So I wiped my laptop last night….

Well, I started it. Using the system restore set, because of drivers. Unfortunately, it leaves me with Windows 10 1511, and for some reason I can’t just throw the 1909 install flash drive in it (like my Tower’s last rebuild). So it’s off to Windows Update for 3 hours, and I got it to 1809. Maybe tonight, I’ll get it to Windows 10 Pro 1909 (like my tower). And yes, I have paid for the upgrade from Home to Pro…

But on the bright side, I have also backed up my documents onto my external drive, which I haven’t done since June (I have two hard drives in my tower, and one drive is my storage drive – it is never formatted. The ‘C’ drive which is my installation drive is).

But while my laptop updates itself I think it’s time for my now-weekly Target run. Probably the last of my Christmas shopping, which is easier to budget for since I paid all my bills last night.

My weekend is underway

Home from work. Computer is fired up. 

And as you can see, I'm busy doing the most important weekend task: Flight Simulator X. I hear there is a new version in development though. But this version is sufficient for now... 

The last day of my vacation

So I’m now starting the last day of my vacation. What did I do? Absolutely nothing. I didn’t go anywhere. I was going to watch the Monday Night Football Doubleheader (which was the official reason why I took a couple of days off), but I overslept the first game, and I’m that big of a Raiders fan. I was going to watch some CPL T20 cricket (I even tried setting my DVR for the matches) but the listings on WillowTV are messed up, so I missed half the matches.

Well, I was semi-productive. A couple of weeks ago, I got PO’ed at my tower, so I wiped it and reinstalled Windows 10. And Sunday & Monday night, I finished reinstalling all of my games. BTW, that’s a real pain in the ass if you have Epic or Twitch, since the only way to reinstall them is to completely download them again. Over 300 gB’s worth… At least with Steam, Origin, Uplay, and Gog, there are ways to back everything up.

Oh, and I turned on my laptop today. First time in a couple of months. Mainly to run some updates, and to charge the battery…

I guess on my last vacation day I should do something tonight. After all, I still need to do my laundry…

So I was playing around with Windows ME last night….

So I was playing around with Windows ME last night. Uninstalled some software, and installed some other software. And then it flaked on me. To the point of not being able to boot. Normally, I’d be upset (more like PO’ed) and I’d end up pulling out my boot disk and nuking it all from a DOS prompt.

But this time it was different. I was just in my virtual machine (I use VMWARE Player). So I just deleted my WinME folder, and re-copied it over from my archive. I’ll try again later….

Hello World!

I built my first computer yesterday. This all started last fall with my most recent attempts to upgrade my tower. First was the computer case (ended up rendering my HP Pavilion 500-214 unbootable at all, and I had to replace the whole computer). Then last month, I tried putting in a new video card (didn’t work at all). So, a week ago, I decided to go ahead and buy the rest of the components and build my own computer. Anyway here’s the lowdown:

• AMD A12-9800 Processor. Could’ve gone with a Ryzen, but this one was initially released only a couple of years ago, and I found one dirt cheap on eBay. I’m sure I could upgrade it in the future, (I made sure that the motherboard was new).
• And cooling the aforementioned processor is an Artic Freezer 12. Since I went the cheap route on the processor, it did not come with a heat sink. And I realized that the cpu cooler I had lying wasn’t going to compatible with the AM4 socket. Fortunately, unlike my Hewlett-Packards, the motherboard didn’t need a proprietary cpu cooler, so installation was easy.
• Motherboard: ASRock X370 Killer SLI/ac. The processor is an older one, but it still works, but I made sure the motherboard was up the date. It has integrated sound, ethernet, wi-fi, and bluetooth. And it has enough open expansion ports that I can upgrade things when I can afford them.
• The case. I went with a Phanteks Enthoo Pro series PH-ES614PC_BK case. I had nothing wrong with my Hewlett-Packard towers. But there was no room for growth. I could only have one optical drive, and one hard drive. Not anymore. I currently have two hard drives in (the first time since fall of 2014) and two optical drives (the first time since I had my Gateway). The two optical drive are siginifcant, because I have a couple of spindle packs of lightscribe media lying around, and I have a lightscribe DVD burner. But I also have a Blu-Ray drive, too and now I can use both.
• As for the video card, it was going to be a Radeon™ RX 570 Gaming 4G, but the reason why I didn’t work when I tried to install it in the other tower was that it was DOA. Fortunately, I realized this when I still had two days left in the return process, and I am replacing it. Props to Newegg for the relatively painless return/exchange process (well I hope it’s painless…). In the interim, I’m running a Gigabyte GV-R725OC-2GI. I know the card is old, but it stll does the job, and I still get a decent framerate out of FSX on it…..
• 2 hard drives. Both 4 tB. And space (and SATA ports) for 2 more….
• And powering this all is a ARC 750W 80 PLUS® Bronze PSU. Especially when I’ve upgraded video cards in the past, I’ve run into problems with the power supply being overworked.
• And of course, my TV tuner (I took it out of my old tower). It still works for what I need it for, I see no need to upgrade it.

Hardware-wise everything works. So far. When I started this build, the only tool I had was my Swiss Army Knife. And yes, it is possible to take apart a computer with only a Swiss Army Knife, I reccomend that you at least get a normal screw driver. On my Hewlett-Packards, there were a couple of star bitted screws in that case that I needed the knife for, but this current case has only philips screws, and a household screwdriver will do the job handily.

The one lesson I learned from all this is DOUBLE CHECK YOUR CONNECTIONS! Got everything put together then plugged it in and turned it on. Ended up reseating the RAM twice, pulling out the video card twice (before realizing it was a dud). The last issue was the BIOS wasn’t seeing a hard drive, and it was because the SATA cable wasn’t all the way in.

I’m running Windows 10 Pro. I bought this last fall, when I thought I would need for my last computer, and due to me not looking at the fine print, I ended up over-drawing my checking account (which has since been straightened out). But I held on it, and it came in handy…

And yes, my new computer is working. After all, this post is being written on it….

Yes, I know it's been a while....

Yes, I know it's been a while since I last wrote here. A lot of it was because I decided to do a system rebuild (becasue I just can't leave well enough alone). And then I decided to go back to what I was running before. And now, it takes two weeks' of days off to get my computer rebuilt. Somebody please remind me of that the next time I decide to wipe my tower....

But with all the work I've put into my HP Pavilion 500-314, I've decided to replace it. I'm actually going with a White Box model (aka, I'm building my own). This all started with my computer case that I got last fall. I tried putting the components of my previous computer into it, (mainly so I could use for than 1 internal hard drive), and ended up rendering my computer unbootable. And then there was the attempt to upgrade my video card last month. Finally, I decided to order the rest of what I needed and get it going....

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to upgrade my coffee maker. I wanted a keurig brewer because k-cups are so convenient for just one cup. But I also wanted the ability to brew a whole pot for the days off when I drink three cups to start my day. I found the Hamilton Beach Flex Brew, on sale at the time at Newegg. The real problem came with UPS. They delivered to an access point (the same one that I've had issues with when I was shopping with Worst Buy). I immediately signed in request re-delivery w/ instruction/permission to leave it at my door.Anybody capable of rubbing two neurons together would've done it. But no, when I thought it was being reprocessed to deliver, it was still stuck at the Access Point. Finally, I had enough and ordered it to be shipped back. Newegg stepped in, and ordered UPS to deliver it to my door, which they did.

Last week, I ordered some new jeans from Wrangler. They left a delivery notice, which I signed Monday morning, and left it on the door. Had they driver bothered to get out of his vehicle he would have seen it. But he just labeled it as undeliverable, and shipped it back. Several back and forth sessions with customer service, and then I got a phone call from a supervisor who finally agreed with me that it should've been delivered, and there are now 3 UPS drivers who are going to be ripped new ones. Which is good because I have a new power supply, motherboard, and RAM being UPS'ed (see the second paragraph of the post).

Weather is really warming up. I've had my air conditioner on since March. And yesterday, my brother set up the AC in the living room....

Another first tonight…..

All the times I’ve had Windows 10 on my tower, whenever I’ve decided to wipe it, it was by my choice. Usually because I wanted to go back to a previous version of windows. My days of rendering Windows completely unbootable were behind me. I thought.

Until tonight. Somehow I successfully managed to make WIndows 10 unbootable on my Tower. Fortunately, I have two things going for me: A recent backup, and my laptop. So I’m now wiping the tower again. And I have a laptop that I can use until I get the tower ready (currently I’m restoring my Steam archive to my laptop)…

11 years' worth of storage...

11 years ago, my old PIII had a 160 gigabyte hard drive in it. I just realized last night that my archive is now 1.5 terabytes (10 times the space). And it takes about 7 hours to copy it over whenever I rebuild my system. Normally I let this task run overnight, and I turn my monitor off... Yes, I know I have too much crap....

And to think that when I ordered my first computer, I thought that the 30 gigabyte hard drive was plenty...

Linux is dead. Long live Linux.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to get myself something for Christmas (after finishing up my Christmas shopping), and so I bought the first 7 games of the Assassin's Creed franchise for my computer on Steam. After downloading the games, I backed them up and proceeded to wipe my tower to put one last install of Windows 7 on. I got to the point to where I restored my Steam library, and I verified that I have a valid back-up. Then I decided I wanted to go with Windows 8.1 instead. After I installed that, and while I was restoring my software, I decided to go back to Windows 10, which is what I’m running now. But on the bright side, I didn’t have to do a complete wipe to go from Win8.1 to Win10. I finished the rebuild last week, and I decided to do a complete back up of my Steam games. It took about 24 hours to do it (you do have to consider the fact that I have 185+ games now).

So last night, I decided to give OpenSuSE another try. Took me three tries to resize my hard drive to create some space, but I did. Then I took my install DVD and booted my system off it. And nothing happened. And I then remembered my previous attempt to install Linux would’ve involved wiping partitions that I wasn’t comfortable with. So, I say Linux is dead. Long Live Linux…

My last day off before Christmas….

Did most of my Christmas shopping last week. It has all arrived. But for the sake of procrastination, I’m not wrapping it yet. And I still have to get my brother, my father, and my grandmother their presents. I’m putting it off till the last minute….

Today was my last day off before Christmas. I decided yesterday to wipe my laptop. It was taking close to an hour for it to boot up to a desktop, and I decided to nuke it form orbit. It took quite a bit longer to reinstall the OS than it does my tower. And I have to do it twice (first time with the system restore drive, then with the current version of Windows 10). But my tower still is in order, so I still have my main computer….

Almost to where I left off….

After I went back to Windows 7 last week, only to realize it was two cables plugged into the wrong jacks, I decided this week to go back to Windows 10. It took a long while, as I had to factory reset my Tower (thank you for System Restore set). Then I had to install some patches, and download some Windows 8.1 apps that I could not download through Windows 10. Then there was the upgrade to Windows, and the patching, and downloading, and driver installation. And then there was the 1.3 TB of files that I needed to move over (thank goodness for a back-up drive). This time, I made sure that the TV tuners worked when I installed the programs. Now, I’ve restored my virtual machines (a lot easier to do this time than last time…), and Firefox. I’m not quite yet back to where I left off & it’ll be awhile before I play Flight Simulator again.

Once again, the next time I decide to tear apart my system and rebuild it, would someone please remind me what a PITA it is to put it back together again….

D’OH!

Ok, so I thought the latest Windows 10 update was terminally incompatible with my TV Tuner. So I put another version of Windows on the Tower. And then spent all night and most of today installing drivers and downloading updates. Then it came time to set up the TV tuner. And I had the same results as last night. Rebooted the cable box. Then on a hunch I pulled out my usb TV tuner and hooked it up to my laptop. I had a signal, since my laptop had TV. I thought my TV card was bad, so I ordered another USB TV tuner from Newegg (the exact same model I have for my laptop). Right after I placed to order for it, I decided on one last attempt at troubleshooting. My TV card has 2 coax inputs, one for TV and one for an fm radio antenna. Guess who had the cables reversed…

So long story short, I got my Tower’s tv tuner working, and I have a USB tuner on the way. I’ll just put it aside and use it as a spare….

A Deal Breaker….

So tonight, I was working on my Tower, looking forward to enjoying another session of Flight Simulator. But I went to turn on the TV Tuner application, and no image. This is kinda of a deal-breaker for me, so I went back to a previous version of Windows. Maybe later, but for now, I’d prefer an OS that’s a little bit more compatible with my hardware….

Had it for a week or so….

Ok, the Windows 1809 update came out last week. It was installed on the laptop right away. Took about 4 hours to install, but it eventually finished. I didn’t have any of the issues that people are reporting with files being deleted (and since my primary back-up is a usb hard drive, I can avoid permanent data loss. Usually). After upgrading my laptop, I used the Media Creation Tool to prepare a thumb drive to install it on the Tower. Again there was no data loss issue on the tower, since I hadn’t yet restored my data. There a couple of improvements over previous versions that I like. Namely the your phone companion app. There’s something to be said about being able to check your text messages at the computer (and reply to them) while your phone is across the room. There’s also the no longer needing to explicitly give administrator permissions just to manually move something over to the ‘program files’ folder, or to place a shortcut in the start menu manually.

So far the only drawback was trying to get my virtual machines working. I use VMware Player. First I had to enable virtualization (took two tries on the BIOS screen). Then I had to disable device guard/Hyper-V (about a dozen reboots and too many PowerShell entries). But I got them to work, and I do not anticipate any further issues when I restore my games….

This update looks like a keeper…

Strange….

Last Saturday, I decided to wipe my replacement tower (basically when I got it all I did was pull the hard drive from my other computer and just put it into this one, and it booted). Since my previous computer was a Hewlett-Packard Pavilion 500-214, and my new computer was a Hewlett Packard Pavilion 500-314, the hardware was sufficiently similar that I could get away with it. I decided to try using the system restore set from my previous computer to see if I could reset this computer. No, actually. It turns out that the system restore sets are actually matched to your system’s serial number. Anyway, a quick Google search revealed where I could get the system restore set, so I ordered it. For only $32.

So, it arrived today, and I went ahead and reset my tower to Windows 8.1. Basically to download all the Windows 8.1 apps that I’ve purchased, and will work on Windows 10, but I can’t download them from windows 10. Immediately after they were installed, I put the USB thumbdrive in (BTW, Windows 10, 1809 version came out today), and proceeded to install Windows 10. I had my product key ready (remember I overdrew my checking account buying a license for Windows 10 Pro last week). But I wasn’t prompted for it. After Windows 10 installed, it even let me upgrade to Windows 10 Pro. And it says it is activated via a digital license on my Microsoft account. So, basically, Microsoft still thinks that I have the same computer as before. So I apparently didn’t need to buy my Windows 10 Pro license last week. C’est la vie. I figure they’ll eventually catch on, and if and/or when they do, I’ll be ready. Until then, I’ll just hold on to this product key. It may come in handy later….

BTW, the 1809 update is out, and I’ve already installed it on my laptop. The one thing that I like about this one is the Your Phone app. I like being able to read my phone’s texts on my computer, and be able to text from my computer again….

New computer arrived today….

Last week as you my know, I f*cked up my computer and had to order a replacement. Ordered it off of eBay. I got a HP Pavilion 500-314. It was replacing a HP Pavilion 500-214. I deliberately ordered this specific model so I could part out my old computer, and put all the upgrades (especially the 4 tb hard drive, and the 24 gb of RAM) into the computer. So there were some concerns with my computer (it was used and ‘refurbished’ so I knew that I wasn’t getting something fresh from the factory):

• The RAM: the eBay listing said it had 8 gb of RAM. When I got my HP Pavilion 500-214 (factory refurbished by HP), it had 8 gb, but it was all on 1 DIMM. This one had 4 2 gb DIMMs.
• The hard drive. This specific model of computer was first produced in 2014, and it came with Windows 8.1. The hard drive was made in 2010. Again, it appears as though it was parted out and replaced with an older part.
• The operating system. It was listed on eBay as having Windows 10 Pro, but the included hard drive was not bootable. I think what happened is that the seller just copied another Windows 10 harddrive and put it in the computer. Fortunately, I was able to simply install my old hard drive (lock, stock, and barrel) into my system. It took about 20 minutes to reinstall some drivers, and I was back up and running. Although this means that I will be buying Windows 10 Pro for it when I decide to run it. The new computer is sufficiently similar to my old computer that I can get away with moving items over, but I don’t think that’ll work with my Windows 10 license…

Yes, my computer has issues, but they were items that can address. Technically it wasn’t bootable when I got it, but I still left positive feedback for the transaction, because it was a computer that works….

My weekend report….

Normally I work Thursdays through Mondays. But this weekend was different. With the all the smoke from the wildfires, the air quality was listed as unhealthy. And since my commute home does now involve serious cardio (I have a bike), I can no longer afford uber, and my plantar facsiitis precludes me from walking 4+ miles, I decided to stay belowdecks Monday, and I called out. Technically, I wasn’t really sick, but I was calling out for reason of my health….

My birthday was Saturday. Normally I celebrate it with a day off. This year, I didn’t. Same as last year. Though last year, I had just started at my job, and I hadn’t accumulated enough time off to take the day off (nor was I inclined to ask for a day off when I had been there for less than a week). And this year, I was trying to transfer to another position, and did want to throw a spanner into the works while this was still in the works. BTW, I did get the transfer, though it won’t be effective for a couple of weeks.

Essentially stayed home for the past three days. Mainly due to the aforementioned poor quality air.

And according to the forecast the weather will be about 70 tomorrow. And today should’ve been the last day of 80+  weather. Perhaps in the next weeks, I’ll be retiring my AC until next summer…

Like I said, it was my birthday my past week. And as usual, I bought my birthday present myself. I don’t need a new computer. My tower still works perfectly. And so does my laptop. But I did get a new case for my tower. I bought a CPU cooler a year ago, and I’ve never been able to install it, since I couldn’t get it to fit. And want to use a second hard drive in my tower.

And lastly, for all those who are inclined to celebrate it, I bid you Eid Mubarak….

The purge continues….

Day off today. First day of my scheduled weekend, but it’s day two off. I took a sick day yesterday, but that will be a later post. Continuing on my long-term room cleaning project (aka The Purge). Today, I got the garbage off the floor to the side of my TV stand, and I made some headway into my closet. Among the discard junk I found today was a 7 port usb 2.0 hub, and my original cable modem. I’m throwing them both out. My tower currently has a 10 port  usb 3.0 hub, so I don’t need another 2.0 hub on it (and I even have another 3.0 hub for my laptop). And the cable modem, well it’s just old. When I went back to Comcast, I bought another cable modem because the speeds that are being offered are higher than what the old modem can handle, and I wanted something ipv6 compatible….

My room will be clean. It will take more than one afternoon to do it, though….

Back to square one….

A know a couple of posts ago, I said I was installing OpenSuSE or bust. Turns out I have an iffy connection to the FTP servers. Too many times, the installer would be attempting to download a 250kB package, and the connection to the server would timeout (while it would download a 1.2gB package with no problem). Anyway, I was going nowhere with it, so I aborted it, booted back into Windows 10 (April Update), rebooted the cable modem/router, and deleted the partition. At least I can resize the Windows partition on the go.

I guess dual booting Windows and Linux is not in the cards for me. But on the bright side, I still have it on a virtual machine (and I also set up a Fedora virtual machine today, too).

The end of 7 year relationship...

7 years ago, my tower at the time started just turning off. Some summary Google searching revealed that my CPU was overheating. I cleaned off the heat sink, and I was good to go. But while I was troubleshooting it, I also went to Worst Buy, and looked at laptops. I saw one that looked good, so I applied for the Worst Buy card. And got approved. Ordered the laptop. 3 1/2 years later, the Tower failed. I requested a limit increase, was approved, and got my current Tower. Through the years, I kept using the card, and they kept raising the limit....

I finally realized a couple of months ago that my ever increasing balances were not good for my financial health, and I cut up my cards. Including my Worst Buy card. And tonight, I finally contacted Citibank, and closed the account. It's going to be a couple of years before I finally pay it off.

Making the decision to cut up your credit cards is never easy. Going cold turkey is never fun. I just hope I'm not over my head already....