Suck is....

Suck is having something blow up in your face, quite literally and painfully.

ouch.

What you blow up man!??!!?! And that do suck most certainly

An engine

Ouch! Ya alright?

Ya, nothing broken thankfully, but bruised and burned. Sore and tired as hell, although nothing vicodin can't take care of

True that!

Yeah, um ... Manny, I don't know if anyone ever told you this before, but you're not really supposed to blow engines up. They don't work that way.

Having your computer thrashed and trashed a minimum of 4 times in the past 2 weeks, guh, I hate having to wipe everything. Girlfriend's mom and brother no longer allowed to touch me machine , lol.

Aww man, dont format/reload every time you get infected.... there good, free tools you can download to clean malware (malicious software). In most cases you can even kill rootkits without having to erase/reload.

Still, I agree you are better off not letting others use your PC. When it doesnt belong to them, many folks take risks that they wouldnt normally take... and that inevitably ends up in a headache for the owner of the system.

If there is some incontrovertible reason that someone else NEEDS access to your machine... it might be worth doing a little research on how to set up a temporary Virtual Machine.

You can learn more here.

Oh it was beyond infection, it was to the point it wouldn't even boot, I'm not sure what they were doin but I thought I had completely lost my hard drive due to corruption. It was awful. They just don't have the slightest clue what they are doing and tend to make more of a mess then it's worth.

Oh, most times you cant boot its something simple causing the problem, like an error on a system files sector or the boot sector. Those can usually be fixed by running a chkdsk scan with both file system and bad sector scans enabled. The only trick is having a way to run a chkdsk scan when the computer wont boot. I find the ebst way is to boot into a PE (preinstall environment), it looks like windows XP, but doesnt have full functionality... but you CAN browse your hdd (hard disk drive) contents, and run chkdsk and other utilities.

A great disc to have is Hiren's BootCD 10.0.

It has a TON of tools, and is bootable. It has both a DOS boot menu AND a PE boot option.

Download the ISO, burn it, and save it in a safe place for those "awww crap" moments.

Here is a link.

I tried to repair it half a dozen times and no go, I was told I took it rather well, no one was harmed in the fixing of the problem, lol.

Vista startup repair is for crap, in all honesty.

It doesnt check for bad sectors and patch them. I cant tell you how many times folks have come into the shop with that problem and I ran a chkdsk from a PE and voila! it booted fine.

One note however: when a hard drive starts developing bad sectors, you CAN reformat it, and get back into your OS... however it is usually a sign that the hard drive is failing. Bad sectors dont usually pop-up within the first 3 to 5 years of a hard drive's lifepsan... if they do, you can fix em, but they eventually come back causing more problems. I recommend backing up your data and replacing a hard drive that is getting bad sectors.

The best way to test for bad sectors on your HDD is to run a tool called MHDD 4.6 by HDD Guru.

Here is a link to an ISO for a bootable CD for it.

Burnn the ISO to CD, then boot to the cd (you may have to change the boot order setting in your BIOS), and when the program loads up, just start it without SCSI support. It will load some basic funtionality drivers and then scan for your HDD. Select your HDD from the list that comes up by typing the number that appears to the left of it, then press enter (the tool will also usually pick up your DVD/CD ROM, so make you you dont select that one).

After selecting the HDD to scan, simply press F4 once to bring up scan options, and then press F4 again to being the default scan. It will display a visual graph of the read-times of each sector on the drive. Bigger drives will take a longer time to scan, but what you are looking for is solid red blocks, or blocks with a red X in them. Those are failing or unrecoverable sectors, and they indicate your drive is failing and should be replaced soon.

well aren't you just chock full o' goodies! lol

I am a professional PC Technician, so its kinda my job to be loaded for bear when it comes to tools

Well I suppose it would be, lol.

Yeah, when I started accumulating nine thousand different tools CDs I started researching a way to try and combine them into one. Hirens and MHDD ISOs are extremely small, combined they take up less than half of a 700MB CD, so I knew if I could somehow rebuild the ISO file after adding in some of my other REALLY useful tools, it would save a LOT of headache.

It took me a couple days to find the tools to rebuild the ISO because it uses ISOLINUX as its bootable "sector" and most common burning programs for windows cannot recognize the ISOLINUX image to make the CD boot properly (and embarassingly, the tools I needed were actually included in the original ISO download compressed in the .ZIP file... sigh)

Then it took me a week to figure out why some of the tools werent working properly
from the rebuilt ISO image... I researched and then performed a
workaround, and now... I have my own private ISO that includes
95% of the tools I need to use regularly. It takes up exactly 700 MB
hehe

I dont know if I would get in trouble for hosting that ISO for download, but I dont have a place to host it from anyhow.... thats why I just gave you links to the original content

Suck is...

Buying several new PC games (well, not *new* new, a couple of them are titles that came out a few years ago)... and enjoying them immensely... but finding... they're so damn short! All but one game was a sequel in a series. I feel like I got half the gameplay I shoulda out of them. They're fun, no doubt.... just.... short. Glad I didn't pay that much for them at least!

I've done that a few times myself

Not suck is dating a geeky girl; inthecorridors and I went to an art materials trade show yesterday where we found a booth with a guy selling casting and mold-making materials for make-up prosthetics, masks, etc. He starts his spiel with "Say you've always wanted to be a zombie, but still wanted to maintain your current state of aliveness...", to which inthecorridors immediately replies "Aww, but then you wouldn't get your undead immunities, what's the point?"

LOL, nice.

Suck is...

My modem shutting on and off on average every 3 minutes. Longest stretch of time it's stayed on and connected in the last two weeks: 2 hours. Lucky if I get 15 minutes in a single day though. And this has been going on for 2 weeks now as of today.

Suckier is...

The muthaf-ing brain dead moron working for cablevision's customer service department who couldn't understand that while yes, he may be seeing my modem online at HIS end, it's most certainly not on mine, and no, no thank you very much glad I could be of service, hang up and smile with a job (not) well done....

Very few things push me to feel like I physically need to hurt someone, but today my temper beyond short. It's flat out gone.

Oh I hate customer service, and to think thats usually the type of job I had

Man, I'm sorry about that. I'd go a little crazy without intertubes access.

Suck is finding Knights of the Republic, original, at Goodwill for $3... and opening it up in glee to discover that the first disc was missing. Ok, so, that was Mr. Chongo that actually happened to, but I really wanted to play it too! I mean, we hooked up because I corrected his Star Wars quote...

@Manny: I know youre pretty darn competent with your networking knowledge, but I offer to assist with troubleshooting if you would like. I used to work for cablevision so I am familiar with certain aspects of their service, hardware, and network.

@inthecorridors: that *does* totally suck. I am a pretty big star wars fan myself, and one of the reasons I havent been playing Aenea so much is when I took a break, I got hooked on Kotor I and II and have been replaying them extensively (hence the location line of my profile, a kotor II reference). I cant remember if Kotor I needed a cd-key or such.... I think it just required the disc to be in the drive... I *might* be able to locate a backup copy I have of the disc (since you purchased it). Contact me via PM to discuss options.

If Dave doesn't have one I have both games myself and could probly help out if need be, just let me know if ya need it

We didn't buy it b/c we discovered this in the checkout line. There was that consolation at least!

... being asked to enter Product codes for purposes of registration before the product is made to self-destruct. Which are written in bottom-of-eye chart appearing sized print on small fragile stickers. Which have been removed from easy to hold manuals and DVD containers, and placed on the dark shadowed side of the new system tower. And of course the code must be 25 characters in length, and each character must be entered correctly.

I wear glasses, but cannot contort my angry mug to any known shape which will allow proper vision to said sticker. And the first attempt was declared invalid. And I must have left my magnifying glass in my detective case. And of course, the sticker starts to tear from initial attempt to remove it....

Now I not only need a Techie to get this piece of Borg technology up and running, but I have to find one with decent vision in the next few days or *poof*

I hates tech and the brainless twits that compile such thoughtless instructions.

*rages long into the frozen afternoon*

Which product is going to "self-destruct"?

Windows?

daveyeisley wrote:Which product is going to "self-destruct"?

Windows?

Yep. Good thing I accidently found this out now, I guess.

Unless they changed their policy, Windows should only deactivate after 30 days.... you havent had the PC that long have you? I am rather surprised the folks who built the machine didnt take care of that for you... activation doesnt require registration with microsoft that I know of.

Still, the Windows isnt going to actually "self-destruct" totally.... you just wont be able to actually log in without activating with that product key. If you try to log in, it will promot you, and if you dont have the key, it will log you off immeiately. Once you activate, however, it should work fine.

It stated that if the code was not entered within the next 22 days, that it may be deactivated and another OS may need to be purchased.

I am planning on trying to find a magnifying glass of some kind this weekend. Trying to locate a Techie is almost impossible during the holidays.

I wish you the best of luck, friend! And hopefully you don't encounter a Techie from Ireland - those guys are absolutely user-unfriendly!

A Techie friend home for the holiday stopped by and activated the code for me. And to make me feel a little better, my original attempt was only off 1 character, though I had no notion which one....

Glad it's taken care of!

WooHoo! Time to party like a new PC!

Freshtecholicious!

Suck is...

pretty much wasting an entire ruby staff of summoning because my #*#$&!! isp sucks donkey balls and disconnects me every 5 minutes.... and when I log back in, no more elemental.

Suck is, having been complaining to them for what? Well over two months now, and they do nothing to fix their f-ing problem.

Suck is, always getting the moron who says "according to my screen, you're connected and running fine".... which was amazing since this last time, my computer was completely turned off at the time.

Suck for them is... no service, they get no money, and verizon's likely to be getting a new customer.

MannyJabrielle wrote:Suck is...

pretty much wasting an entire ruby staff of summoning because my #*#$&!! isp sucks donkey balls and disconnects me every 5 minutes.... and when I log back in, no more elemental.

Suck is, having been complaining to them for what? Well over two months now, and they do nothing to fix their f-ing problem.

Suck is, always getting the moron who says "according to my screen, you're connected and running fine".... which was amazing since this last time, my computer was completely turned off at the time.

Suck for them is... no service, they get no money, and verizon's likely to be getting a new customer.

Damn it. Cablevision has been hiring like crazy for almost the last 12 months..... I bet part of the problem is they cant properly train the new people.

Just as an FYI, the tech on the phone doesnt need your computer on to detect if your modem is connected. They will verify that the connection is Ok from the lines outside to your modem first thing. What Im concerned about is whether or not they ran a full ping test, or better yet.... several ping tests.

The other thing to consider is the connection from the modem to the PC. Best way to test this is to connect directly from the modem to your network card.... no routers/hubs/switches in between.

If youre still having the intermittent problem while directly connected to the modem, but the tech pings the modem and sees no issue from the lines to the modem, then you may have a bad ethernet port on the modem, a bad network cable, or a bad network card in the PC. If its an option, try a new network cable, or even another PC (laptop maybe?) to verify that the connection from modem to PC is or is not the issue.

I know from experience that most people dont take the time to check on their own equipment before blasting cablevision (and many times it is not the ISP's fault), but if you have done all that... then you may just need a tech to run a prolonged ping test.... and if there is anything beyond 2% packet loss, they need to send a tech out to check your lines and/or replace your modem. For those two things there should be no charge to you whatsoever.

EDIT: one other thing that occurs to me.... its VERY rare, but I had this happen to me: A customer calls up unable to connect or getting intermittent service... so, I go thru the process of bringing up their account. The account info is correct as far as address, phone number, name, etc... but for some reason, after much testing and whatnot... what they are telling me is going on over at their end is not matching with what I see on my screen as far as their modem status..... at this point the Modem's MAC address needs to be verified. They need to make absolutely sure that the modem they are communicating with (that is listed on your account) is the modem that you actually physically have in your home. There is a label on your modem (the location of the label varies, depending on what model of modem you have) but the tech can verify the MAC in the system if you read it off the modem. It is very unlikely that this is the problem.... but in the rare cases where it is, much time is wasted and frustration is caused because this is not checked soon enough.

Oh... and one of the things I hated most about working at cablvision, but may be of use to you in this case.... anytime you arent getting what you want from the person on the other end of the phone.... you can demand to talk to their supervisor. The tech will get a lead technician involved first, and most times the lead will pick up on any errors or omissions the first phone tech might have made. If the lead cant get to the bottom of it, then your issue is very rare... and they will usually send a tech out on a 'next available' basis for recurring issues like this. In the end, they are very worried about corporate complaints, so if you make a big enough stink.... eventually you get what you want within reason).

Modem was off too Both PC and modem are plugged into the same power strip. When I shut down everything, everything on my desk gets no mo juice lol

This is the third actual modem I've been through, have checked the mac's several times on each one. I'm thinking the line from the pole to the house is messed up. They keep saying they've sent someone already to check the pole, but I've not seen anyone, so either they haven't, or the guy came, but didn't feel like climbing any ladders. The ethernet port looks fine, works with my neighbor's verizon hookup perfectly with both cards I have.

I have been complaining and asking for supervisors, called up every number on my bill or such I could get a hold of... one of the two main reasons why I'm talking to verizon now.

Well, hopefully it will get sorted.... verizon isnt all theyre cracked up to be either, unfortunately.

Also, a note on the guys who do pole work.... in most cases the techs who are authorized to climb poles dont work directly for cablevision, they work for the company that owns the actual poles.... and it can be a hassle and a half for cablevision to get them to fix certain problems on the poles.

Heh, I'd go climb it myself, but I can't find my ladder or half my tools, and shimmying up the pole in the cold just isn't in my agenda these days

I would heavily advise against it anyhow.... the pole owner's can sue for that.... tampering or something.

If the Pole is the issue, folks living near you should have similar issues. If its just the line to your place.... that would be rare... have you had high winds, or any other sorts of weather conditions that might have oxidized or loosened line connections?

Now why can't all technicians be like Dave these days?

Had one blow through early January, and told them about that. Not sure if any of my neighbors have the same problem. Only one that I know of has internet access through cablevision as well, and she's.... special... with computers. Everyone else around here has verizon, or pirates off the wireless network someone around here leaves unsecured.

And hehe... that assumes the pole owner would catch me. Although yeah... not as easy to do here as it was back in yonkers >_> not that I did anything like that in yonkers.

Well, they finally sent someone (two days ago, the day I was posting my gripes), and the kid was up on the pole for about a half hour...

And I haven't had problems since. W00t.

But still suck in the world of Manny.... nothing sucks more than nearly getting my ass run over in front of my home because some lead-foot chick is too busy yakking on her cellphone to notice the light was red!

lol well they made a law against talking on cell phones in CA and it hasn't stopped them from doing it any less

We have the same law here. Problem is though, the people where I live... half of them got their drivers licenses from a gumball machine, and the other half don't have one at all lol

Yeah, we have those laws in PA, too ... but still they chat!