found_drama

A nice little time-waster: Speak n Spell Emulator. The challenge (recall) is not determine how to spell something but trying to comprehend the electronic lisp that is the Speak n Spell’s voice.

Infinite Jest kabbala. It’s the only possible explanation.

I thought I had all this broken computer nonsense sorted out before my vacation. The PCI cards were re-seated and working, I’d nabbed a new power supply to swap into the system, and the PC was nice and stable (w/ a few esoteric exceptions).

Funny how it all unravels so damn quickly.

1. Exchanged the power supply that came with the new chassis for one that the rep at the store deemed as “solid and with the same power rating and everything”. What he failed to mention is that it lacked the crucial P7 DC power connector required for the CPU/mainboard to (you know) function. And so rather than “finally” getting upgraded to a brand new 450w power supply, I’m stuck (again) using the 5 year old 200w rapidly dying power supply.
2. All of the sudden, the PC resets itself anytime a Firewire device is attached. Plug in an iPod to charge and sync? *BLIP* Mysteriously. This was fine two days ago.
3. XP Service Pack 2 woes as well. While I didn’t have his problems, my desktop now refuses to make connections to the internet. All of the LAN services are just peachy. But no websites pull up. Email can’t be retrieved. Forget trying to ssh or sftp. And no, it’s not the ISP. (I’m posting from the iBook just fine…) (and the Firewire woes pre-date the SP2 “upgrade”; the cause-effect pattern was more like “maybe SP2 will help 1394…”)

Completing the Switch has never been more tempting.

originally published on 2004-Sept-09 22:02

update: #3 fixed. how was a running two firewalls though???

update: #2 fixes itself just as mysteriously as it began. R: “What did you do to fix the Firewire card?” A: “It was broken?” Yeah.

update: #1 is fast becoming the punultimate Sysiphian task. Upon returning the third power supply for one of lower wattage (350w) but one that positively had all of the power connections I need, one that positively would work with my mainboard, I install it to discover that this one is also DOA. What complicates this is that the power supply came bundled with the case, so it’s not like I can just return that for a refund. Honestly, the last thing I need right now is to try and negotiate a partial refund or store credit situation. Nightmare!