Chaos Theory
Ok, when it rains ... it POURS.
Haven't blogged in a while because life has been hectic, and far too much has been changing.
First of all, the big news. I've been offered a job by Digg.com, and accepted it. Won't start working for them for a month or so while I finish out my current job. But I am very excited about the opportunity to work for them. It will definately be exciting, and fun!
Now, that said. Chaos Theory. The part where one 'small thing happens' that somehow causes other things to happen. It happens ALL the time to me. ALL the time. And it happened recently. With computers, and things dying.
Let's see, working backwards:
Last night, I was home working on my book, and the power supply to my computer (only a month old) started smelling 'hot'. I shut down, checked it out, blew some air into it, started back up and it was fine. For 30 minutes. Then my computer instantly powered down. As if it wasn't plugged in. Bye-Bye power supply.
The night before that, my wireless router that I had been using for 3 years, suddenly died. (Just the wireless side of it)
Before that, I was fighting my 'spare box' to get linux re-installed on it ... after going through 6 different linux distributions (plus FreeBSD), all getting different wierd errors ... different errors, each time. So I boot the Ultimate Boot CD and run memory checks, no errors, run CPU checks, get one, once, then it seems fine. After then replacing/checking/etc everything I possibly could. I realize that the Motherboard, and/or CPU are going. Going to have to replace those.
Before THAT, I had replaced the power supply on this computer, because it had died (perhaps, it took the motherboard/CPU with it?)
Before THAT, I had just finished a week long reinstall/rebuild of my primary computer. It was randomly rebooting. Was doing it more frequently. Finally got to where I had to do something about it (read: a couple times an evening). So I figured it might be a power supply issue (have had that before). So I put a new one in it (The one that above, died). That didn't work. So I figured it must be software. I cleaned the registry, I uninstalled stuff, etc. Didn't help. So, I decided I needed to do a repair install (Windows XP). I try, half-way through it FAILS, and messed up the system. I try again (and again). It gets wierd errors when trying to write to the hard drives, can't copy files, it changes every time. Eventually I search around online, and find someone else who was having my exact same 'reboot' issues originally. Guess what, it was memory. So I pull one of the 512 sticks out of it, and whamm, it's fine. and I didn't need to do the whole reinstall I finally ended up doing. Had I just pulled RAM originally, it would have solved it all. Bad RAM *sigh*
Before THAT, well ... ok, that was the beginning of the process I think. However a 'little while' before that our DVD player died. I swear those things only last 1 year.
Oh well ... Just amazing how everything will work fine for years and years, and suddenly all go bad at once.
Haven't blogged in a while because life has been hectic, and far too much has been changing.
First of all, the big news. I've been offered a job by Digg.com, and accepted it. Won't start working for them for a month or so while I finish out my current job. But I am very excited about the opportunity to work for them. It will definately be exciting, and fun!
Now, that said. Chaos Theory. The part where one 'small thing happens' that somehow causes other things to happen. It happens ALL the time to me. ALL the time. And it happened recently. With computers, and things dying.
Let's see, working backwards:
Last night, I was home working on my book, and the power supply to my computer (only a month old) started smelling 'hot'. I shut down, checked it out, blew some air into it, started back up and it was fine. For 30 minutes. Then my computer instantly powered down. As if it wasn't plugged in. Bye-Bye power supply.
The night before that, my wireless router that I had been using for 3 years, suddenly died. (Just the wireless side of it)
Before that, I was fighting my 'spare box' to get linux re-installed on it ... after going through 6 different linux distributions (plus FreeBSD), all getting different wierd errors ... different errors, each time. So I boot the Ultimate Boot CD and run memory checks, no errors, run CPU checks, get one, once, then it seems fine. After then replacing/checking/etc everything I possibly could. I realize that the Motherboard, and/or CPU are going. Going to have to replace those.
Before THAT, I had replaced the power supply on this computer, because it had died (perhaps, it took the motherboard/CPU with it?)
Before THAT, I had just finished a week long reinstall/rebuild of my primary computer. It was randomly rebooting. Was doing it more frequently. Finally got to where I had to do something about it (read: a couple times an evening). So I figured it might be a power supply issue (have had that before). So I put a new one in it (The one that above, died). That didn't work. So I figured it must be software. I cleaned the registry, I uninstalled stuff, etc. Didn't help. So, I decided I needed to do a repair install (Windows XP). I try, half-way through it FAILS, and messed up the system. I try again (and again). It gets wierd errors when trying to write to the hard drives, can't copy files, it changes every time. Eventually I search around online, and find someone else who was having my exact same 'reboot' issues originally. Guess what, it was memory. So I pull one of the 512 sticks out of it, and whamm, it's fine. and I didn't need to do the whole reinstall I finally ended up doing. Had I just pulled RAM originally, it would have solved it all. Bad RAM *sigh*
Before THAT, well ... ok, that was the beginning of the process I think. However a 'little while' before that our DVD player died. I swear those things only last 1 year.
Oh well ... Just amazing how everything will work fine for years and years, and suddenly all go bad at once.
posted by Eli at 3:39 PM
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