Well, I am writing this from my new PC. It's a Dell XPS 410, their new "hot box." Surprisingly inexpensive in it's standard configur- ation, but I don't do "standard configurations."My reason for getting this new box was the death of my last PC, a Sony VAIO I had for about four years. Still not sure what is wrong with the old box, but once I get this one set up I will have some time to deal with it. My VAIO died a horrible death four months ago when I was really in the middle of it with my son, so much so that I was hardly functioning. So instead of getting it fixed I moved to my wife's PC, but it soon died. So, I moved to my Dell laptop and have been using it since then.
I lost a lot of stuff on my VAIO hard drive, some artwork I had spent the better part of two years working on and a lot of writing, so when I looked for a new PC I wanted security of data. Dell offers dual hard drives in a RAID 1 configuration, one the mirror of the other. If one dies the other still works and has all of your data on it. So, my new Dell has two 320GB hard drives.
I do a lot of graphics on my PC so the more RAM I have the better. I splurged for 2GB of RAM and could upgrade to 4GB if I ever need it. It has the newest Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 processor, an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 LE graphics card, a 16X DVD-ROM, a 16X DVD+/-RW drive, a 13-in-1 Media Card Reader, a Creative Labs X-Fi Sound Card and the big splurge, a 24-in 2407FPW Wide Aspect Digital Flat Panel Display.
When I buy the PC they say I should have it in a week or two. When I get my email confirmation, it says I will get it in seven weeks. A later email extends that to eight weeks. This does not make me happy, but I've had this problem with Dell before. In 1995 I bought a Dell Dimension 120 right after PC Magazine, PC World and Byte all declared it the best Windows 95 PC. I waited almost two months for that PC to arrive.
So after the long wait, it arrives early Wednesday morning. I work from home (currently on the Dell laptop), utilizing VPN to access the company's network and then using Remote Desktop to access my PC at work. This all works surprisingly well. So I am working and setting up the PC at the same time, doing the PC setup whenever I catch a break from work (compiling code or running long queries, etc.). What I mean is, my full attention is not really being given to setting up the PC. I get the hardware all together and rearrange my desk to allow for a 24-inch monitor. I also cleared out about 10 years worth of computer jetsam: cables, transformers, switch boxes, wiring, microphones, etc. that lapped up around my PC and entangled itself in a twisted mass behind my desk.
While working I let the system set itself up, turning on whatever it wanted (virus protection, Windows Update, etc.). To facilitate this I had to connect the PC to my wireless network. At some point one or more of these programs wanted to reboot my PC, so I let them. In response I got the Windows blue screen of death!
Not happy, I rebooted and went into Windows Safe Mode, figuring that maybe something was amiss with the driver that allows for the 1920x1200 resolution on the screen (it is an amazing monitor). I booted up, reset my screen resolution back to something reasonable and did a shutdown/restart. Blue screen of death. Back to Safe Mode. Blue screen of death. Normal Mode. Blue screen of death. Safe Mode. Blue screen of death.
Now I'm really not happy. I locate the special tech support number for XPS machines and call Dell. I get a really nice guy who walked me through a number of things, none of which helped. We even tried to reload the system to its original configuration and that failed. He had me boot to the special diagnostic partition that all Dell PCs have and start running the hard drive tests, since he figures the problem has to be with the hard drives. I remind him that I have two 320GB hard drives and he gives me his direct number and says, "call me back when you are done with the diagnostics." He also says I should run the "Windows Blue Screen" diagnostics as well. It is 5:00PM when I start the HD diagnostics. They finished at a little before 1:00 the next morning.
Later that same morning I ran the blue screen diagnostics (which just so happen to also have in them the HD diagnostics). I start them at 7:00AM. They finish at 10:00PM. I've now run 23 hours of diagnostics on my new PC. It has passed every test. "Fuck it!" I say and reboot one more time. This time I tell it to go back to the last configuration that Windows knows worked.
My PC has been running ever since, even after a number of reboots just to be safe.
One of the things I remember Windows Update installing was the Windows Genuine Advantage Notification tool, a "feature" from Microsoft that ensures you have paid for your copy of Windows. This "tool" may be the culprit, because it wants to install it again now that I have reset my machine. I don't think I am going to let it.
I'm slowly adding software to the new box and will add some hardware (WinTV and my new Wacom Intuos 3 tablet) this weekend, crossing my fingers the whole time. I'm also going to set up my emails, I have a bunch of them, in Outlook and see how many I have gotten over the past five months (so if you wrote me an email in the last four to five months, I didn't get it yet!). Wish me luck!
No comments:
Post a Comment