Topic: What are you doing right now?

[6pairsofshoes]

Drinking tea.  Trying to wake up.  I like my caffeinated beverages strong.  I steep this stuff overnight.

Some days there's not enough caffeine in the world...

[8ullfrog]

Cleaned the innards of the PC to the best of my ability, I've had a few system hangs.

It was pretty bad. I used up the compressed air on the fans, not realizing how low the can was.

I really like the fans on this machine, there's an intake, there's an exhaust, there's even a cradle over the ram. I've never much cared for Dell in any way, but this machine has held up amazingly well.

Used the shop vac to try and clean the board, but it wasn't too good for nooks and crannies. I always say I'm gonna buy an attachment for the thing, but never have.

Ended up using a long flathead to dig out some of the dust bunnies. I believe the cause of the system hangs was a lint traps worth of dust on the inside of the machine. I was kind of surprised how much of the poo congregates around the board points where the interface panel is.

Once I was done, I slapped everything back together, and booted up.

Had two system hangs in 20 minutes. Was very upset.

But the machines been running fine after those two hangs, might have been a fluke. Really hoping it was a fluke.

But hey, if you haven't cleaned your machine lately, I highly recommend it.

[smokester]

The only time I ever see my son with a hoover is when he's cleaning his tech. One day he'll extend to the carpet.

[8ullfrog]

I'm gonna shut down for the night, but one of those bless'ed sneaky windows updates got in. I know because the shut down icon has that unholy bless'ed yellow orb next to it.

I mention it because past windows updates have messed this PC up pretty bad, I remember once having to wait six months for Microsoft to unfuck a "feature update" and even then I had to do a clean install to unbrick the thing.

One can always hope this update will streamline booting and increase performance... Nah, I can't be that wildly optimistic.

So if this update naffs me, I'll see you all around.

[dweez]

I had an update on the new laptop take several hours to actually finish installing and rebooting. Good luck, 8ully.

[6pairsofshoes]

Studying for an exam and doing laundry.  Keeping busy is helpful.

[8ullfrog]

The machine lives!

I notice absolutely no difference.

Crap, I've been bamboozled, it's downloading five more updates now. Turns out I'm on an old version 1903, and it wants 1909.

[goldshirt*9]

Windows 10 is one OS I just cannot get my heat around for some reason, if wasnt for the wife's Apple products I would go fully Linux.After buying a new desktop that is

[8ullfrog]

Well, I'm finally on 1909.

At one point the damn spinning wheel actually rolled back from 60 to 57%

It took about four hours just to download the update. The first try it just... vanished at 90%. Yeah.

I watched a David Cross special on my phone the second time and watched the disk access in task manager to make sure it wasn't just lying.

I've got a NEEEEEEEEEEW problem.

My keyboard and mouse are only initializing once windows boots. If I need to get into my BIOS I'm effing screwed. I wonder where I put my USB to MiniDin connector... back around 2011. I know it was 2011 because the THOR movie was on the display TV's at fry's when I bought it.

One thing I like about Linux, is even when poo goes wrong, you can actually see what it's doing. No bless'ed hoola hoop or percentages of LIES.

At least performance doesn't appear to be impacted, performance is still fairly zippy.

[dweez]

Do you have a powered keyboard? I've had similar (though not often) issues in the past and plugging in a no-frills, basic keyboard always got me functionality.

I would love to switch over to Linux fully but I like PC gaming and last I checked, Linux still wasn't fully viable for this (though it has come a long way). Also, for my new laptop (Razer), the Synapse software is only supported on Windows and OS X. Definitely not a showstopper for moving to Linux but this, with the "still in progress" gaming status, are cons against switching over.

[8ullfrog]

Razer USB black widow 2011.

Turns out the adapter I bought is the opposite of what I need (D'oh!)

Also, Microsoft just released a 2004 ISO, so all that updating was pointless.

Well, not pointless I guess, but certainly futile.

I tracked down the OTHER adapter I had, was back when USB mice were first being sold, Female USB to Mini-D
KEYBOARD FAILURE
realized I followed the color coding and had plugged the keyboard into the mouse port.
Flipped it over, rebooted
KEYBOARD FAILURE
Guess the keyboard doesn't get along with the adapter, I have read that Razer products can be fussy.
So I unplugged everything BUT the keyboard and display. I also switched to what I consider "USB port 1" but I'm sure that's wrong.
Got into BIOS! Yay! All that digging was for nothing, but I'm up some lighter flints, a CR2032 battery, many USB cables, and I managed to properly disable the Dell SAS poo.

So now - Windows boots. Little faster than before this line of adventure started, nothing impressive. I have BIOS access. Keyboard is responding normally, no "keystick" no phantom failures. Mouse is operating properly, Wifi adapter never gave me any problems.

Considering I started with a non booting machine, I'd say the results are pretty good!

Still rather it just work normally every time I hit the power button. But even the SNES had occasional issues.

[smokester]

I'm currently having my birthday.

So far so good; got 2 bottles of brandy and some West Ham face masks.

Shweet!

[dweez]

Happy birthday, smokester! Sounds like you're ready for a great time!

[smokester]

Many thanks old chum. I'll print it and put it with the rest.

Happy birthday, smokester! Sounds like you're ready for a great time!

I am as we've just bought enough Indian food to feed the 5000 and I forgot to mention that one of those bottles of Brandy was from 1964. That was some year.

[6pairsofshoes]

Happy birthday, smokes!