Computer rant.

[JZaun]

Can't live with it, can't live without it. I got backup galore. 2nd hard drive, 2 copies of DVD back up of that. Yep I ran out of space. Just too many pictures and documents. So I decided to get a bigger disk but before I could, my just 5 days over its year warranty 19" Viewsonic monitor blew up. No color. %$#@#$%%$#@@#$%%%$#@!@!#%&*. Well Dell had 17" ultra sharp LCD monitor on sale so had to put off the disk for a while. The new Dell monitor is great but the PC power supply gave up. @#$%^%^&&^%#. Installed new power supply everything ok now. Tried to back up Quicken to 2nd HD, not enough space.@#$%^ Ok lets transfer some files to the lap top! That will work. Well the 1 gig cf mem and reader is just too slow for moving lots files from one PC to another.&^^%$%$# Bring out the credit card, new Iomaga External 160 gig drive. :) Now Finally everything is ok after 2 weeks of one problem after another. What next :) yep its gonna be a 2 layer 8 gig DVD :) Just gotta pay off the disk and monitor first!! I hope :? then maybe a 2nd external HD for the Laptop, can't have too much backup. :)

JZ

[cmM]

I don't keep my images on hard drives any more.... just DVD backups.

I've had some computer trouble too. I can't find a freakin' driver for my on-board NIC card... no network for me.

[Scottes]

Jerry, that definitely sucks. A never-ending tail of misery.

Chris - NICs are about $10 each, maybe $15. (Yes, I know about the car... :-( )

[Jon]

I've had some computer trouble too. I can't find a freakin' driver for my on-board NIC card... no network for me.

What board/chipset?

[pcasciola]

External hard drives are definitely the way to go. I have two Maxtor 250Gb drives that I use for backing up my photos and data. Officemax has the Maxtor One Touch 200Gb on sale for $160 which is a really nice unit. One push of the button on the drive triggers a backup that you define, along with the standard scheduled backups. The funny part is, I've lost at least half a dozen hard drives over the years, and now that I've switched to external hard drive backup as of about 2 years ago, I've yet to have a problem.

[Ranger187]

MTBF for internal is higher then external's if I remember correctly. But don't quote me on that. I have a [2] 200 gig internal's for my pictures. They are mirrors of each other, then I have a SONY AiT-2 digital drive that backs this up every 6 months. Plus the burns on CD and DVD and the mirrors to the other servers. Yeah, I go overboard, but I'm not losing 50,000+ pictures... F that.

[roanjohn]

Just recently purchased a Lacie 250 GB external harddrive.......WOW!!! I should've done this sooner......!!! Now all my files are in there.......and my computer is running fast!!! (but that could also be due to the extra 512 of RAM I installed)!!! :-)

Ro1

[pcasciola]

Oh yeah, one other thing for those considering the Maxtor One Touch. I recently set one up for my accountant, and it works very well but the software is crap. It works well enough once it is configured, but I found the user interface very hard to work with.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Perhaps the nic is disabled in the BIOS? (@ cmM)

What OS? I've neer seen a NIC that WinXP didn't like.

[cmM]

it's a SIS648 based motherboard. Not disabled in BIOS, no resource conflicts with the other NIC either. There's only one driver on MSI's website but it doesn' do anything good. I had the driver on a CD somewhere... somewhere...

**Edit: BTW, it's Windows XP Pro. (Not SP2)

[Ranger187]

I have. Many still aren't recognized. No way the OS can keep up with all the new products constantly brought out.

Belkin, Linksys, Negear are a few that I've had to install drivers first.

Also make sure the Bios says "PNP" Enabled or On. And try a ghost boot disk. That will tell you. If you don't have Ghost, tell me the brand and I'll make you one. Also, is the NIC light on or off? It should have 2. Power and Link light.... Or possibly only one.

What motherboard?

Update: SP2 won't fix it. So that is not the issue.

[JZaun]

I don't keep my images on hard drives any more.... just DVD backups.

I've had some computer trouble too. I can't find a freakin' driver for my on-board NIC card... no network for me.


:) Sounds like plastic time!!! Yep a new mother board would fix that :) Go ahead just do it. You never saw a coffin with pockets in it ! You can't take it with you when you go! Just spend it now and enjoy :)

My theory anyhow. Seems to work most of the time. Assuming you don't have a wife checking on you. Then you are on your own.

JZ

[cmM]

LOL, yea, I guess your theory would work, Jerry. Lose the driver -> buy another motherboard :-P

[JZaun]

LOL, yea, I guess your theory would work, Jerry. Lose the driver -> buy another motherboard :-P


Hahahaha

I know how you feel. I bought a external CD when they first come out. Real expensive!The computer crashed 2 years later and where was the driver CD? I lost it. Couldn't find one on line. Called the manufacturer, out of business. Generic wouldn't work. Bought a Sony next time :) Plastic will fix almost anything :) (Except lost data!!!) :D

JZ

[Sicily1918]

Do what I did -- put together a 2nd system (well, 4th for me, but whatever), add a small hard drive (9-17gb) for the OS (I used Fedora, but Windows Server will work just as well), get yourself four 300gb drives (or 5 250gb, whichever is cheaper) and setup a software RAID5. I now have 1TB of storage, and if any one drive dies I can replace it and rebuild the array without data loss.

[Scottes]

You never saw a coffin with pockets in it !

ROFLMAO!