Progress?

I was going to have a Tummy Tuesday post today, but haven't got photo capabilities installed on the new computer yet. New computer? Yes, we broke down over the weekend and bought a replacement desktop. We thought we had better hurry because of the rapidly decreasing likelihood that we would find an XP box for sale, not wanting to deal with Vista for at least a couple more years. We got lucky and found a refurbished HP media box in the clearance section of Micro Center. It's very similar to the "dead" box, with the essential things (XP, card reader) but not most of the bells and whistles (TV tuner).

I haven't given up on the old computer, though. I think I have most of my documents and photos backed up, but DH has some photos that are not, that he would really like to recover. So today I hooked up a USB-to-SATA cable to take a look at the hard drives. They're perfectly functional, but I can't get the data easily because we have two RAID 0 drives. Having done a little more reading, I am kicking myself for buying this option. WHAT WAS I THINKING? RAID 0 stripes the data across two drives, making it extremely difficult to recover once disconnected from the computer, and providing no protection against data loss if a drive fails, anyway. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

But at least I have confirmed that the drives are not the problem. Next I called a local repair shop, who said they would be happy to look at my dead computer in a week or two, but did not seem optimistic that it could be repaired for less than the cost of a new computer. While I was deciding what to do, I powered up the old box to see what would happen, since it was open. Whoa... it starts. Windows runs. Everything looks normal. For about 2 minutes, then I smell that faint burning odor and the power cuts off. I don't see anything burning, melting, or smoking, but the power supply is very hot and I don't recall seeing the fan running.

OK, I'm going with a faulty power supply. A new one is on order from HP. I'll leave the old box reclining on the operating table, and we'll see what happens in a couple of days. Again, any advice is appreciated.

I'm baaaack!

What a goat rope. Thank you cellogeek and rallentando for your excellent, though alas insufficient, advice. I can't tell you how many times I recycled the modem and router in the past week. I also discovered that the cable company will remotely reset the modem via their automated service menu, another good thing to know. I finally got around to cleaning up the detritus of old, unused Norton installations, which fixed a nagging problem on the old laptop where it hung on every shutdown and I had to boot twice to get ZoneAlarm active. And I installed an unused wireless pc card in the old laptop.

For future reference, mine and anyone who is desperately surfing for personal accounts of healing a non-functional wireless internet access via cable modem setup, this is what finally worked:

1) First I had to get a computer that had a reliable ethernet connection. No small feat with one melted motherboard (I still assume), one laptop with a BSOD and another running WIN Me. In the end it had to wait for DH's new laptop to arrive.

2) With human assistance from the cable company I set up a cable modem to computer ethernet connection and verified that the modem was functional. That did require a modem recycle, a task at which I am now expert.

3) While I had internet access I looked up instructions for configuring the router on the Lynksys site. The first FAQ was router to cable modem connections. Imagine that! Left them open in several windows so I wouldn't need to follow any additional links in the middle of the process.

3) Next I added the router into the loop, modem to router via the Internet port, and router to computer.

4) For a variety of reasons, I reset the router. I think that was the most important step in this whole process. Then I set up the router to use DHCP, then MAC cloning, and finally re-setup the security for the wireless network, all following the instructions from the Linksys site.

5) Eureka! I have internet access. I have wireless access with my antique Dell and new wireless pc card, and I have wireless access with DH's new laptop.

I'm so happy. And so tired.

Now I need to figure out what to do with the fried desktop computer. And no pictures for awhile.

Bad JuJu

Well, it's been a week. I think I mentioned before that we finally got a piece of furniture to house the computer and eliminate the kitten-engulfing rats' nest of wires surrounding the desk. Looked nice, too. I have learned from hard past experience to label both ends of each wire before disconnecting things, and though I still had a big pile of wires inside one section of the case (need shorter cables) reassembly was relatively straight-forward.

Unfortunately, even with all cables apparently connected correctly I had lost Internet access. Cable, modem, router, oh my. I felt fortunate when IE7's self-healing capability got the main computer back on the 'net. Alas, nothing worked to re-establish the connection for DH's laptop. Very annoying. Both computers use a wireless connection to the router, both read a strong wireless signal and claimed to be connected, but the little 'puter just couldn't see the web. We even went to great lengths to upgrade IE to v7 (he usually uses FireFox), quite a feat without an Internet connection, but self-healing was not achieved.

Oh well, he was leaving on a business trip, and we set the problem aside until his return. Then he called to tell me little 'puter was belly up with a BSOD. Lousy timing, and he was scrambling to get his presentations together without it.

But it gets worse. On Thursday I was writing my blog post for the day when I smelled a faint odor of electrical burning. It seemed to be coming from the general direction of the bathroom (AKA The Nursery), where the newly-installed fan had been running non-stop for a few days (a definite boon when the kittens have diarrhea). I thought a few choice words about shoddy manufacturing, turned it off, and the smell of burning abated somewhat. I felt around the ceiling, and nothing was hot, so put it on the list of things to discuss with the contractor.

An hour later, the main computer abruptly shut down. Apparently the odor was being pulled across the room by the fan, and the decrease just meant the smell wasn't reaching my nose. So now I get a start-up screen and the computer immediately shuts down. This does not look good.

I was amazed at how much I got done last week without e-mail and blogs to distract me. I briefly entertained the possibility of not replacing the computer, and while I quickly came to my senses I really need to take a hard look at how I'm spending (wasting) my time.

While traveling this weekend it took about an hour on a WIN98 box to re-set Blogger to directly publish my posts via e-mail. (Is it my imagination, or is dial-up getting slower and slower?) Anything you read for the next while will be from my (so far) trusty Treo.

That reminds me... I can post from the Treo, and read comments because they are forwarded by e-mail, but I can't access or enter comments on Blogger. Please don't think I am ignoring your comments. I have greatly enjoyed those entered this week, but lack the ability to respond. And I apologize in advance for the numerous misspellings you are sure to see, between the tiny type and lack of spell-check..

I'm not sure what state my cable Internet connection will be in when I next try, so all networking hints will be gratefully accepted. In the meantime, I guess I'll go shopping...