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NewBox is now in my study; OldBox is on a table next to my husband’s computer desk. NewBox is, demonstrably, working–I’m writing this on it in its new place. I do need to hook up the printer again, but in my glee at having NewBox turn on and work, I forgot that and went and washed my hair. Now I have a large wad of wet hair wrapped in a towel, and if I crawl under the desk now to hook up the printer, it will unwrap and drape wet hair and a big damp towel on wires and dust. Not a good idea, for either hair or wires.
NewBox isn’t complete until I find the other installation CDs for the “minor” software (I put them in a Safe Place.) (Like the Safe Place I put the old Paksworld notebooks and master map, but more recently so maybe I can find them again.) Not today, though, as I have to mail books to Arlington for A-Kon. That was supposed to happen yesterday, but other things happened yesterday. Unexpected stuff happens every day, as it does to us all. I’m liking NewBox, to my own surprise. Usually I’m “slow to warm” when it comes to new computer stuff, but the way Aging Computer Nerd Rancherfriend helped me set this up, the learning curve hasn’t been too bad. Now to comb out the wet hair, pin it up (yes, wet–don’t have time for sitting outside for it to dry) and getting those books on their way. Gym this afternoon. Calls to eye doctor and sports med doctor for appointments after A-Kon. Then hooking up printer, maybe, but also run to city to pick up son’s defunct computer from friends who’ve been trying to analyze just how it failed, and bring it up here so I can talk to the Lenovo support people where I have my own Windows machine if they want to download something for me to try.
Comment by GinnyW — May 29, 2014 @ 4:53 pm
I’m glad its working. Do you have Borrowers in your house? Did you read that book as a child?
Comment by elizabeth — May 30, 2014 @ 8:25 am
I didn’t find the Borrowers books until I was an adult, and thoroughly enjoyed them.
Comment by elizabeth — May 30, 2014 @ 8:27 am
Son’s former computer is now a Linux box and I need to call the Lenovo support people and tell them to forget further work on installing a new Win7. All chores mentioned above were accomplished by day’s end, along with solving a big writing problem thanks to friend’s suggestion of cramming it all into one volume.
Comment by elizabeth — May 30, 2014 @ 4:04 pm
So…NewBox ran into problems today. Apparently the video card is not always a willing partner in this adventure, so it quit sending signal to the monitor which went dark. Suddenly. I started testing cables, swapping out monitors with another machine: both monitors worked on the other machine, not this. In the course of swapping monitors around, the old CRT monitor refused to come on (it was working fine before I moved it from this room to that one) and my husband’s flat-screen fell on me. It’s small, so not a problem, and I broke its fall so it didn’t break.
Doing all the testing involved multiple trips under tables, hauling both flat-screen monitors the length of the house twice (to the other room, back from it) and way more time than I felt I had.
Clearly a box problem, not a monitor or cable problem. Called Fry’s hauled the box down there for a video card changeout–they hooked it up to their monitor…and lo, it worked. They looked at me. I looked at them. They were nice about it, but…it was working. There. They did test and find out that I can get a signal from the motherboard if the video card goes whonky again and I take the video card out. I had, by this time, a beast of a headache, and instead of being able to think clearly enough to a) just buy another !**! video card on the grounds that unreliable is worse than no card when you’re standing in a store full of that stuff and b) buying a monitor to replace the old CRT monitor.
At this point, husband is looking at son’s now-Linux box to see if he can deal with it, I’m in the study with mine, his old box is sitting on his desk (the Linux box, his previous monitor, keyboard and mouse are on the kitchen table, which I hope to reclaim for cooking and eating in the next 24 hours), and my old box is on the table next to his desk, with the nonfunctional CRT monitor, its keyboard and mouse. The old kind, where the cable to the computer bifurcates and goes into two 9pin round connections, and the mouse cord comes out of the keyboard. Hey, it worked for YEARS. Still does.
The now-Linux box is only two years old. My oldbox is, um, 11? 12? His oldbox is younger than mine, maybe only 7.
Comment by Iphinome — May 30, 2014 @ 10:10 pm
This sounds like the start of a fairy tale, _Lady Moon and the five Boxen_
Comment by elizabeth — May 30, 2014 @ 10:27 pm
In the sense of a very GRIMM fairy tale, maybe. Repairperson said blithely they’d seen another AMD video card with weird behavior in the past week (it thought it was operating at a million degrees Celsius, which since the box it was in wasn’t melting its way through the counter, the floor, the limestone beneath, they rather doubed…) This one apparently wanted a nice ride, the way colicky babies sometimes do.
Comment by Sherri Campbell — June 8, 2014 @ 10:49 pm
I had read this a few weeks ago, with sympathy. Today I read it and feel like bashing my head on the desk. I have a newly installed computer… And am missing data, missing programs that will play nice with operating system, and a deadline. I finally ordered an upgrade for my word processor so I don’t have to fight it any longer… And am contemplating purchasing a new database in the desperate hope it will work with new computer (and with old database)…. Argh, this is torture.
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