Adventures in Computerland
Dec. 8th, 2004 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tcepsaSo last night I left the opportunity to play spades at happy hour to go home and try to get my new motherboard/CPU working.
My time probably would have been better spent if I had stayed and played cards instead of tangling with the beast.
As it turns out, my new setup has at least one, if not multiple issues. When this happens with a computer, it often results in a long and drawn out troubleshooting... adventure... due to the fact that traditional problem solving solutions don't work nearly as well. ("You see, you use different moves when you're fighting half a dozen people, then when you only have to worry about one.")
Right now, it's showing symptoms that could be based on two or three main things (of course, they are the two or three main parts of a computer, so it doesn't really narrow things down): memory, hard drive controller, or CPU. The errors aren't consistent; sometimes they seem to point to one, sometimes to another, but it always seems to boil down to basically the same possibilities:
Doesn't really narrow it down, does it ;) So I'm going to pick up a new stick of RAM on the way home (if it turns out that mine is fried I'll need it, and even if mine isn't fried it'll be nice to have ^_^) and then try putting the old motherboard back in and see whether my old system will still work. If it does, then I'll run memtest and scandisk on it. If those come back happy, then it's probably either the CPU or motherboard. Then I swap in the new CPU to the old motherboard. If that works, then it's probably the new motherboard. If I'm feeling like being really comprehensive, I might put everything back into the new motherboard, except I'll use the old CPU, just to make sure it still fails. Actually, then I probably start messing around with BIOS settings. If I'm still not able to make things work, then I get to deal with the hassle of trying to claim a warranty. Joy...
Actually, the funny part about all this is that (with the exception of trying to claim the warranty) I'm looking forward to it. I like the thought that I'll probably be spending four or more hours tonight working on it. Of course, it'll be nice that I'll be able to talk to people on AIM while I'm at it, or take a break now and then for a phone conversation, but for me doing this kind of thing is a form of entertainment in and of itself. I love doing the kind of problem solving that goes into figuring out why a computer isn't working or what's going on with the network. One of my dream jobs would probably be to have someone tell me "this isn't working, here's what we know, you need to find as much out about it as you can and do your best to fix it." Unfortunately, along with that there's usually the additional "oh-and-by-the-way we needed this fixed yesterday" which pretty much scuttles any enjoyment that I might have gotten from it because now I've been given an oxymoron to work on. "Learn as much as you can and fix it as quickly as you can" is a null program. In fact, "Fix it as quickly as you can" is by itself a null program (hehe, and now I'm sliding off on another tangent; feel free to skip the rest; this is a good stopping point before I really get carried away ;)
"Do X as quickly as you can," is one of the ultimate killjoys for me. I think that's one of the reasons I'm so frustrated with such a large chunk of our culture. One of the things that people seem obsessed about in our culture is speed. For example, as I was waiting for the bus this morning I saw it making its way towards the stop, then brake for a minute (I'm guessing that he was trying to sync up his schedule, but it doesn't really matter). While the bus was sitting there, another guy at the stop made the comment, "Come on! Any fuckin' time now..." What does it symbolize, when people get so upset about the fact that the bus paused before coming to the stop? What does it represent when people complain about a computer taking 20 seconds to open a file? You may laugh at the idea, but try sitting and counting twenty seconds without doing anything, pretending that you are waiting for a file to open, and see whether you don't get a little antsy by the time it's up. What drives people to repeatedly push crosswalk buttons or elevator call buttons or close door buttons, or to walk out in traffic because they don't want to wait for the light to change, and why is that traffic going so fast? It doesn't save that much time, and yet I find myself doing these things as well (or consciously resisting the urge to do them)! Anyway, back to my point, which was that if I'm doing something just to get it out of the way, it's a lot less enjoyable than if I'm doing something because I might learn something from it. Give me a book on a programming language and a week or two with nothing else to do but study that programming language (and possibly some loosely defined objectives for a few programs that need to be written in that programming language) and I will soak it up like a sponge. Tell me that you needed the programs to be finished by last week and that there is other stuff that you need me working on, and I'm paralyzed. Failure to do proper planning on your part does, apparently, constitute a crisis on my part--at least when you're my manager. ;) And from what I hear from people, that's the way it is "everywhere." This does not bode well for me as far as the idea of pursuing a career in computer programming :p Fortunately, not all hope is lost, for it seems that the idea of tinkering with stuff for the sole purpose of finding things out at whatever rate works best for you is still supported to some degree on certain campuses around the world.
Yes, I know. What this boils down to is me whining because what I want to do is play all the time--and maybe you'll write me off as just that, a lazy bum who isn't willing to pull his weight and do honest work, and that's fine by me. But if you could help me to understand the answer to this question, I'd really appreciate it: "What is so fundamentally wrong with desiring to play and have fun with everything I do?"
My time probably would have been better spent if I had stayed and played cards instead of tangling with the beast.
As it turns out, my new setup has at least one, if not multiple issues. When this happens with a computer, it often results in a long and drawn out troubleshooting... adventure... due to the fact that traditional problem solving solutions don't work nearly as well. ("You see, you use different moves when you're fighting half a dozen people, then when you only have to worry about one.")
Right now, it's showing symptoms that could be based on two or three main things (of course, they are the two or three main parts of a computer, so it doesn't really narrow things down): memory, hard drive controller, or CPU. The errors aren't consistent; sometimes they seem to point to one, sometimes to another, but it always seems to boil down to basically the same possibilities:
- Motherboard has bad HD controller
- Motherboard has bad memory slots
- Hard drives are both faulty
- All 4 sticks of RAM are bad (or have gotten partially fried) (according to memtest86)
- CPU is bad
- BIOS settings are incorrect
Doesn't really narrow it down, does it ;) So I'm going to pick up a new stick of RAM on the way home (if it turns out that mine is fried I'll need it, and even if mine isn't fried it'll be nice to have ^_^) and then try putting the old motherboard back in and see whether my old system will still work. If it does, then I'll run memtest and scandisk on it. If those come back happy, then it's probably either the CPU or motherboard. Then I swap in the new CPU to the old motherboard. If that works, then it's probably the new motherboard. If I'm feeling like being really comprehensive, I might put everything back into the new motherboard, except I'll use the old CPU, just to make sure it still fails. Actually, then I probably start messing around with BIOS settings. If I'm still not able to make things work, then I get to deal with the hassle of trying to claim a warranty. Joy...
Actually, the funny part about all this is that (with the exception of trying to claim the warranty) I'm looking forward to it. I like the thought that I'll probably be spending four or more hours tonight working on it. Of course, it'll be nice that I'll be able to talk to people on AIM while I'm at it, or take a break now and then for a phone conversation, but for me doing this kind of thing is a form of entertainment in and of itself. I love doing the kind of problem solving that goes into figuring out why a computer isn't working or what's going on with the network. One of my dream jobs would probably be to have someone tell me "this isn't working, here's what we know, you need to find as much out about it as you can and do your best to fix it." Unfortunately, along with that there's usually the additional "oh-and-by-the-way we needed this fixed yesterday" which pretty much scuttles any enjoyment that I might have gotten from it because now I've been given an oxymoron to work on. "Learn as much as you can and fix it as quickly as you can" is a null program. In fact, "Fix it as quickly as you can" is by itself a null program (hehe, and now I'm sliding off on another tangent; feel free to skip the rest; this is a good stopping point before I really get carried away ;)
"Do X as quickly as you can," is one of the ultimate killjoys for me. I think that's one of the reasons I'm so frustrated with such a large chunk of our culture. One of the things that people seem obsessed about in our culture is speed. For example, as I was waiting for the bus this morning I saw it making its way towards the stop, then brake for a minute (I'm guessing that he was trying to sync up his schedule, but it doesn't really matter). While the bus was sitting there, another guy at the stop made the comment, "Come on! Any fuckin' time now..." What does it symbolize, when people get so upset about the fact that the bus paused before coming to the stop? What does it represent when people complain about a computer taking 20 seconds to open a file? You may laugh at the idea, but try sitting and counting twenty seconds without doing anything, pretending that you are waiting for a file to open, and see whether you don't get a little antsy by the time it's up. What drives people to repeatedly push crosswalk buttons or elevator call buttons or close door buttons, or to walk out in traffic because they don't want to wait for the light to change, and why is that traffic going so fast? It doesn't save that much time, and yet I find myself doing these things as well (or consciously resisting the urge to do them)! Anyway, back to my point, which was that if I'm doing something just to get it out of the way, it's a lot less enjoyable than if I'm doing something because I might learn something from it. Give me a book on a programming language and a week or two with nothing else to do but study that programming language (and possibly some loosely defined objectives for a few programs that need to be written in that programming language) and I will soak it up like a sponge. Tell me that you needed the programs to be finished by last week and that there is other stuff that you need me working on, and I'm paralyzed. Failure to do proper planning on your part does, apparently, constitute a crisis on my part--at least when you're my manager. ;) And from what I hear from people, that's the way it is "everywhere." This does not bode well for me as far as the idea of pursuing a career in computer programming :p Fortunately, not all hope is lost, for it seems that the idea of tinkering with stuff for the sole purpose of finding things out at whatever rate works best for you is still supported to some degree on certain campuses around the world.
Yes, I know. What this boils down to is me whining because what I want to do is play all the time--and maybe you'll write me off as just that, a lazy bum who isn't willing to pull his weight and do honest work, and that's fine by me. But if you could help me to understand the answer to this question, I'd really appreciate it: "What is so fundamentally wrong with desiring to play and have fun with everything I do?"
Time
Date: 2004-12-08 01:21 pm (UTC)As someone who arrives at things 10 minutes early, this meant I was 20 minutes ahead of everyone! I was so frustrated and frenzied the first weeks I was there.
Then I mellowed out, went with the culture, had fun. It was much more welcoming. Work began around 9, an hour for lunch, tea time at 4. Work still got done, but everyone was a lot more comfortable about it.
Upon returning to the US, it was just as bad. I felt hectic and rushed everywhere. Everything had to get done, everyone drove faster and walked faster and talked faster. I suppose it's something of the feeling a country girl feels on her visit to the big city- but I grew up in the city!
I of course acclimated and am pretty much back to my 10 minutes early. But I'm glad to have had the experience, and sometimes I take a break and put myself back on "Ireland time."
We need to think of the life value we lose by speeding up everything else.
Liz