....but I got a DVD burner now!
Jan. 6th, 2006 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poltr1Other than the so-called Kentucky Fried Hard Drive that I can longer use via its USB port and can therefore no longer connect it to the laptop for backups (...grumble grumble...) it was a rather productive week, computer-wise. (I can get an identical case to replace it, but it would cost $50.)
The morning I woke up at 1:30 am was the same morning I installed a 16x DVD+/-RW burner at 4 am. The big advantage to hardware upgrades in the wee hours of the morning is that there's no one to disturb me. Except for the cats. Mercury likes to keep me company when I'm on the computer.
As for the 4x CD burner I replaced, I reinstalled it earlier today, taking out the DVD-R drive. So now I have a CD burner and a DVD burner. I still have a closetload of older CD-Rs that are rated for 4x or slower, and the DVD burner doesn't record at thost slow speeds.
And while I'm burning DVDs, I can work on cleaning the clutter in the loft area.
I also helped out at M's day care center, doing some computer troubleshooting on Tuesday and today. We're getting a slight break on M's tuition due to my volunteer work. Here are this week's cases.
* A PC in a student classroom which had no sound. Problem traced to faulty speakers; speaker wire will need to be resoldered. I forgot what else I had to do.
* A PC in another student classroom which had no sound. This has since been replaced, but the school owner would like to have this machine as a backup. Found an IRQ conflict, disabled a device, and manually configured the sound card. Speakers work. Will need to check BIOS settings to see if I need to enable sound there as well.
* A PC in another student classroom which emits a high-pitched tone soon after bootup. I can get to the BIOS, but soon after, the beep starts. It mentioned something about it being unable to initialize VKD.
I like playing with hardware, especially when I fix the problem. But when I don't fix the problem, I begin to start kicking myself internally.
My talent with PCs is why I'm thinking that I should consider chcking the software biz and becoming a PC technician and getting my A+ certification. Or maybe become self-employed and do it all -- software, hardware, network/system admin.
The morning I woke up at 1:30 am was the same morning I installed a 16x DVD+/-RW burner at 4 am. The big advantage to hardware upgrades in the wee hours of the morning is that there's no one to disturb me. Except for the cats. Mercury likes to keep me company when I'm on the computer.
As for the 4x CD burner I replaced, I reinstalled it earlier today, taking out the DVD-R drive. So now I have a CD burner and a DVD burner. I still have a closetload of older CD-Rs that are rated for 4x or slower, and the DVD burner doesn't record at thost slow speeds.
And while I'm burning DVDs, I can work on cleaning the clutter in the loft area.
I also helped out at M's day care center, doing some computer troubleshooting on Tuesday and today. We're getting a slight break on M's tuition due to my volunteer work. Here are this week's cases.
* A PC in a student classroom which had no sound. Problem traced to faulty speakers; speaker wire will need to be resoldered. I forgot what else I had to do.
* A PC in another student classroom which had no sound. This has since been replaced, but the school owner would like to have this machine as a backup. Found an IRQ conflict, disabled a device, and manually configured the sound card. Speakers work. Will need to check BIOS settings to see if I need to enable sound there as well.
* A PC in another student classroom which emits a high-pitched tone soon after bootup. I can get to the BIOS, but soon after, the beep starts. It mentioned something about it being unable to initialize VKD.
I like playing with hardware, especially when I fix the problem. But when I don't fix the problem, I begin to start kicking myself internally.
My talent with PCs is why I'm thinking that I should consider chcking the software biz and becoming a PC technician and getting my A+ certification. Or maybe become self-employed and do it all -- software, hardware, network/system admin.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-07 06:34 am (UTC)Sounds like a good plan to me.