Made my first foray into networking/upgrading/randomly taking computers apart recently.
First thing…
*Stripping a Compaq Presario 7360 Series*
Tools:
Phillips screw driver (small/medium)
Crowbar
lots and lots and lots of patience
Larry was an old Compaq Presario 7360, with all the standard factory components.
A whopping 64MB of RAM (SDR at that.)
Totally awesome 7 GB hard drive
500 MHz processor (same one as in Allen)
and the usual built-in video card that dies if you try to run anything more than Majesty.
+ two fans that are probably the best part of the whole thing.
Let me tell you right now. If you have a 7260 Series, they are the hardest computer I have ever tried to open… I have a link somewhere to a guy who actually went through the trouble of upgrading one of these things… I’ll find it and give it to ya later. All in all, I got about $75 of scrap from this thing. Everything worked fine ‘cept the HD was fried. But I’ll get the files off of that soon enough.
Ok… the second fun thing…
*Setting up a wireless network*
Routed the main internet to Hal through a Belkin wireless router, then hooked a Belkin wireless USB adapter to Allen. Could not get Allen to connect to the router… So I called Tech support…
…
…
Your call is important to us, please remain on the line and the next availiable representative will be with you shortly.
…
…
*one hour later* (No exaggerations either)
Your call is important to us, please remain on the line and the next availiable representative will be with you shortly.
…
…
*twenty minutes later* (Bear in mind that by this time it was around 12:45 AM)
Finally, after 80 minutes of Vivaldi’s Autumn (from "The Four Seasons") I get to speak to a Belkin Techie! Yay! Oh wait. It’s an immigrant who can barely speak intelligible English… After a good 20 minutes of confusing help, she asks me to call back tomorrow and let them know if her jumbled instructions worked… By this time the clock read 12:54 AM, I wanted to go to bed… But I figured one more try. Of course, it didn’t work… Then I got in trouble for even being on at such a late hour, at which point I had to produce the permission given me by mom… yada yada yada… It gets better…
So the next day around 3:00 PM, I call up tech support again.
"If you already have a Belkin product and need help setting it up, please press 1"
*1*
…
..
.
*1*
…
…
*11111*
…
*!11181!!11!!11*
…
…
#$&@
…
*hang up the phone.*
*pick it up again*
*call tech support*
*1*
"Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line and a Belkin representative will be with you shortly."
…
*cue Vivaldi* (It is so ironic how I wanted to listen to the orchestral arrangement of that song for so long, and now, I never want to hear it again.)
…
*twenty minutes later*
*click*
"”ello?"
[Ah, yes of course! They only have a SINGLE PERSON RUNNING TECH SUPPORT… ALL DAY LONG!!]
(Again, the same person… who still cannot speak "Ingles")
To cut a long, frustrating story short… I got my connection working. Thanks in a very smalll part to tech support. They told me the location of the LAN control panel, and I went there. They told me what to do, and it didn’t help. She gave up, and asked me to call back later. I messed around in the control panel and found that the problem was that it was – get this – *factory preset to disallow other computers to connect to the network*
Oh yeah. If you ever buy a Belkin product, be completely sure you know how to run it, because tech support is little to no help. And chances are, the problem is with the bizzare factory presets, so check there first.
Now, I’m going to either connect Squirrel Boy to Allen via a cross over ethernet cable, or directly to the router via *shudders* a Belkin wireless card. The third option would be to hardwire Squirrel Boy to the router through a long ethernet cable… but that would kind of defeat the purpose of having a wireless network…
Whatever I end up doing, I have to wait until I reinstall Windows on Squirrel Boy. Hehe… I had to use the copy that is on Hal, but then realized that if you don’t activate windows in 30 days, it becomes unuseable… and since that windows is already registered on Hal… yeah… ah well.I suppose I could use Larry’s recovery disk… but I don’t want win’ 98 on Squirrel Boy. I plan on playing Halo/Diablo on him.
Well, that’s all for now. Oh! My nerd score is 97! My computer geek score is 93! Beat that!!
Later
Word is Up 