Why does their shit have to be so friggin' unstable?
My computer decided it was time to restart on its own this afternoon. No worries, it looks like everything it going okay - no beeps at least. Turn on the monitor - no signal...WTF, computer is on. Troubleshoot everything, the TV, the DVI-cable, etc. No signal. I'm thinking fuck. My video card is hosed. Dammit, they're only like 6 months old. Fer chrissakes....
Get frustrated, but decide. Let everything cool down and take a break. So Chrissie and I check out the movie 1408 at the base theater. Pretty good. Nice little mind-fuck movie. I enjoyed it anyway. Well we get back and I fire-up the 'puter (fingers crossed). Joy - I can see the start-up process. Monitor input has fixed itself.
But then the computer doesn't boot up. There's an error in the system config file. It must've gotten corrupted earlier that afternoon. Well, long and boring story short (there really is NO was to spruce up a description of trouble-shooting a start-up error with the folks from Alienware for an hour without copious use of F-bombs, s-bombs, et al) The error was not one from which my system can recover. We tried running chkdsk, fixing the boot, etc. Some things said they worked, but none of them actually HELPED let my computer complete the boot-up cycle. Even got the blue-screen of death one time, and the error code solution the tech looked up - basically said: Computer fucked, re-install operating system.
GODDAMN FUCKING MICROSOFT
I've got a bit of work ahead of me tomorrow. It was just too late to be bothered today. And getting all those programs back. Downloading all that shit again. Not to mention losing a few things. We may lose some recent photos, depends. Ever since my primary rig went kablooie (actually it was Alienware mis-diagnosing a bad memory card that turned into an odyssey) and I thought we'd lost it all, I've been pretty good about making sure things are backed up. That said, we're going to lose a few iTunes songs I imagine. (I just make sure all our TV Shows were backed up). Some other stuff won't be up-to-date - Like our Master DVD and Alphabetized movie lists...fuck, I just thought of that....fucking-A, it took me like 2 hours to get that thing up-to-date, and I don't think I saved a copy onto an external....frig it...can anyone recommend a good online back-up utility?
Is it time to get a Mac?
Showing posts with label alienware. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alienware. Show all posts
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
IT WORKS, IT WORKS!
Joy of joys! After procrastinating for two days, distraught that my newly "fixed" computer (which cost me a bundle to ship to the states and back) was not actually fixed....
First, the computer hard-drive appeared blank. OH SHIT! I thought Alienware had reneged on their word and wiped my hard drive. AUGH. But no, they hadn't connect my old HDDs, they had only installed a 3rd 160 GB Hard drive and gotten the computer running on that one. Well lo' and behold, guess what else went on the fritz....one of the two nVidia 512Mb 7900 GTXs...the powerhouses that make my rig scream through any game on the market. Turns out, somehow, strangely, the first card in my SLI went buggy. So a great tech at Alienware named Max, talked me through the diagnosis on the why the GUI had gone to shit. Once we figured that out. I switched to second card, which runs fine, and switched out from SLI-mode to single card mode (yes you do need to flip a little card on the motherboard to do that).
However that was not the only problem. The computer would not boot up, it didn't recognize the Raid 0 Array of my twin 160GB Seagate HDDs. SO, we had to bust out the Microsoft XP Pro Recovery disk, pressed F8 to enter the boot menu, and clicked on the Boot from CD option. Pop goes the command prompt, and the type Fixboot C and create a new boot section. Then we did a thorough check disk. At this point the tech says. Hey, this is going to take about an hour. When its over, type EXIT, and everything should work. If it doesn't....well, guess what that would mean? Ding, ding, ding - complete wipe-out restore, re-installation of the OS, everything. Oh no, no please.
So after an agonizing wait that the check disk function ran. I got the show: scanned for errors, found some and repaired them.
I type E-X-I-T and press enter, and hold my breath.
And seconds later I see the XP loading page, and the little blue scroll bar starts humming across. Cross fingers - say a pray - and up pops the WELCOME SCREEN! I let out a small whoot, but we're not there yet you see....I click my name: and its the moment of truth....dreading a flash to a black screen and the cyclical reboot.....
Disaster AVERTED! - I see the glorious twin Jedi figure of Obi-wan Kenobi and Yoda looking pissed and wielding lightsabers (part of the Star Wars theme that came with my Alienware Rig) - and desktop is there. All the shortcuts, everything, just like I'd left that fateful night two months ago before Valentine's Day.
Quick as a flash I check My Computer and click on the C-drive properties...YES, 300 GBs, about 100 used....its all there. Oh but what's this, a prompt from Windows telling me I need to reboot to save the changes....AUGH, I just got this working, what if the reboot get hosed up. I'm finally in, I cannot waste this chance - I snatch my Lacie external fire-wire drive and plug it in (small prayer)....instant recognition, just like always. Click over to program files. Bam. Find iTunes. Click. Pow. Copy over to the External drive. Go-go-go, no time to waste. About a half-hour later the 50 GB worth of iTunes stuff and more is safely stored on the External drive. Whew....
ok NOW, I can reboot and viola! Things work perfectly. Just like they should.
Long story a bit lonber - I connected all my peripherals. The fantastic little HP Officejet, the webcam, the wireless internet, all the external HDDs (we have 3 right now), my Razer mouse.....and everything works. It just works. Isn't that great or what? Now I can finally install and play Half Life 2, Episode 1, which my wife got me for Valentine's Day, and which was the game in my hand as a sauntered into the home office on that fateful V-Day (only to be tortured by a cyclic reboot and insane beeping from the computer). Moreover, there's Supreme Commander and Command and Conquer 3 (gotta choose which), so there Planet Earth that needs to be took over....sigh...where to begin....oh yeah...with this blog I guess.
First, the computer hard-drive appeared blank. OH SHIT! I thought Alienware had reneged on their word and wiped my hard drive. AUGH. But no, they hadn't connect my old HDDs, they had only installed a 3rd 160 GB Hard drive and gotten the computer running on that one. Well lo' and behold, guess what else went on the fritz....one of the two nVidia 512Mb 7900 GTXs...the powerhouses that make my rig scream through any game on the market. Turns out, somehow, strangely, the first card in my SLI went buggy. So a great tech at Alienware named Max, talked me through the diagnosis on the why the GUI had gone to shit. Once we figured that out. I switched to second card, which runs fine, and switched out from SLI-mode to single card mode (yes you do need to flip a little card on the motherboard to do that).
However that was not the only problem. The computer would not boot up, it didn't recognize the Raid 0 Array of my twin 160GB Seagate HDDs. SO, we had to bust out the Microsoft XP Pro Recovery disk, pressed F8 to enter the boot menu, and clicked on the Boot from CD option. Pop goes the command prompt, and the type Fixboot C and create a new boot section. Then we did a thorough check disk. At this point the tech says. Hey, this is going to take about an hour. When its over, type EXIT, and everything should work. If it doesn't....well, guess what that would mean? Ding, ding, ding - complete wipe-out restore, re-installation of the OS, everything. Oh no, no please.
So after an agonizing wait that the check disk function ran. I got the show: scanned for errors, found some and repaired them.
I type E-X-I-T and press enter, and hold my breath.
And seconds later I see the XP loading page, and the little blue scroll bar starts humming across. Cross fingers - say a pray - and up pops the WELCOME SCREEN! I let out a small whoot, but we're not there yet you see....I click my name: and its the moment of truth....dreading a flash to a black screen and the cyclical reboot.....
Disaster AVERTED! - I see the glorious twin Jedi figure of Obi-wan Kenobi and Yoda looking pissed and wielding lightsabers (part of the Star Wars theme that came with my Alienware Rig) - and desktop is there. All the shortcuts, everything, just like I'd left that fateful night two months ago before Valentine's Day.
Quick as a flash I check My Computer and click on the C-drive properties...YES, 300 GBs, about 100 used....its all there. Oh but what's this, a prompt from Windows telling me I need to reboot to save the changes....AUGH, I just got this working, what if the reboot get hosed up. I'm finally in, I cannot waste this chance - I snatch my Lacie external fire-wire drive and plug it in (small prayer)....instant recognition, just like always. Click over to program files. Bam. Find iTunes. Click. Pow. Copy over to the External drive. Go-go-go, no time to waste. About a half-hour later the 50 GB worth of iTunes stuff and more is safely stored on the External drive. Whew....
ok NOW, I can reboot and viola! Things work perfectly. Just like they should.
Long story a bit lonber - I connected all my peripherals. The fantastic little HP Officejet, the webcam, the wireless internet, all the external HDDs (we have 3 right now), my Razer mouse.....and everything works. It just works. Isn't that great or what? Now I can finally install and play Half Life 2, Episode 1, which my wife got me for Valentine's Day, and which was the game in my hand as a sauntered into the home office on that fateful V-Day (only to be tortured by a cyclic reboot and insane beeping from the computer). Moreover, there's Supreme Commander and Command and Conquer 3 (gotta choose which), so there Planet Earth that needs to be took over....sigh...where to begin....oh yeah...with this blog I guess.
Monday, April 09, 2007
An Axis + Allies Weekend and some computer trouble
Whew!
It doesn't seem like that long, but I guess I didn't post the past couple of days. How unusual.
So what's been going on? First things first, if you like board games or really immersive table-top games - go here and check out Boardgamegeek.com for pictures and review of just about everything you can think or remember from your youth, plus find listing of places to buy them or where to shop online. Its pretty cool. You don't have to register - I didn't - yet ;)
Not much real good happened this weekend - depressing things actually - I finally got my computer back after much time and expense and its still not fixed right.....I've put off the dreaded tech support phone call for a day and half now....its going to be painful folks...let me tell you. So, no Supreme Commander or Command and Conquer 3 just yet for you intrepid gaijin. DAMMIT! The old rig can't even dream of running such a game, but my Star Wars rig....with twin nVidia 512Mb GTX 7900s....OH....its rarin' to go....too bad the GD thing doesn't WORK....AUGH....I'll tell you what, Alienware has a very, VERY slim chance of retaining my future business.
I also had a chance to play the newest version of an old table-top classic Axis and Allies. Man, the basic game is the same, but they've really altered the Eastern Front between Germany and Russia. Wow....it really changes the changes the game. There's a lot of other subtle little changes as well. (Like the Sahara desert is impassable, which keeps the Germany AFRIKA Corps bottled up in North Africa, and there are more sea zones, making ship movement a bit slower in places. And a very welcome British naval presence in India and Australia) Well long story short, I went to the local game night, planning to play some Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition. But there was a new guy there and we talked for a bit and decided to try and get in two games...OOPS....the game went a little slow and we wound up just playing one - A&A. For those of you that don't know anything about the game feel free to skip this part: It was me and the game owner (Charles) as the Allies. He professed his competence with America, so I took Russia and Britain, while the other players Kirk and his son Tristan played the Axis powers - Germany and Japan. It really became a battle between Kirk and I, because Charles did very little to help the allied cause. I kept carrying the water, holding the tough Germans and Japanese off, hoping that America would enter the fray quickly (heck my Aussie submariners - yes you read that right, Britain starts with a submarine in Australia now - took out the Japanese sub in the Solomons, and then sunk a fully loaded Japanese carrier with an instant death sneak attack the next round - Brilliant - the Brits did more to hamper the Japanese in the Pacific than the U.S.!) Charles did help in a couple of spots. But I tell you what, it was Britain that pulled out the victory, with almost no help, other than the Russo-German meatgrinder that was the Ukraine - Russian and Germany armies, tanks and planes went there to die, and die they did, by the hordes.....It kept the pressure off the U.K. though, and actually me to start open up a western front quite early in the game. ah...the good old days of battling out WWII on a board game. Man, I hadn't played that game in YEARS! Years I tell you, and I hadn't lost "it".
It doesn't seem like that long, but I guess I didn't post the past couple of days. How unusual.
So what's been going on? First things first, if you like board games or really immersive table-top games - go here and check out Boardgamegeek.com for pictures and review of just about everything you can think or remember from your youth, plus find listing of places to buy them or where to shop online. Its pretty cool. You don't have to register - I didn't - yet ;)
Not much real good happened this weekend - depressing things actually - I finally got my computer back after much time and expense and its still not fixed right.....I've put off the dreaded tech support phone call for a day and half now....its going to be painful folks...let me tell you. So, no Supreme Commander or Command and Conquer 3 just yet for you intrepid gaijin. DAMMIT! The old rig can't even dream of running such a game, but my Star Wars rig....with twin nVidia 512Mb GTX 7900s....OH....its rarin' to go....too bad the GD thing doesn't WORK....AUGH....I'll tell you what, Alienware has a very, VERY slim chance of retaining my future business.
I also had a chance to play the newest version of an old table-top classic Axis and Allies. Man, the basic game is the same, but they've really altered the Eastern Front between Germany and Russia. Wow....it really changes the changes the game. There's a lot of other subtle little changes as well. (Like the Sahara desert is impassable, which keeps the Germany AFRIKA Corps bottled up in North Africa, and there are more sea zones, making ship movement a bit slower in places. And a very welcome British naval presence in India and Australia) Well long story short, I went to the local game night, planning to play some Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition. But there was a new guy there and we talked for a bit and decided to try and get in two games...OOPS....the game went a little slow and we wound up just playing one - A&A. For those of you that don't know anything about the game feel free to skip this part: It was me and the game owner (Charles) as the Allies. He professed his competence with America, so I took Russia and Britain, while the other players Kirk and his son Tristan played the Axis powers - Germany and Japan. It really became a battle between Kirk and I, because Charles did very little to help the allied cause. I kept carrying the water, holding the tough Germans and Japanese off, hoping that America would enter the fray quickly (heck my Aussie submariners - yes you read that right, Britain starts with a submarine in Australia now - took out the Japanese sub in the Solomons, and then sunk a fully loaded Japanese carrier with an instant death sneak attack the next round - Brilliant - the Brits did more to hamper the Japanese in the Pacific than the U.S.!) Charles did help in a couple of spots. But I tell you what, it was Britain that pulled out the victory, with almost no help, other than the Russo-German meatgrinder that was the Ukraine - Russian and Germany armies, tanks and planes went there to die, and die they did, by the hordes.....It kept the pressure off the U.K. though, and actually me to start open up a western front quite early in the game. ah...the good old days of battling out WWII on a board game. Man, I hadn't played that game in YEARS! Years I tell you, and I hadn't lost "it".
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