To my computer: You Suck!

The BBQ Pit
#1

I mean, what in the name of my fictional Uncle Ted and his two ugly children is wrong with you?

I bought you two years ago and you worked fine, in fact you didn’t start bitching until the last six months, and that was only because the harddrive got unbalanced. And I took care of you, didn’t I? You got a new hard drive, more RAM, a CD-RW, a zip drive, a scanner, neat stickers…what more could you want?

So why do you do this to me? You only boot up once out of every ten or so attempts, and even when you do that you manage to do it without sound. You’ll decide not to let me access my CD drive. Oh, you’ll let me click on the icon, but you’ll never eject the damn music CD that’s in there without a paperclip.

I’ve reinstalled Windows (GASP!) and even gone to Linux, but even that doesn’t seem to sooth you. During boot-up you occasionally read my Maxtor drive as a L4Xt0y, which makes the following loading process oh-so more interesting.

Is it because I unplugged the neon wire that you used to have running along my desk? Is it because I actually uninstalled EverQuest after an hour of playing and sold my account to my co-worker? Do you not like the “I read your e-mail” bumper sticker?

Rest assured, I will teach you to obey me one way or another. I don’t care if I have to scanreg, format, fdisk or man-whore bitch slap you! Vengence shall be mine, and when the fires die down and the smoke has cleared, you will know your master is the ill-tempered son of poultry!

…DAMN!

#2

… I’m sensing power supply issues here. Probably not memory. MAYBE a blown motherboard, though. Hm. Hope it’s a power supply and not a motherboard.

#3

See…I can spot the problem right away, I personally believe there is something about Windows that slowly destroys a computer. My proof? An original Macintosh from the year they were first introduced (1984) that still works along with 3 or 4 other pre-G3 Macs that have never given me a problem. Plus my Linux Box, my wonderful Linux box that has always been running some form of Unix or Linux flavour. That one’s been running for 6 years, and has maybe 3 or 4 hours of TOTAL downtime. As far as Windows machines go…I had a desktop box last almost a year once, my laptop lasted 18months before defrag decided to nuke my harddrive and subsequently my mobo. :frowning:

#4

Yep, and those of us who have been using Windows just fine with no downtime for years now, we’re just plain lucky. Couldn’t be your lack of knowledge about Windows or anything…

#5

Of course, It MUST be my lack of windows, seeing as I only have an MCSE and the windows network I run is only for a small school in the University I work for.

Just because I don’t like the OS, think it’s incredibly buggy and unstable, doesn’t mean I have no knowledge of it.

#6

If it’s turning Maxtor into L4Xt0y in the bios, then it’s either the drive (Maxtor is far from the least-suckiest drive brand), the power supply (not enough power to spin up the drive on time, indication of low peak power?), or the motherboard. If installing a new OS doesn’t help your problem, then scanreg/format/fdisk isn’t going to help you. You have a hardware problem.

-lv

#7

And he’s saying the drive is new, and he’s lost a previous drive.

Though he may have lost this one now.

I’m seeing power supply, and by this point, possibly motherboard as well.

#8

All joking aside, and yes **diku **, while based on my own experiences it WAS in jest. You definitely do have a hardware issue rather than an OS issue. One thing to try before buying all new hardware is reflashing the BIOS if possible. I’m not a hardware guy, but it seems possible that something in there may have gotten scrambled by an errant charge. From there, if nothing works, try a harddrive from elsewhere that you are certain works properly. If it’s still no dice, then look into the power supply and mobo. The thing I was always taugh while a young fledgeling tech was always go for the potentially least expensive problem first.

#9

This just in:

Thanks for throwing in your input, guys. Once I get my medical needs taken care off (Sometimes I feel like ranting about that crap too) and I can get working again without worry of extended time off, I’m just gonna get myself a new system.

The original harddrive that was given to me (wasn’t included in the deal, just tossed in) was the first thing to go. I’ve got two new Maxtors and it seems whichever one has windows is the one to crap out. Because of the architecture it would be too much of a pain in the ass to actually remove and reinstall the power supply. (It was apparently included with the case and thus made to fit in, not to come out) and I need to upgrade to a new processor anyway, probably.

It’s just ticking me off that I have to go through this with a system that was working fine for the longest time. But, isn’t that always the way? Stuff like this that made me decide to ditch the IT business completely and leave it as a hobby.

Thanks for the suggestions, sympathy, sarcastic comments (none of which have been towards me…Yay! :D) and for enduring an otherwise pointless rant.

And to think this thing used to run as my PHP development server… so much for webdesign with this thing.

…And in our continuing coverage of our top story: My computer still sucks.