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Thread: Words of advice about computers

  1. #1
    Senior Member JTHunter's Avatar

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    Words of advice about computers

    Ladies & Gents: learn from my experiences and be happier for it!

    Two months ago (2/18), my 9 y.o. desktop died, so I took it back the the shop that had assembled it for me in 2005. They had it for SIX WEEKS and didn't appear to do anything to it.

    I contacted another person about 20 miles north of here and took it to him. Within 24 hours, he found that the power supply had at least one line that was seriously under-voltage. Even after replacing that, my system continued to have problems, possibly with the motherboard (mobo) but also with the XP Pro. I haven't been able to get into "User Accts." for a couple of years but this wasn't an inconvenience for me as I'm the only user.

    More annoying is that the system would not maintain the correct time when the system was off, even after replacing the BIOS battery. This system is plugged into a large surge protected block that is then plugged into the battery power supply. The second repairman found that, if the power is completely turned off (like the switch on the surge strip), the tower lost the time, but if plugged in to the battery and just powered down, it doesn't! Problem is there is STILL power going to the speakers AND the keyboard (KB) after the tower has powered down! Go figure!

    Part of the problem MAY have been that this mobo was running a pair of drive in a RAID 0 (mirrored) array. But these weren't set up as SATA drives but as a SCUZI pair, and the first shop was saying that they have had other customers reporting similar problems with similar set-ups.

    FORTUNATELY, I had a separate internal hard drive (hd) to which shop #2 was able to back-up "My Documents" to and save my info. I have an external 1T hd BUT I had not backed up "My Documents" to it since LAST AUGUST. I had done a full system backup to that drive just a month before using XP's backup - BUT this is a proprietary format that can't be opened by any computer and I couldn't get my laptop to see those files so I had to reconstruct many of the files from 9/13-3/14. NOT FUN!!

    Now I am having "fun" reloading all my programs (still not done), "Favorites", as well as getting the files in "My Documents" back up to date again.

    SO - here is yet another reminder of that famous quote be realtors that the most important part of real estate is "location - Location - LOCATION"! If you have either internal OR external (preferable) hds, USE THEM!! If you have a sufficiently large USB/thumb drive, use that! And don't "just" do a backup using Microsoft's "backup" utility because of its proprietary nature, also backup your "My Documents" folder to that external drive! Do it AT LEAST every other week (weekly better!) and try and keep that external hd someplace else in the house - just in case!

    Remember - backup -
    Backup - BACKUP!!
    “I have little patience with people who take the Bill of Rights for granted. The Bill of Rights, contained in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, is every American’s guarantee of freedom.” - - President Harry S. Truman, “Years of Trial and Hope”

  2. #2
    Forum Administrator Schuetzenman's Avatar

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    2005 mobo and XP = dinosaur. Time to build a new one.

  3. #3
    Contributor 02/2014 FunkyPertwee's Avatar

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    About 3 years ago I decided that all that wasn't enough, so now all my externals are duplicated.
    "I'm fucking furious, I'm violently angry, and I like it. If you don't know what that feels like then I feel bad for you"

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    RAID0 is mirrored?
    "And how we burned in the camps later thinking, what would things have been like, if every security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain, whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family?"

  5. #5
    Guns Network Lifetime Member #2

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    Quote Originally Posted by 5.56NATO View Post
    RAID0 is mirrored?
    Good point. RAID0 is not mirrored, lose one drive lose everything. I have two of my computers set up in Raid0 for speed. I need to back up more often.

  6. #6
    Senior Member JTHunter's Avatar

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    Okay, I couldn't remember which it was - 0 or 1 - but it is mirrored.
    “I have little patience with people who take the Bill of Rights for granted. The Bill of Rights, contained in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, is every American’s guarantee of freedom.” - - President Harry S. Truman, “Years of Trial and Hope”

  7. #7
    Registered User LAGC's Avatar

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    Quote Originally Posted by JTHunter View Post
    Okay, I couldn't remember which it was - 0 or 1 - but it is mirrored.
    Mirrored is RAID-1. That's the best protection, because even if one drive fails the other still has all your data.
    "That tyranny has all the vices both of democracy and oligarchy is evident. As of oligarchy so of tyranny, the end is wealth; (for by wealth only can the tyrant maintain either his guard or his luxury). Both mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms." -- Aristotle, Book V, 350 B.C.E

  8. #8
    Senior Member JTHunter's Avatar

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    Problem was that it took nearly 2 months to get the system operating weel enough to even access the files!
    It's running fine now, except for the Audigy soundcard. Even though the drivers and software are in, I get a yellow "?" in Device Manager.
    I also dislodged the little mobo speaker when I had to correct a problem with the SATA cables to the 3 drives. It's not running RAID now, it's all on the 200 gb drive with the two 80's used for storing stuff.
    I'm checking out the Windows 7 systems to see what I can find. I've been lucky in the OSs I have had have been the best that MS put out at those times. I started with 3.1 (& 3.11 for Workgroups), used 95 on the company's machine (but did NOT own), 98, skipped ME (thankfully), and now XP. If the pattern follows, and as we have already seen, Vista was quirky, 7 is good, but, again, a lot of people are complaining about 8. Every other system is good and the ones in-between have been not well received.
    “I have little patience with people who take the Bill of Rights for granted. The Bill of Rights, contained in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, is every American’s guarantee of freedom.” - - President Harry S. Truman, “Years of Trial and Hope”

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