Do you believe in luck? Do you believe in fate? Tell you a secret. Among my friends, i'm noted for bad luck with girls and tech toys. I'll not ponder anout my luck with girls cause that will be all too painful to me, I'll dwell on my flings with tech gadgets.
I'm never good with technology. Every damn thing that is not natural becomes garbage when they reach my hands. My friends admire me on my credibility on making electronics fail by itself. It might be me being too callous, too cowboyish when i use technology, but to tell you the truth, i still have no idea on what have i done wrong on the occasions that my tech toys malfunction. Nor did my friends.
My printers are champions of disasters. They can either get their printerhead spoilt or their cuicuit boards toasted just like that, or their ink dried up miraculously whenever i want to use them.
Recently, i've been fixing a lot of my company's computers, curing all sorts of problems. Too much maybe, that's why lady luck tried to test my hardware skills and fried my CPU instead. I've got such a shock of my lifew when i found out one eventful day when my monitor stars blinking on and off like a boy drowning and gasping for air. Me, financially desperate, tried everything, from simple switch on and off procedure to dissecting ram and graphic card and reassemble again. Nothing works!
So desperate was I that finally I reached ot for my friend, Zentrox, who uncannily, recommended all the steps that i've done. We reached a common understanding that it must be hardware failure and nothing short of a component replacement will do the trick. Unwillingly, we went to Low Yat together to get confirmation from professionals. (With all my cash that i ever had)
The verdict, motherboard and power supply unit failure. To make things worse, that guy ripped me off RM30. Then, i bought a new power supply unit and a motherboard for a total RM270. I've decided to assemble it on my own as i have not explored the connection between power supply and motherboard yet. We did the assemly at Zentrox's house. We really have a real fun albeit dangerous time exploring all the connections. Sometimes, we weren't really sure of what we are doing as not all instructions are stated in the readme file. We gambled on some ports but finally got my computer up and starting.
Later on, at my home, i tried reinstalling my windows, but my computer just can't detect the .exe files. It turned out that the cd-rom drive was spoilt. Funnily, it was really the last thing on my list that i suspect is spoilt as it can detect other files fairly well like mp3 and wav etc. I was so desperate that i even tried changing the IDE cables! Anyway, jargons a side, it set me back a hefty 115 bucks. Now, after all my investments, some RM450, inclusive of bus fare, my modem kept on giving me error 651. To tell the truth, i'm currently using my 3rd printer in 5 years, and my 4th cd-rom drive in 2 years. Heck, is this fate or what?
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Friday, May 12, 2006
Troubleshooter
Sorry for writing late…..again. For the last few days I was very busy, being harassed by a certain fiend uh…..friend of mine half a globe away. If you want to complain, please go forth to www.kumonoito.blogspot.com and lodge your report on the chatterbox.
As some of you may know, my work involves me working with a computer, not on a computer. But it was exactly what I did these past few weeks, holding the screwdriver more than a pen. It all started less than 5 minutes into my new job, when my boss (BOSS A) asked me whether I’m computer savvy. He said that most computers here are old stuffs, and I said no problem (Well, actually I really don’t have any problem working with any type of computer as long as they are not older than me. Serious!).
Then, 5 days into my new job, he intercom me and asked me whether I can work a scanner. I told him no as I don’t have a scanner yet (at that time), and I have not used any scanner in my life yet (at that time). Later, I think it was another week later, my boss tried to introduce something high tech into one of my colleague’s computer that runs on Windows 95. It was a USB port meant for the PCI slot. My colleague unfortunately, does not possess the rudiments of a computer, and my boss was kinda busy. So he asked my help. I helped him fixed it but the problem was, the o/s has problems detecting the USB. Of course! USB doesn’t exist before 1999(I guess)! Anyhow, we never thought of that problem but suggest that it only happens to that particular computer. So he and I decided to try it on another computer. It was still the same (the computer was running on Windows 98).
Another colleague saw me working on the computer, asked me to rewire her computer because she wanted to shift her CPU some where else. I obliged. My boss kept an eye on me and from then on kept on asking me varied questions regarding computers. One day he will ask me to sit down in his office and talked and ask me to explain the difference of 16x dvd rom drive and 52x cd rom drive, asked me why one of his computer can play a certain dvd but another computer with almost identical specs can’t. Other days, he will pull out one IDE cable and another floppy cable and asked me what the difference is. Sometimes, he will ask me to give suggestions to his problems at hand, like how come he cannot safely remove his external hard drive. Some of these are so complicated I need to hide in the office toilet and send these IQ questions to Zentrox. (Fei Zhai, you really don’t know who Zentrox is? He is actually a computer idiot. That’s what he is. So whenever I got problems, I’ll call him and get my “Idiot’s guide to Computing”. Pretty handy though. Sometimes, we watch crazy movies together, like Ultraviolent and My Dick have fun with Jane. We often break our backs at some mountains near Star Hill, and our favourite movie is Alexander the Gay. Our worst moment is eating FABs together and our finest moment is preparing our gifts to 25 zhai.)
My ultimate was helping another boss (BOSS B) format his computer and setup the computer again, including LAN, antivirus and all that. It has 150G and it took me half a day. Then, BOSS A, I think, felt uneasy in relying me on tech support all the time, installed Norton Antivirus 2004 on one on my colleague’s computer. He knows that there was a virus EKK on the computer, and he wanted to clear it up. Unfortunately, after installation, it crashed. He didn’t want to tell me at first, but when the situation went dire, he said. “Shengcui, there is a problem with this computer. I think the antivirus software made it crash. You continue from here.” Then he went off.
It took me 3 hours to clean up the mess. I removed the hard drive, hook it to another ‘healthy’ computer, scanned it and cleared the virus before realizing the computer crashed because my boss was trying to run Norton Antivirus on 16 MB RAM!!! Then, 2 days later, my boss asked me to take out another colleague’s computer hard drive so that he can hook it up with his computer via his external hard drive casing, so that he can mimic what I did last time. I don’t know what happened but the whole hard disk went dysfunctional after that. The computers, both my boss and my colleagues, don’t recognize the hard disk format. Even a computer technician certified the hard disk as dead. Nothing short of a reformat will do. All data would be lost. (The data here involves the data of the whole company for 6 years!!!!)
I don’t know what I did but at the end of the day, I ‘revived’ it. All data is intact. All my colleagues and BOSS A asked whether I entered the wrong stream, and urged me to give my career a total rethink. Well, actually, to tell the truth, I’m completely no good in computer before all these. After all these problem solving, I’m only slightly better in computer skills. It’s my BOSS A that stimulates me to think and apply my computer common sense. It is him that provided me the chance to push my tech skills further, and helped me gained invaluable insights and experience in computer trouble-shooting. And to think of him placing the fate of a more than 25 year old firm into the hands of a barely 20 year old kid that he barely knows, I think he is among the best bosses I will ever work with. Thank you.
As some of you may know, my work involves me working with a computer, not on a computer. But it was exactly what I did these past few weeks, holding the screwdriver more than a pen. It all started less than 5 minutes into my new job, when my boss (BOSS A) asked me whether I’m computer savvy. He said that most computers here are old stuffs, and I said no problem (Well, actually I really don’t have any problem working with any type of computer as long as they are not older than me. Serious!).
Then, 5 days into my new job, he intercom me and asked me whether I can work a scanner. I told him no as I don’t have a scanner yet (at that time), and I have not used any scanner in my life yet (at that time). Later, I think it was another week later, my boss tried to introduce something high tech into one of my colleague’s computer that runs on Windows 95. It was a USB port meant for the PCI slot. My colleague unfortunately, does not possess the rudiments of a computer, and my boss was kinda busy. So he asked my help. I helped him fixed it but the problem was, the o/s has problems detecting the USB. Of course! USB doesn’t exist before 1999(I guess)! Anyhow, we never thought of that problem but suggest that it only happens to that particular computer. So he and I decided to try it on another computer. It was still the same (the computer was running on Windows 98).
Another colleague saw me working on the computer, asked me to rewire her computer because she wanted to shift her CPU some where else. I obliged. My boss kept an eye on me and from then on kept on asking me varied questions regarding computers. One day he will ask me to sit down in his office and talked and ask me to explain the difference of 16x dvd rom drive and 52x cd rom drive, asked me why one of his computer can play a certain dvd but another computer with almost identical specs can’t. Other days, he will pull out one IDE cable and another floppy cable and asked me what the difference is. Sometimes, he will ask me to give suggestions to his problems at hand, like how come he cannot safely remove his external hard drive. Some of these are so complicated I need to hide in the office toilet and send these IQ questions to Zentrox. (Fei Zhai, you really don’t know who Zentrox is? He is actually a computer idiot. That’s what he is. So whenever I got problems, I’ll call him and get my “Idiot’s guide to Computing”. Pretty handy though. Sometimes, we watch crazy movies together, like Ultraviolent and My Dick have fun with Jane. We often break our backs at some mountains near Star Hill, and our favourite movie is Alexander the Gay. Our worst moment is eating FABs together and our finest moment is preparing our gifts to 25 zhai.)
My ultimate was helping another boss (BOSS B) format his computer and setup the computer again, including LAN, antivirus and all that. It has 150G and it took me half a day. Then, BOSS A, I think, felt uneasy in relying me on tech support all the time, installed Norton Antivirus 2004 on one on my colleague’s computer. He knows that there was a virus EKK on the computer, and he wanted to clear it up. Unfortunately, after installation, it crashed. He didn’t want to tell me at first, but when the situation went dire, he said. “Shengcui, there is a problem with this computer. I think the antivirus software made it crash. You continue from here.” Then he went off.
It took me 3 hours to clean up the mess. I removed the hard drive, hook it to another ‘healthy’ computer, scanned it and cleared the virus before realizing the computer crashed because my boss was trying to run Norton Antivirus on 16 MB RAM!!! Then, 2 days later, my boss asked me to take out another colleague’s computer hard drive so that he can hook it up with his computer via his external hard drive casing, so that he can mimic what I did last time. I don’t know what happened but the whole hard disk went dysfunctional after that. The computers, both my boss and my colleagues, don’t recognize the hard disk format. Even a computer technician certified the hard disk as dead. Nothing short of a reformat will do. All data would be lost. (The data here involves the data of the whole company for 6 years!!!!)
I don’t know what I did but at the end of the day, I ‘revived’ it. All data is intact. All my colleagues and BOSS A asked whether I entered the wrong stream, and urged me to give my career a total rethink. Well, actually, to tell the truth, I’m completely no good in computer before all these. After all these problem solving, I’m only slightly better in computer skills. It’s my BOSS A that stimulates me to think and apply my computer common sense. It is him that provided me the chance to push my tech skills further, and helped me gained invaluable insights and experience in computer trouble-shooting. And to think of him placing the fate of a more than 25 year old firm into the hands of a barely 20 year old kid that he barely knows, I think he is among the best bosses I will ever work with. Thank you.
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