Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Computer Success!

Our computer woes began over a year ago with this desktop. It began randomly sutting down, but only sometimes producing the archetypical BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH. Other times it would just stop working and then refuse to boot unless we let it sit for an hour or so. Strange, because then it would work fine again, sometimes for days.
The beast's healthy intervals got shorter and its sick intervals got longer, so we ran some diagnostics and I determined to replace the hard drive. With that done (I had a lot of help), I loaded a trial version of Windows 7 (I had a lot of help) and declared victory. Next day, Megan calls me at school and lets me know that the machine began acting up again as soon as I left home. Curses! I rechecked the hardware specs for Windows 7. I reloaded. No dice. I loaded Vista again. It didn't finish loading, but the machine finally offered me another clue. BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH & PAGINATION ERROR IN NON-PAGINATED AREA. After a quick google search, I found what I hope is the answer.



Random access memory. Stick by stick replacement to see which one was bad. It's not actually very hard - and it looks like I discovered the bad stick on the first try. I replaced the first stick and reloaded 7. Voila! It's up and running. We'll see though. I'm at school now. The computer's sixth sense will kick in and it'll break. I better check my messages.

If you didn't like this post, you can still be glad. Now Megan has the tools she needs to keep posting.
Planned success posts: bathroom remodeled, basment finished, kitchen remodeled, bathroom 2 remodeled, crown molding installed, bedrooms remodeled (x4).

1 comment:

Brooks, Amber & Maggie Jo said...

Although I didn't understand all the computer lingo in this post I am glad your computer is working again. I do look forward to Megan's posts, but you started a story about a little light and you never finished it. I have been waiting to hear the end of the story. I know you are busy but maybe over the holidays you could cram it in. You can't just start a story and not finish it.