I hate it when technology wears out!
Well, I'm more than mildly miffed at my dumb laptop computer!
Its a Dell Latitude CPxJ. I had Win2K running on it for about 8 months. Then suddenly, the dumb thing started blue screening on me. I was able to salvage most of my files, then tried a new fresh install (including reformatting the disk) - but to no avail. I next tried to install linux, but everytime I try to boot, the kernel panics! I'm afraid that it means either a hard disk failure or memory problem. It may even be on the motherboard.
Either way, I'm terribly unhappy about it, because now I need to spend $35 for a diagnostic test over at Discount Electronics that is only going to tell me to spend a lot of money to fix it.
On top of all this, my SMC Barricade router is beginning to get a little flakey. It continues to let the Lan work correctly, but it loses its connectivity to the internet, and has to have a warm reset done on it in order to regain connectivity. I hate it when technology wears out!
posted by The Cat @ 6:28 AM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
Maybe you'll be lucky and it will be just a bad memory stick... Is it still under warranty?
One of my two Linux servers is going south, too - I have mirrored IDE drives and am getting a disk controller failure on one of them. Fortunately a Fry's Electronics is opening up nearby - I am going to get another motherboard for cheap and simply transfer the CPU and memory... I think...
You might see if the router has any firmware upgrades available on SMC's website.
Good luck!
(Oops - forgot to sign the above post)
- Nat
Well, not as bad as it could've been. Turns out the board that is responsible for charging the battery was running excessively hot. They replaced it for $20 (plus the $35 diagnostic), and then told me the memory had a serious problem too (1-256MB stick). So I went ahead and replaced/upgraded the memory to 512MB (2-256MB sticks)($160). [grimace] I'm guessing that the charging board, that sits directly over the memory, baked the memory. [I thought it had started running hot a few months ago.] The moral to the story is, When a laptop starts running hot, FIX IT!
I threw Fedora Core onto the machine, and it is running well now - though TUX Racer still runs like a dog (though I have to admit Tux is moving faster than I have ever seen him move before). I'm running on a Latitude CPxJ(P3 - 750Mhz) I wonder whether it has something to do with video memory?
*grin* I doubt it's the video memory, more likely that X is not configured to support it well or something, but that's a SWAG. If you are running gnome, you might have a little icon inthe bottom right where you can adjust your resolution on the fly - if so, try 800x600 and see if the game is faster.
Good to hear it's running better! I've taken to running on AC power when I can, just because my lap gets too hot when running on battery. (Might not be a problem in winter...) On the other hand, I'm no longer safe from the two seconds power losses that we get every now and then...
- Nat
Clarification - running on AC power with the battery REMOVED...
- Nat
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