Computer gone "Phut"

I'm back to a little steam driven lapdog computer, as the nuclear powered unit went "Phut" the other day. Thats bad enough, but I was halfway through an on-line job application when it crashed, so I had to start all over again and redo my CV and covering letter. Its gone away to be fixed......i hope.....

What a flippin pain in the posterior. Bet I don't even get an interview now. At least the steam driven one got the job done

This one careers along at 166mhz....when it feels like it

AlfaLincs (who was ill all over the entire banck holiday weekend, so i deserve a rant now I'm feeling a bit better)

Put Linux on it, it won't seem so slow.

Originally Posted by Nev

Put Linux on it, it won't seem so slow.

Well i've heard of Dulux and Lino....is Linux something like that

Seriously though a) would it make much difference b) could I get any programs to work with it

I don't have the time to mess about with computers frankly.

AlfaLincs

Originally Posted by AlfaLincs

Well i've heard of Dulux and Lino....is Linux something like that

Seriously though a) would it make much difference b) could I get any programs to work with it

I don't have the time to mess about with computers frankly.

AlfaLincs

linux, firefox and openoffice is all you (should) need to make a perfect windows substitute.

Not that into linux though so i couldn't recomend a version/distro

you could try pupply linux, youll find most of the modern Linux distros will struggle on your old pc , Ive got one running pclinux os and another on simply mepis, Ive tried a lot of them but the two Ive mentioned are quite noob friendly.

Whats gone kaput on your main pc if you throw some specs at me, I may be able to help out diagnose the problem

Yeah Puppy linux is nifty for pulling data off PCs.

It boots from a CD.

Its come back from the menders (under guarantee)..There and back in three and a half working days, so good service there then. I've not plugged it in yet, but the note says it has had its front panel replaced (the on-off switch was dodgy) and a new Motherboard so it was quite ill then. i'm amazed it worked at all.

Its a Medion from Aldi, and has done two years without fault until this. It has another year warranty to go.
Thanks for advice and offers of help. Will plug it in after tea.

AlfaLincs

Originally Posted by AlfaLincs

Its come back from the menders (under guarantee)..There and back in three and a half working days, so good service there then. I've not plugged it in yet, but the note says it has had its front panel replaced (the on-off switch was dodgy) and a new Motherboard so it was quite ill then. i'm amazed it worked at all.

Its a Medion from Aldi, and has done two years without fault until this. It has another year warranty to go.
Thanks for advice and offers of help. Will plug it in after tea.

AlfaLincs

When you buy a pc from a supermarket and even some high street stores (better not name drop) the gubbins they install can be a little ropey. I work fixing these things all the time and usually it all comes down to cheap components with short life expectantcies.

ill second that.

Just had some Advents in, brand new and some have faults! , what a pile of poo.

Just like Dell then.

I knew what I was buying, and I happen to think two years fault free isn't bad going given the abuse it gets. i'm typing on it now by the way, so its working again.

We bought my son a MESH three years ago, and I bought an Atlantic computer ten years ago...a few months later Atlantic went belly up, but i'd got it on finance and the finance co. gave a great backup service when it broke..as it did a few times. I still have it with a transplant overclocked board running at 600mhz, but it doesn't seem to want to run at present as its been in a cold dark place and just beeps at me pathetically when I switch it on.

My old laptop is a Toshiba Satellite 300 CDS that I bought very 2nd hand, and its a quality piece of kit, even if its very slow now, it plows on manfully, doing more than ought to be asked of it.

I'm watching the steady development of solid state laptops with low power consumption with a view to use on the boat as a chart plotter, where leccy power is a bit scarce..er very scarce actually.

AlfaLincs

Originally Posted by AlfaLincs

I knew what I was buying, and I happen to think two years fault free isn't bad going given the abuse it gets. i'm typing on it now by the way, so its working again.

We bought my son a MESH three years ago, and I bought an Atlantic computer ten years ago...a few months later Atlantic went belly up, but i'd got it on finance and the finance co. gave a great backup service when it broke..as it did a few times. I still have it with a transplant overclocked board running at 600mhz, but it doesn't seem to want to run at present as its been in a cold dark place and just beeps at me pathetically when I switch it on.

My old laptop is a Toshiba Satellite 300 CDS that I bought very 2nd hand, and its a quality piece of kit, even if its very slow now, it plows on manfully, doing more than ought to be asked of it.

I'm watching the steady development of solid state laptops with low power consumption with a view to use on the boat as a chart plotter, where leccy power is a bit scarce..er very scarce actually.

AlfaLincs

The Atlantic you talk of beeping could be many things. If the beeps are high and low its overheating and opening the case and hovering the inside should help that but it may need the CPU reseating. It could be memory problems too. You need to count the beep code and then consult the website for your motherboard to decipher the error. It could also be a case of resetting the BIOS to original settings if you have overclocked it.

I'm one of those people that actually believe that we (Mankind) actually landed on the moon. But the longer I use this PC of mine, I might be swayed.

Originally Posted by AlfaLincs

I'm watching the steady development of solid state laptops with low power consumption
AlfaLincs

I had one of those small Asus Eepc's last week. It has a 4GB solid state hard disk and it somehow had windows XP on it. It ran pretty quick and as you can imagine the battery ran for a while as there was no constant 5400rpm hard disk motor running.

Im thinking of making my own solid state laptop using one of these baby HP's HP Compaq nc4010

Ive seen you can get Laptop IDE to SD-Card adaptors so im going to wack an 8gb card in one of them and attempt to run windows on it.

With your desktop pc, i bet you £50 its either the Graphics card or the memory needing reseating.

If its one long beep followed by 3 short beeps it is the graphics card. Simply pull it out and push it firmly back in (thats if its not a built in 'cheapo' jobbies)

If its a series of long beeps then its the memory. Simply swap the sticks round or move a single stick to another slot.

I have a pile of Toshiba Satellite 300 CDS's that need getting rid of. Im trying to think of several ingenious ways of disposing of them ie a car ramp\jump. Anyone got any ideas? They have negative value now, maybe they will become collectable

Originally Posted by Laptop_Matt

Ive seen you can get Laptop IDE to SD-Card adaptors so im going to wack an 8gb card in one of them and attempt to run windows on it.

I'd be careful about using standard flash as a system disk.
Flash has a limited R/W lifespan and if swap files etc
are continually written to in a particular place then
the flash could easily exceed it's lifespan quite quickly.

I think the solidstate drives use some nifty wear-levelling
software in the drive to make sure data isn't continually
written to the same locations.

Hadn't thought of that.

I was going to get one of the best quality SD Cards i could find, maybe it would last longer.

Ive already bought a couple of the converters to have a play with, ill let you know how i get on.