Blog: Entries Tagged With 'computers'
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New Motherboard - Friday, October 5, 2018
Lately I've been having stability issues with my desktop computer, ranging from freezes to blue screens, to USB storage devices not connecting properly. Reformatting didn't solve the problem, and the RAM tested as error-free. The power supply tested fine, though I didn't test it under load. I suspected the problem to be with the motherboard but didn't have a reliable way to test it, so I decided to just opt for replacing the motherboard. This would allow me to keep the rest of my components since, although they're five years old, they've been sufficient for my computing needs.
Because I have an Intel CPU, my motherboard socket type (LGA 1155) was fairly out of date, so my options were pretty thin. But I found a Chinese wholesaler on eBay selling used Gigabyte Z77 motherboards for $74, guaranteed to be "100% working," which seemed like a good deal. The motherboard came quickly and sure enough worked perfectly and solved all my stability issues.
The one annoying thing was that the BIOS was initially in Chinese, and I had to hunt around to find the setting to change it to English. Even after that, a couple words are still in Chinese, but it's not a big deal.
I have the OEM version of Windows 7, which I read on multiple forums is tied to one motherboard and won't allow reactivation when switching it out. But I had no problems reactivating and didn't have to call Microsoft support. YMMV, I guess.
Because I have an Intel CPU, my motherboard socket type (LGA 1155) was fairly out of date, so my options were pretty thin. But I found a Chinese wholesaler on eBay selling used Gigabyte Z77 motherboards for $74, guaranteed to be "100% working," which seemed like a good deal. The motherboard came quickly and sure enough worked perfectly and solved all my stability issues.
The one annoying thing was that the BIOS was initially in Chinese, and I had to hunt around to find the setting to change it to English. Even after that, a couple words are still in Chinese, but it's not a big deal.
I have the OEM version of Windows 7, which I read on multiple forums is tied to one motherboard and won't allow reactivation when switching it out. But I had no problems reactivating and didn't have to call Microsoft support. YMMV, I guess.
Tags: computers
New Computer, Games and Ingress - Thursday, November 28, 2013
I realized I'd never written about the computer I built last year. In late August and early September, I began amassing components when they were on sale. I got the following from Newegg:
I assembled the computer in September, and I was running with an old, cheap GeForce card until December, when I scored a sweet deal on a GeForce GTX 650 Ti from Amazon.
Since then, I've played through several games: Torchlight II, Portal, Portal 2, and Faster Than Light. None of those games are extremely graphics intensive, so my rig can run them at max settings.
Two months ago, Alex from church introduced me to a mobile augmented reality game called Ingress, made by a startup within Google. Ingress is a cross between capture the flag and Foursquare, fought between two factions: the Enlighted (green) and the Resistance (blue). Exotic Matter, or XM, is a new type of energy discovered that emanates from portals in the game which are located at landmarks such as public art, fountains, post offices, churches and historical buildings in the real world. The two factions are embroiled in an ongoing fight for control of these portals in order to achieve global dominance.
Portals can be interacted with only by being at their location in the real world, hence the challenge. And since the game does not always work well when commuting by automobile (there seems to be a 25% chance of requests failing at normal road speeds, and nothing works at freeway speeds), the preferred methods of commute are biking and walking. Through this gamification, Google gets a ton of user-submitted data about landmarks, and pedestrian mapping data for areas inaccessible by car. Once again, Google proves its brilliance.
The gameplay is simple: "hack" portals to acquire items like resonators and bursters, destroy enemy portals using bursters, and build friendly portals using resonators. Hacking a portal has the chance of yielding a portal key, which is used to create energy links between portals. Linking three portals creates a control field, which yields a number of mind units calculated based on the size of the field and the real-life population density within. The real-time total mind unit counts for each faction is shown in the game client and on the Ingress Intel webpage, and maximizing one's faction's mind unit count is seen by some as the ultimate goal of the game. Some people come up with impressive operations to create links thousands of kilometers long and fields of millions of mind units, which is especially a challenge because no two links can cross. Huge fields have been created covering all of the Bay Area, all of the west coast, a good portion of the continental U.S., and New Zealand, to name a few.
So back to my own Ingress-ventures. Alex plays Enlightened, but I found that my beliefs aligned more with the Resistance, people distrustful of XM and their alleged source, the Shapers, so I joined the blues to Alex's good-humored chagrin. I quickly joined the South Bay Area Resistance Google+ group and have met two Resistance agents in person while out playing the game; I also found out that a co-worker at Pure is also a blue player. I was hooked nearly instantly, and achieved Level 8, the highest level possible, in seven weeks.
Since reaching this personal end goal, I haven't been playing as much. I'll still run the client when in a car (or have Priscilla do it when I'm driving) to drive-by hack portals, but I don't go out as much as before to play. The game is a bit pointless entertainment, but it's something fun that can be enjoyed responsibly. It's made me exercise more- the game says I've walked 210km, and that's not including distance covered by bike. Plus I've gotten to know where many landmarks are in my area, which can't be a bad thing!
- Intel Core i5 3570K processor, 3.4GHz
- ASRock Z77 Pro3 motherboard
- Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB DDR3-1600 RAM
- Corsair TX650 650W power supply
- Antec DF-35 black case
- LG DVD burner
- Windows 7 Home Premium
I assembled the computer in September, and I was running with an old, cheap GeForce card until December, when I scored a sweet deal on a GeForce GTX 650 Ti from Amazon.
Since then, I've played through several games: Torchlight II, Portal, Portal 2, and Faster Than Light. None of those games are extremely graphics intensive, so my rig can run them at max settings.
Two months ago, Alex from church introduced me to a mobile augmented reality game called Ingress, made by a startup within Google. Ingress is a cross between capture the flag and Foursquare, fought between two factions: the Enlighted (green) and the Resistance (blue). Exotic Matter, or XM, is a new type of energy discovered that emanates from portals in the game which are located at landmarks such as public art, fountains, post offices, churches and historical buildings in the real world. The two factions are embroiled in an ongoing fight for control of these portals in order to achieve global dominance.
Portals can be interacted with only by being at their location in the real world, hence the challenge. And since the game does not always work well when commuting by automobile (there seems to be a 25% chance of requests failing at normal road speeds, and nothing works at freeway speeds), the preferred methods of commute are biking and walking. Through this gamification, Google gets a ton of user-submitted data about landmarks, and pedestrian mapping data for areas inaccessible by car. Once again, Google proves its brilliance.
The gameplay is simple: "hack" portals to acquire items like resonators and bursters, destroy enemy portals using bursters, and build friendly portals using resonators. Hacking a portal has the chance of yielding a portal key, which is used to create energy links between portals. Linking three portals creates a control field, which yields a number of mind units calculated based on the size of the field and the real-life population density within. The real-time total mind unit counts for each faction is shown in the game client and on the Ingress Intel webpage, and maximizing one's faction's mind unit count is seen by some as the ultimate goal of the game. Some people come up with impressive operations to create links thousands of kilometers long and fields of millions of mind units, which is especially a challenge because no two links can cross. Huge fields have been created covering all of the Bay Area, all of the west coast, a good portion of the continental U.S., and New Zealand, to name a few.
So back to my own Ingress-ventures. Alex plays Enlightened, but I found that my beliefs aligned more with the Resistance, people distrustful of XM and their alleged source, the Shapers, so I joined the blues to Alex's good-humored chagrin. I quickly joined the South Bay Area Resistance Google+ group and have met two Resistance agents in person while out playing the game; I also found out that a co-worker at Pure is also a blue player. I was hooked nearly instantly, and achieved Level 8, the highest level possible, in seven weeks.
Since reaching this personal end goal, I haven't been playing as much. I'll still run the client when in a car (or have Priscilla do it when I'm driving) to drive-by hack portals, but I don't go out as much as before to play. The game is a bit pointless entertainment, but it's something fun that can be enjoyed responsibly. It's made me exercise more- the game says I've walked 210km, and that's not including distance covered by bike. Plus I've gotten to know where many landmarks are in my area, which can't be a bad thing!
Fixing My Monitors - Wednesday, November 27, 2013
I took the day off from work to run errands, among which were getting my car smogged and replacing the blown capacitors on my second monitor. I even wrote a guide about it (repairing the monitor, that is).
A month ago, my first monitor went bad due to faulty caps. I picked up a soldering iron from Home Depot and solder tip cleaner and solder wick from Radio Shack. I bought a replacement capacitor kit from eBay for about $14.
Opening the monitor and getting to the power supply board was easy enough; desoldering the caps was another story. The iron tip initially didn't get hot enough to melt the solder but instead oxidized. Nothing that the tip cleaner couldn't fix, though.
I then read that people with similar problems with desoldering pointed out that the board acts as a heatsink, drawing heat away from the solder. Heating the board with even a hair dryer can help reduce the heat differential and allow more heat to be concentrated on the solder. This technique worked well enough, and with enough persistence I was able to desolder all the old caps. Soldering all the new caps went pretty well, especially given that it was my first time soldering.
This time around, when my second monitor died for the same reason, I repeated the process and it expectedly went smoother than the first time. One blast with the hairdryer and all the caps were able to be desoldered with ease. So now both of my monitors have new caps that hopefully are immune from the capacitor plague. Sure, one of my monitors has recently developed a green line running vertically down the screen, but I expect my monitors to last me a long time. I never knew that soldering could be so fun!
A month ago, my first monitor went bad due to faulty caps. I picked up a soldering iron from Home Depot and solder tip cleaner and solder wick from Radio Shack. I bought a replacement capacitor kit from eBay for about $14.
Opening the monitor and getting to the power supply board was easy enough; desoldering the caps was another story. The iron tip initially didn't get hot enough to melt the solder but instead oxidized. Nothing that the tip cleaner couldn't fix, though.
I then read that people with similar problems with desoldering pointed out that the board acts as a heatsink, drawing heat away from the solder. Heating the board with even a hair dryer can help reduce the heat differential and allow more heat to be concentrated on the solder. This technique worked well enough, and with enough persistence I was able to desolder all the old caps. Soldering all the new caps went pretty well, especially given that it was my first time soldering.
This time around, when my second monitor died for the same reason, I repeated the process and it expectedly went smoother than the first time. One blast with the hairdryer and all the caps were able to be desoldered with ease. So now both of my monitors have new caps that hopefully are immune from the capacitor plague. Sure, one of my monitors has recently developed a green line running vertically down the screen, but I expect my monitors to last me a long time. I never knew that soldering could be so fun!
Tags: computers
Weekend of Work - Monday, October 17, 2011
My friend Andrea is "funemployed," so she decided spur of the moment to drive down to LA to visit her long distance significant other and offered me a ride. How could I refuse? We drove down at 7:30 Saturday morning and she dropped me off at Priscilla's house just in time for lunch. Priscilla made curry chicken, salad and pork chops for me and her parents. I'm glad that she likes to cook for me!
Sunday night my parents cooked a feast like they always do when I come down. There was salmon, chicken stew, chicken broth that was way better than anything that comes out of a can, green beans and honey bbq chicken. Needless to say, I was given a lot of food to take back with me. I'm glad that my parents also like to cook for me! ;)
This weekend I helped Priscilla's dad reconfigure the router, since he reset it trying to do something, and reinstall XP on one of his computers. I helped Priscilla reconfigure her microphone in Ubuntu, and I helped my dad with making an XP slipstream CD and reinstall it on a computer that died. For some reason things that stop working for people start magically working again when I try them.
Priscilla and I got in lots of study/work time. She needed to get caught up with her online accounting class, and I needed to wrap up loose ends at work and write a "letter to my 30-year old self," a "fun" project that was a year overdue. Nothing too exciting this weekend, but it was productive.
The drive back to the Bay Area on Monday was mostly uneventful, except for dangerous debris on the freeway leading up to the Grapevine. We narrowly avoided a cinder block in the middle of our lane, and I also saw wood boards and a couch cushion in the road. It's a good thing we were driving during the day when there was visibility. I hope that stuff got cleared off soon. Apparently situations like these can be reported to Caltrans via this form, or by calling (213)897-3656 according to this page.
Sunday night my parents cooked a feast like they always do when I come down. There was salmon, chicken stew, chicken broth that was way better than anything that comes out of a can, green beans and honey bbq chicken. Needless to say, I was given a lot of food to take back with me. I'm glad that my parents also like to cook for me! ;)
This weekend I helped Priscilla's dad reconfigure the router, since he reset it trying to do something, and reinstall XP on one of his computers. I helped Priscilla reconfigure her microphone in Ubuntu, and I helped my dad with making an XP slipstream CD and reinstall it on a computer that died. For some reason things that stop working for people start magically working again when I try them.
Priscilla and I got in lots of study/work time. She needed to get caught up with her online accounting class, and I needed to wrap up loose ends at work and write a "letter to my 30-year old self," a "fun" project that was a year overdue. Nothing too exciting this weekend, but it was productive.
The drive back to the Bay Area on Monday was mostly uneventful, except for dangerous debris on the freeway leading up to the Grapevine. We narrowly avoided a cinder block in the middle of our lane, and I also saw wood boards and a couch cushion in the road. It's a good thing we were driving during the day when there was visibility. I hope that stuff got cleared off soon. Apparently situations like these can be reported to Caltrans via this form, or by calling (213)897-3656 according to this page.
More Time in LA - Tuesday, May 31, 2011
This month might have the record for the most days I've spent visiting LA. I was down there at the beginning of this month, and again from last Thursday till today. It was Priscilla's birthday recently and Memorial Day yesterday, so I figured I'd take a couple days off work to enjoy a (relatively) long vacation.
Priscilla's been needing a new computer since her laptop has been acting up, so one of the things I did was build a new computer with parts I had shipped to her house. I built her a mini-tower with an Athlon II X2 250, 4 GB DDR3 RAM, 500 GB hard drive, and Ubuntu 11.04- basically more than enough computing power for her Youtube/email needs. She seems to be happy with it.
For exercise, we went hiking at Lake Balboa, where I was sad to find that the peddleboats from my youth were no longer there. We hiked all the way to the Sepulveda Dam and even found, when venturing off the beaten path, an arbor, bench and cot somebody had skillfully fashioned out of tree branches and twine. On a different day we went hiking on one of the trails in the hills around my house, and saw a large number of rabbits.
Sunday we had lunch with a bunch of CCAC friends at King's Burger, where we also played Monopoly Deal. And speaking of food, my parents made no shortage of it during the time I was down there. I had BBQ ribs and chicken, salmon, ceviche, corn soup, spinach, mashed potatoes, meatloaf... and they packed me a ton of food to bring back with me!
Since I drove my car down this time, my dad took a look at it and found what looked like the cause of my coolant leaks- a loose hose. He tightened the clamp, and so far so good.
I love my family.
Priscilla's been needing a new computer since her laptop has been acting up, so one of the things I did was build a new computer with parts I had shipped to her house. I built her a mini-tower with an Athlon II X2 250, 4 GB DDR3 RAM, 500 GB hard drive, and Ubuntu 11.04- basically more than enough computing power for her Youtube/email needs. She seems to be happy with it.
For exercise, we went hiking at Lake Balboa, where I was sad to find that the peddleboats from my youth were no longer there. We hiked all the way to the Sepulveda Dam and even found, when venturing off the beaten path, an arbor, bench and cot somebody had skillfully fashioned out of tree branches and twine. On a different day we went hiking on one of the trails in the hills around my house, and saw a large number of rabbits.
Sunday we had lunch with a bunch of CCAC friends at King's Burger, where we also played Monopoly Deal. And speaking of food, my parents made no shortage of it during the time I was down there. I had BBQ ribs and chicken, salmon, ceviche, corn soup, spinach, mashed potatoes, meatloaf... and they packed me a ton of food to bring back with me!
Since I drove my car down this time, my dad took a look at it and found what looked like the cause of my coolant leaks- a loose hose. He tightened the clamp, and so far so good.
I love my family.
New Monitor - Tuesday, March 30, 2010
I finally got a new Hanns-G 19-inch LCD monitor to pair up with the sole one I have at home. I made it a point to find the same make and model as the one I had so that I would have two exactly matching monitors. The fact that my monitor is four years old made that slightly more difficult (e.g. it's no longer sold by any retailer), but I found one used for $80 and the seller lives a dozen houses away from me. Craigslist is awesome. As are dual matching monitors.
Tags: computers
Mac Training - Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Today at work we had a guy come from Apple to give us a two-hour crash course on Mac OS X. I thought it was pretty informative since I'm a total Mac newbie. Some cool things he talked about were:
- Normal, administrator, and root accounts. How root is disabled by default and how to enable it if needed.
- File structure for the system and for individual users.
- Using FileVault to create an encrypted disk image. Hard drive free space quirks about disk images.
- Configuring ethernet, Airport, VPN, bluetooth, etc. settings and how to assign preferences for which device to communicate over.
- Installing IP printers.
- The differences between Parallels and Boot Camp. Demonstration of Parallels to run Windows XP.
- And I got a free Apple keychain!
My Video Card Exploded - Monday, September 10, 2007
Literally.
I have an EVGA GeForce 6600 LE, and it turned out to be one of the many pieces of hardware that was impacted by the shameful Capacitor Plague. So last week, as I was tranquilly surfing the web, I heard a loud pop come from inside my computer. This had occurred once before, with no visible effects, and things were still running normally, so I didn't make much of it until the next day when I couldn't even boot into Windows without the whole system crashing. Interestingly, I could boot into and use Linux just fine- I guess it has lower graphics requirements. An inspection of the insides of my computer revealed that three of the large capacitors on my graphics card had blown through their tops. How fun.
Fortunately the card had a lifetime warranty, and getting it RMA'd was a snap. EVGA customer support was very responsive and they shipped a replacement back to me within a couple days of receiving the defective card, and now my computer is running good as new. The capacitors on the new card look like they're a different brand, so hopefully they're not faulty as well. I guess we'll find out in about a year's time. ;)
I have an EVGA GeForce 6600 LE, and it turned out to be one of the many pieces of hardware that was impacted by the shameful Capacitor Plague. So last week, as I was tranquilly surfing the web, I heard a loud pop come from inside my computer. This had occurred once before, with no visible effects, and things were still running normally, so I didn't make much of it until the next day when I couldn't even boot into Windows without the whole system crashing. Interestingly, I could boot into and use Linux just fine- I guess it has lower graphics requirements. An inspection of the insides of my computer revealed that three of the large capacitors on my graphics card had blown through their tops. How fun.
Fortunately the card had a lifetime warranty, and getting it RMA'd was a snap. EVGA customer support was very responsive and they shipped a replacement back to me within a couple days of receiving the defective card, and now my computer is running good as new. The capacitors on the new card look like they're a different brand, so hopefully they're not faulty as well. I guess we'll find out in about a year's time. ;)
Tags: computers
Building a Computer - Saturday, June 9, 2007
Priscilla's parents have been in need of a better computer for a while, and since I'm supposedly in the know, they recruiting me to build one. I got to pick the parts and they're going to reimburse me. I ordered pretty good components based on the massive amount of video editing that they do. The specs are as follows:
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 processor, 2.4GHz
- 2x 1GB Kingston DDR2-800 RAM
- EVGA GeForce 7100GS (midrange graphics card, since they don't need a good one for games)
- MSI P6N Platinum motherboard
- 320GB Seagate SATA hard drive, perpendicular recording
- 2x Pioneer DVD/CD writer
- Antec Sonata II quiet case
- Hanns-G 199D 19" LCD monitor
Dell Sweepstakes - Sunday, July 30, 2006
Dell is having a 1-month promotional and giving away 12 notebooks a day. You can play once a day for an instant chance to win one.
Tags: computers
Laptop Auction Over - Saturday, February 25, 2006
The auction for my broken laptop has come to an end. I made just over $350 including shipping, which is not as much as I had hoped for, but I'm not complaining.
On another note, I am convinced that mine is the most detailed listing to ever be placed on eBay. Ever.
On another note, I am convinced that mine is the most detailed listing to ever be placed on eBay. Ever.
Tags: computers
Pawning My Laptop - Thursday, February 9, 2006
I've decided against replacing the burnt motherboard on my laptop. Not only would I be spending an additional $250 on a computer that has a history of cooling problems, amongst other things, but other components such as the processor and RAM might've be damaged and fail eventually. By the time I really need a laptop, there will be better things on the market at cheaper prices. So I'm going to sell my laptop for parts on eBay, which should actually be able to fetch a decent sum of money.
Yes, people do buy broken laptops! Some Dell model that was slightly better than mine sold for about $500 including S&H, and a model that was slightly worse also fetched a pretty penny at $400. That's more than a third of their original retail prices. Not bad for a broken laptop.
After this I'll finally be able to buy that extra RAM that I want. :D
Yes, people do buy broken laptops! Some Dell model that was slightly better than mine sold for about $500 including S&H, and a model that was slightly worse also fetched a pretty penny at $400. That's more than a third of their original retail prices. Not bad for a broken laptop.
After this I'll finally be able to buy that extra RAM that I want. :D
Tags: computers
New Computer, New Year - Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Sorry for the paucity of updates. Two weeks ago I killed my laptop messing around with the internal hardware. Due to the holiday season, it was hard to find a repair shop, and the one I settled on took a while to determine that the motherboard was burnt out. I found out it would cost $500 for me to get a new board, so I decided to build a desktop instead.
Fortunately we already had most of the parts at home and I went to Fry's to get the remaining parts for $400. Here's what my new system looks like for the interested:
2 GHz AMD Athlon64 3200+
512 MB DDR RAM (I want to upgrade to 1 GB)
80 GB Western Digital HDD, 7200 RPM
256 MB GeForce 6600 LE (PCI Express)
I worked at Toys 'R Us for 3 weeks doing mostly cashiering. It was pretty boring (and tiring) standing around the whole day. The week before Christmas was insane, and they had me working 10 hours a day for 5 days. But at least I now have a job to put down on my resume, and I made $500, which I unfortunately used most of building that computer.
Man, these entries keep accumulating on the front page because I'm too lazy to archive them since I was planning to revamp my site. I can't believe it's already been half a year since I decided to do that. I was planning to get it done this winter but the sudden lack of a computer made it difficult. Hopefully I'll find some time in between the stuff I have to do at school.
Speaking of which, classes are extremely soporific.
Fortunately we already had most of the parts at home and I went to Fry's to get the remaining parts for $400. Here's what my new system looks like for the interested:
2 GHz AMD Athlon64 3200+
512 MB DDR RAM (I want to upgrade to 1 GB)
80 GB Western Digital HDD, 7200 RPM
256 MB GeForce 6600 LE (PCI Express)
I worked at Toys 'R Us for 3 weeks doing mostly cashiering. It was pretty boring (and tiring) standing around the whole day. The week before Christmas was insane, and they had me working 10 hours a day for 5 days. But at least I now have a job to put down on my resume, and I made $500, which I unfortunately used most of building that computer.
Man, these entries keep accumulating on the front page because I'm too lazy to archive them since I was planning to revamp my site. I can't believe it's already been half a year since I decided to do that. I was planning to get it done this winter but the sudden lack of a computer made it difficult. Hopefully I'll find some time in between the stuff I have to do at school.
Speaking of which, classes are extremely soporific.
Computer Hell - Sunday, November 14, 2004
Friday, Saturday, and today were computer hell, with an uplifting heavenly ending that made it all worth it. On Friday, I decided that going down to the Linux lab everytime I wanted to work on my computer project was too inconvenient, so I set out to install Linux on my own computer. The brand of Linux we use in the lab is Fedora, so I went to the Fedora website and began downloading the four 650 megabyte install files for Fedora Core 3. File 1 turned out to be corrupt because the data transfer screwed up somewhere, but I thought I'd try File 2. File 2 was ok, but File 3 after was corrupt. I tried downloading File 1 again, but the transfer messed up again. I tried File 4, and it was good. So back to File 1. Corrupt. I left Files 1 and 3 downloading overnight. File 3 finished and was corrupt, and File 1 halted halfway.
Then I remember that we are supposed to use Fedora Core 2, not Fedora Core 3. I had to find a mirror site that hosted Core 2. I had to search for a while, because most either didn't let me connect or were too slow. This time I used GetRight to manage the downloads; I wasn't taking any more chances with faulty transfers. The internet DID cut out every half an hour or so, but thankfully everything worked (GetRight rocks!), and I got all four Fedora Core 2 install files. By then it was Saturday.
So Saturday I mainly made backups of all important files in Windows. I don't have a DVD burner, so I burned to CD-RW's, which unfortunately hold only 650 megabytes and have a max write speed of 4x. This took nine CD-RW's altogether (my fault for having 4 gigs of music), each at a veeeeery slow burn rate. After this, I burned the four Fedora files to CD-R's, which thankfully can burn up to 24x on my machine.
Now came the intricate part. I had to decrease the size of my Windows partition and create a new partition to put Linux on. First I defragged a couple times to move all the data to the beginning of the partition. Then I searched on the net for a while and found this great program that lets you manually adjust where partitions begin and end. Unfortunately, my Windows partition used a filesystem that was not supported. I downloaded a later version of that program, same problem. I tried using the partition resize tool available on the Fedora CD, but it too did not support my filesystem. A search on download.com yielded a program that could do everything you could ever do to a partition, and more. But it didn't work for Windows XP. Finally, perhaps as a God-send, I found a nifty program that did the trick. It worked beautifully, and Windows suddenly found itself robbed of 9 gigs.
At last I could install Fedora. This process was remarkably easy, and the installation took only 15 minutes. I'm glad it did, because I would've found the nearest bridge and jumped off had I had any more difficulties. Most of the configuration was stuff like choosing language, setting the time, and picking what programs to install. The hardest thing I had to do was specify how big each of Fedora's sub-partitions should be- not hard at all. In no time I was flying through Fedora on ecstatic wings, singing along happily to a music CD playing in the CD drive, rejoicing that my quest was over and that everything worked splendidly.
And then my harddrive died.
...........Just kidding about that last part.
Then I remember that we are supposed to use Fedora Core 2, not Fedora Core 3. I had to find a mirror site that hosted Core 2. I had to search for a while, because most either didn't let me connect or were too slow. This time I used GetRight to manage the downloads; I wasn't taking any more chances with faulty transfers. The internet DID cut out every half an hour or so, but thankfully everything worked (GetRight rocks!), and I got all four Fedora Core 2 install files. By then it was Saturday.
So Saturday I mainly made backups of all important files in Windows. I don't have a DVD burner, so I burned to CD-RW's, which unfortunately hold only 650 megabytes and have a max write speed of 4x. This took nine CD-RW's altogether (my fault for having 4 gigs of music), each at a veeeeery slow burn rate. After this, I burned the four Fedora files to CD-R's, which thankfully can burn up to 24x on my machine.
Now came the intricate part. I had to decrease the size of my Windows partition and create a new partition to put Linux on. First I defragged a couple times to move all the data to the beginning of the partition. Then I searched on the net for a while and found this great program that lets you manually adjust where partitions begin and end. Unfortunately, my Windows partition used a filesystem that was not supported. I downloaded a later version of that program, same problem. I tried using the partition resize tool available on the Fedora CD, but it too did not support my filesystem. A search on download.com yielded a program that could do everything you could ever do to a partition, and more. But it didn't work for Windows XP. Finally, perhaps as a God-send, I found a nifty program that did the trick. It worked beautifully, and Windows suddenly found itself robbed of 9 gigs.
At last I could install Fedora. This process was remarkably easy, and the installation took only 15 minutes. I'm glad it did, because I would've found the nearest bridge and jumped off had I had any more difficulties. Most of the configuration was stuff like choosing language, setting the time, and picking what programs to install. The hardest thing I had to do was specify how big each of Fedora's sub-partitions should be- not hard at all. In no time I was flying through Fedora on ecstatic wings, singing along happily to a music CD playing in the CD drive, rejoicing that my quest was over and that everything worked splendidly.
And then my harddrive died.
...........Just kidding about that last part.
De-Cluttered My Computer - Friday, November 12, 2004
At Raymond's prompting, I did major cleanup on my computer and freed like 5 gigs. Man, do I feel freeeeee! I deleted a few movies after burning them to CD's. I uninstalled programs that I don't use, such as Microsoft Money and Paint Shop Pro (I have the install files on CD anyway, if I ever change my mind). I deleted MSDN, a programmer's reference manual that I never use, which took up 1.9 gigs! I also re-installed my C++ editor with only the necessary features.
I also changed settings in some programs to make them not automatically check for updates and not load unnecessary features. Finally, I uninstalled AIM. GAIM is 9435276232 times better!
I also changed settings in some programs to make them not automatically check for updates and not load unnecessary features. Finally, I uninstalled AIM. GAIM is 9435276232 times better!
Tags: computers
Laptop Repaired - Thursday, April 8, 2004
My mom took the bus in the morning and brought back my fixed laptop. Thanks mom!
Dell replaced the fan and the processor, and now the computer runs without a hitch once again. =)
Dell replaced the fan and the processor, and now the computer runs without a hitch once again. =)
Sluggish System - Monday, March 8, 2004
My laptop recently has been getting spontaneously choppy when I try to do stuff. I thought it was because I downloaded so much stuff, so I defragmented the drive twice. Still the problem persisted so...
I got a shareware registry cleaner from CNet, and it found almost 1000 invalid registry keys! But since it's shareware, it removes only 5 keys per scan, so I'm currently mired in the tedious process of Scan, Delete, Scan, Delete, Scan, Delete...
I got a shareware registry cleaner from CNet, and it found almost 1000 invalid registry keys! But since it's shareware, it removes only 5 keys per scan, so I'm currently mired in the tedious process of Scan, Delete, Scan, Delete, Scan, Delete...
Tags: computers
New Laptop Ordered - Thursday, October 23, 2003
My grandfather (on my mom's side), brother, and parents all came to visit this morning, since my brother had a medical checkup at the UCLA medical center. My dad and I finally picked out a Dell Inspiron 5100 online that we thought was good. Although it wasn't the best priced we've ever seen for the specs it had, the price was decent and the cheapest we've seen recently. We got it from the Small Business section of the Dell website, because prices there tend to be cheaper than in the Home and Home Office section. Of course, we had to provide a fake business name... =0