learn alot from reading this forum. I am also aware that if I should so choose to "muck about" with my computers' innards it is on my own head.
Having been ****ed by my local so called "Computer Expert" !!
( thought I was doing my bit to support local business - never again )
I know which advice source I would rather follow.....
Having been ****ed by my local so called "Computer Expert" !!
( thought I was doing my bit to support local business - never again )
I know which advice source I would rather follow.....
Plastic PPRuNer
Les - if you can put on a plug and change a fuse there's no reason not to guddle in the innards. It's simpler than it was 10 years ago. All the cables and sockets are keyed or color-coded so it's hard to plug things in the wrong way round unless you force it. Often the problem is a lose cable or a bad connnection. Pull it out, give it a spray of circuit cleaner & a wipe and put it back. Solves a lot of hiccoughs. So does a whoosh of canned air to blow out the dust bunnies.
Having said that, you DO need to be careful and check what you are doing. A marker pen and a notebook help. Commonest problem is to take out/insert something and unseat a nearby connector or dislodge a jumper. If you do something and it hangs, that's often the problem. Trouble is, folk then start playing around with the BIOS or the OS, which is FAR more likely to get you into terminal trouble and end up with data loss and a reinstall.
Best defence? Like aircraft I guess. Get familiar with your system and RTFM. Backup your Registry often [http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;q139437] Ghost your main drive to a removable HDD and keep it in the woodshed. Takes 15 minutes. Repeat regularly and esp. before you install that new game or latest update.
It's hard to fry a PC in hardware, easy to stuff up the system in software.
Having said that, you DO need to be careful and check what you are doing. A marker pen and a notebook help. Commonest problem is to take out/insert something and unseat a nearby connector or dislodge a jumper. If you do something and it hangs, that's often the problem. Trouble is, folk then start playing around with the BIOS or the OS, which is FAR more likely to get you into terminal trouble and end up with data loss and a reinstall.
Best defence? Like aircraft I guess. Get familiar with your system and RTFM. Backup your Registry often [http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;q139437] Ghost your main drive to a removable HDD and keep it in the woodshed. Takes 15 minutes. Repeat regularly and esp. before you install that new game or latest update.
It's hard to fry a PC in hardware, easy to stuff up the system in software.
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Guess it is time now to say a big thank you to all who appreciate the help, hints and suggestions our community provides here. Some may have seen also questions raised by me, who is perfect in this world?
As it is with most things, our world is changing in a breathtaking pace and if we close our eyes we are left behind instantly. But who can follow each and every piece and advise and tool with the required attention? Certainly not me and I assume that most of you out there have the same problem.
A forum like this can provide assistance, not more! There are plenty other good places here in cyberspace and I am very happy to say that I have found many while just following some links posted here.
Something which may have put LB into the mood to post his thoughts I need to emphasize here a bit stronger. He is of course right that there is always a chance to damage something, there is also the chance of breaking warranty rules....but that is a fact which everyone has to decide and think of him/herself.
All support I have seen here did never ever mention or recommend a dangerous or damaging procedure. In fact, I have received some very kind replies from this PPRuNer community over the years which always demanded to continue, and I am pretty sure, that others received these thank-you mails as well.
Ok...some more to come soon, watch out, I am just writing a small instruction on how to set-up your own FTP-server on your home-machine, just another request I have received from this community.
Let's close this thread an save bandwith....
As it is with most things, our world is changing in a breathtaking pace and if we close our eyes we are left behind instantly. But who can follow each and every piece and advise and tool with the required attention? Certainly not me and I assume that most of you out there have the same problem.
A forum like this can provide assistance, not more! There are plenty other good places here in cyberspace and I am very happy to say that I have found many while just following some links posted here.
Something which may have put LB into the mood to post his thoughts I need to emphasize here a bit stronger. He is of course right that there is always a chance to damage something, there is also the chance of breaking warranty rules....but that is a fact which everyone has to decide and think of him/herself.
All support I have seen here did never ever mention or recommend a dangerous or damaging procedure. In fact, I have received some very kind replies from this PPRuNer community over the years which always demanded to continue, and I am pretty sure, that others received these thank-you mails as well.
Ok...some more to come soon, watch out, I am just writing a small instruction on how to set-up your own FTP-server on your home-machine, just another request I have received from this community.
Let's close this thread an save bandwith....
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Don't close it before I get to add my thanks to those more knowledgeable than I am who spend a lot of their time researching considered answers to queries. When I am bold enough to offer my views it costs in effort and it is nice to receive appreciation here or in e-mail. Why we have two moderators beats me!
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Amen FL320, this stuff is a lot more robust than some techies would have you believe, acctually hoovered me computer the other day, before i rebuilt it, no poncing around with sissy earthin straps round my wrist, just heave it out the case,try new motherboard and CPU out by lying it on the floor with H/D and power supply scattered around it,graphic card and memory bunged in their slots, worked a treat, never have much trouble with the actual hardware, its the poxy software that gets me.
Show the stuff who's boss, is the secret.
Show the stuff who's boss, is the secret.
Last edited by tony draper; 15th Apr 2002 at 07:13.
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Yeh thanks for all the help FL320, I was a complete novice regarding computers and have found the advice on this forum invaluble at times so keep up the good work, i've learnt a heck of a lot just reading the tips that are posted here.
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I guess I'm lucky. I don't need any dodgy PPRuNe advice that might totally screw up my computer. A simple phone call to our MIS Department's System Control brings a highly trained specialist with an honours degree in Computer Science straight to my desk to do a proper job. He can screw up my computer much better than anyone on this forum. Indeed he screwed up my last one so much that it never worked again and the company bought me a new one.
What's it doing now? What's it mean "Fatal Error?" Oh well better call 335936 again...
**************************
Through difficulties to the cinema
What's it doing now? What's it mean "Fatal Error?" Oh well better call 335936 again...
**************************
Through difficulties to the cinema
FL310 - the harddrive was a 5MB - 20kg unit
Was this for a laptop
The first machine I had at home had 2 HD units, 5MB fixed and 5MB dustbin lid on each unit. Each unit came in at 70kg.
The wife was not amused.
I have been in the business for 20 years and have no problem with FL310's advice. I have never cooked a chip yet. I would suggest however a lot can be gained by hitting a machine while switched off before resorting to opening a cabinet.
If you cant afford to screw your machine get in a professional - but it will cost. If its more than a year old its probably worth less than £400 in total and you are hard pushed to screw everything in one go.
Was this for a laptop
The first machine I had at home had 2 HD units, 5MB fixed and 5MB dustbin lid on each unit. Each unit came in at 70kg.
The wife was not amused.
I have been in the business for 20 years and have no problem with FL310's advice. I have never cooked a chip yet. I would suggest however a lot can be gained by hitting a machine while switched off before resorting to opening a cabinet.
If you cant afford to screw your machine get in a professional - but it will cost. If its more than a year old its probably worth less than £400 in total and you are hard pushed to screw everything in one go.
