The events of this story took place about one year ago, as covid was taking off, but some parts of it just didn't seem to work as a story. So every few months I took a new look at it and worked it again. Adventures with a Ten Year Old Computer' just seemed easy in comparison - drink and write and not care, I guess. Just as the repair and work were much tougher for Marilyn's very fine computer, finding a way to write it was much more difficult as well.
The almost repair is factual. Any reference to my childhood or parents is factual. That is what happened. Oscar is real to me, but may not be to readers. Ms. Tao is back, and Mike and Bill will back me up that she is real and we saw her in Tim Hortons - Bill is still probably drooling. The computer I gave Marilyn to use after hers was assaulted by Cyclops is the 10 year old computer of the original story. The dusty cluttered storage room is unfortunately all too real.
I apologize in advance for some of the very short chapters, but that seemed a good place to cut the flow. If you have anyone in your head's memory banks (even people you don't like) who might like this, please send them a link. The other three stories seemed to be quite popular, and that made me feel really good. Also, it brings people to the site, and that may change Microsoft users into converts. Warning though, while I used Linux in the repair, I did restore, sort of, her computer to Win10.
Jason has promised to set up a suitable link from the front page that may be found by some kind of PLUG search in Peterborough. And maybe tomorrow I can get to publishing chapter one.
(Note: No CPUs were harmed during the writing of this story.)
Sorry for the delay in publishing the first chapter, but Marilyn, when reading some of it, found that my depiction of her is unfair. She says the woman in the story is quite a bit less refined and pleasant than she really is. I tried to explain that a woman that sweet and kind would not work in this story. So we spent a lot of yesterday either in different rooms or screaming at each other.
Maybe tomorrow.
;D ;D :D You're a blast, Buster. And I don't mean that sarcastically, you do make me chuckle. The typo in Introduction gave me a chuckle, too. :) Looking forward to the first chapter. I want there to be something before I link it. :)
Chapter 1: My Wife's Computer is Suffering
When the world's humans are getting sick, it's hard to get too excited about a computer problem. But when you are house bound for days, annoyances around you seem to expand to fill all the parts of your brain. So over the last while, I went to bed thinking of this aggravating problem, and when I woke up, even though the sun was shining magnificently through our bedroom window, it was the first thought in my brain, with the exception maybe of getting the kettle on for tea.
It started one quiet, bright and sunny morning with my wife calling out gently to me from the study and, rudely I thought, interrupting my peanut butter and toast breakfast. But it seemed much like most of the one or two calls a day I get about emails that have disappeared, attachments that look dangerous or strange notices that have arrived from Microsoft. Buster, the bloody computer wont start!' I looked longingly at my tea and toast. There really wasn't anything to worry about though. So I said my usual confident Never fear my dear, for Buster's here'. I'd been here before. No sweat.
The lovely little computer case was sitting on her desk, and it is a very little case, staring at me with only the on-off button lit. So I pressed and held this button to force a shutdown, waited a bit, and restarted it, knowing this would probably put my wife's life back into its usual happy orbit.
After a while, I realized her computer was not going to awaken from its zombie state, but was instead going to stare at me with one unblinking eye, probably forever if I left it. Cyclops was watching, and I realize, in retrospect, probably grinning.
My dusty downstairs storage room is cold and dark. On a tiny corner of a crowded table that I pretend is a workbench, I took off the side of the case and looked at the motherboard. 12 gig ram, quad core AMD cpu, no loose wires, no excessive heat, and not much dust. But in cases like this it's always good to re-seat the ram, and carefully I did this. I wiggled wires and examined all the parts in computers that over the last quarter century had presented problems for me.
The work had to be delayed while I went upstairs and booted my laptop, put in the password, and showed my good, but on certain days annoying, wife where her usual program shortcuts were so she could use my laptop. No thank you was spoken, because any computer problem is somehow my doing. Apparently in her non-technical mind I plan these mishaps - I do them on purpose. Any married man knows exactly what I'm talking about.
Downstairs I hooked up her computer to an old flat panel TV, the Internet, a mouse, a keyboard and finally some power. For most of you this sounds easy, but let me tell you, for an old person, on his hands and knees, in a dark corner behind the desk where he can hardly see because his glasses keep slipping and it's bloody dark, this verges on seniors-abuse, granted self-inflicted.
The result was the zombie eye staring at me again, maliciously. This formerly lovely computer was not going to start. Cyclops stared maliciously, probably silently laughing.
Tomorrow: Chapter 2: My Wife Needs a Computer, Now
I think this is going to be good. Looking forward to the next chapter!
Chapter 2: My Wife Needs a Computer, Now
Marriage Rule Number One: A husband who wishes to be happy must first make sure his wife is happy. It might not be a fair rule, but it is the primary rule. Accept it or be miserable.
My wife doesn't like using my laptop. It's different. The keyboard is funny'. She is never satisfied with the angle of the screen. The password is hard. The shortcuts aren't in the right place'. Now, I don't encourage her to use it. But she needs a computer to find the really great recipes she uses to cook the really delicious meals I like, and to find the weather reports that help to organize our walks and gardening afternoons, and to communicate with our kids and grand-kids. So pretty well immediately I need to build one, buy one or locate one somewhere in our house, because hers is not going to be up and running anytime soon by the looks of things.
To be clear for the computer people, her broken computer did not get out of the turn on the cpu fan' stage. Nothing on the screen, no access to bios, just the unpleasant zombie eye staring and making me uneasy. Maybe I was trapped on the set of a 1950's s/f movie. Or in an old episode of the Twilight Zone. Or more likely I was tired and stressed while shuffling about in a dark, dusty, messy room. On the other hand the spiders who live here seemed to feel no unease, and were quietly serene. Maybe they even had little spider smiles ââ,¬â€œ kind of hard to tell in the gloom.
Sort of fortunately, I had acquired a 10 year old Compaq computer, upgraded it to Win 10, and it ran really well. That was chronicled in Adventures with Ten Year Old Desktop'. But sort of fortunately' because I had taken out the ram for a different computer build. With a will there is a way' I had heard may times from my extended family. I still don't believe it, but I might be able to solve this particular problem anyway.
I carted the old Compaq to the other room where there was good lighting, took off the side, and saw what I didn't want to ââ,¬â€œ there were only two memory slots. I went back into the dust and dark, rummaged for longer than I wanted to, and found my little bag of ram sticks ââ,¬â€œ four of them. Each is 2 gig. Four makes a nice 8 gig memory bank. But 2 gig each in only two slots means the limit is 4 gig, and this is Win10. After a sigh and a think, I realized my wife uses one program at a time, doesn't stream, and barely touches the potential of a Win10 machine. The Compaq would function, she wouldn't notice, and Marriage Rule #1 would be achieved. And that's about all a husband can wish for in trying circumstances.
The real problem would be solved when her desktop was safely sitting on her desk, but for now I wrote out the different password for her replacement, and I'm pretty sure the replacement was not happy to have to face such a dull and unexciting life. But it said nothing rude.
And it was so. Not without complaints. But time heals all wounds, and she grew to like the big black box. And it ran like a top, but certainly not like a cheetah. Life at our house became happier. So Buster was happier.
Tomorrow: Chapter 3: Buster Plays Doctor to a very Psychotic Computer
Chapter 3: Buster Plays Doctor to a very Psychotic Computer
The wind and rain were battering the house, so I decided to pass the day with the computer's little problem. Nevertheless, the little' problem soon made me feel seriously unsettled, much like the weather outside. It wasn't going to be a pleasant day inside or out. The Acer was apparently a malignant little fortress.
I can't remember ever not being able to get into the bios of a desktop that indicated it had power and a running fan. I tried the usual keyboard stuff for an Acer with nothing. A hammer applied to the keys would have gone unnoticed, and fortunately no hammer was nearby.
I forced a reboot a few times and suddenly a blue screen emerged and Microsoft said An attempt will now be made to repair this install.' A miracle was happening before my eyes. And I grinned. Lucky me I thought, stupidly as it turned out.
The process was orderly and reassuring. I saw the white line going across the screen, and I almost opened a beer to celebrate. It did take longer than I thought it should til the screen showed something like, Process unsuccessful.'
The next few things I did are faded memories, except I was revisited by Cyclops, who I'm convinced had an even more malicious look in his staring eye. I looked around the cluttered room and wondered if this box would join the messy inhabitants gathered over the last half century. And then I had a breakthrough. Using my patented poke and see' method of problem solving with a keyboard and a finger, I hit something and I got a blue screen with choices! And one of them was a way to take the computer back to a saved point when it actually ran quite well. I rushed down this road to computer salvation and started this much desired process. And I grinned. Lucky me I thought, stupidly as it turned out. Again, the process was orderly and reassuring. And finally the screen showed something like, Process unsuccessful.' Being more hopeful than realistic, I retried this method not once more, but twice more. Hope springs eternal in the human heart. Waiting proved to be an excuse to drink more than is healthy. I was happier, but probably not any better at solving computer problems. Every option that was available to try on the blue screen was tried, sometimes more than once. To say I wasn't successful is sort of like saying cows aren't good conversationalists. It was obvious the computer wasn't going to do anything.
I did try a number of other things, and time passed, but nothing was different. This lovely computer was just a pile of computer crap, waiting to be recycled, unless inspiration struck.
And then my intoxicated mind came up with one of my absolutely stupidest ideas. And I would put this idea into operation tomorrow.
Tomorrow: Chapter 4: The Zombie Eye Gets Loose!
LOL - fun stuff.
For what it's worth, whenever my wife has a problem with her computer, I always tell her it's because of all the "porn sites she visits".
"I don't visit porn sites" she says.
I tell her "That's what they make you BELIEVE incognito mode is for.... but every time you use it.... a sector on a hard drive goes bad."
Then she rolls her eyes so hard I'm surprised she doesn't pass out.
- You need flashlight, AAA or AA. Keep one in toolbox and another by door. You'd be surprised how often you use it.
- My guess is ram or power supply.
Thanks for all the comments that indicate you are enjoying the story. That makes me feel good, and it also indicates to everyone that you personally have refined, or possibly even exquisite, taste when it comes to appreciating truly great literature. :)
And if you wish to send copies on to anyone else, or link the story on another site or somewhere else, please feel free to do that. But make it very clear in your intro that this is not a manual for repairs to computers - this is, rather, a story of a sometimes incompetent person and his broken computer of the day, who is happy when all of the wiring circuits of the house still work when he is finished.
Chapter 4: The Zombie Eye Gets Loose!
Sometimes we wake up in the morning and know for sure we have the solution, finally, to a problem. It's bad enough that others deceive us. It's ludicrous that humans deceive themselves so much.
The zombie box had evolved to something really bizarre. When I pressed the start button, it didn't just stare anymore. It began some burst of activity and then went off. When I persuaded it to start again, it had this noticeable burst and then again went off, and then again I received the malicious zombie stare.
But as Baldric would say, I have a cunning plan.' Those who watched Black Adder know that his plans never quite worked out. My cunning plan was like Baldric's, it was disastrous.
My plan was simple, some might say simple minded. I had my wife's computer which I assumed had some faulty boot software, or a corrupt and so far undetected bios. I also had a wonderfully quick, relatively new Linux Mint desktop that I had finished building about a month before - powerful, smooth, quick. Many new parts. This would be my test machine. This problem would be solved once and for all. The hard drive would either work or it wouldn't. If it didn't, it's the hard drive at fault. If it boots beautifully into Windows, it's the bios in the zombie machine. However the universe isn't yes/no, 0/1, black/white all the time. Sometimes things are more complex than we imagine. This is one of those cases.
Taking out the new ssd from the spanking brand new computer I had built, and replacing it with the maybe faulty older style hard drive from the bewitched computer was not hard, but tedious. And little did I realize the orcs were creeping up on the house, waiting to attack. So after getting the old drive in place and ready to boot, I congratulated myself on figuring out a way to get this job done. I leaned back, admired my thought processes, and pressed the start button.
What happened next is akin to the time I stood up after picking something off the kitchen floor and introduced the top of my head to the bottom of the cupboard door I had left open. In both cases I was totally shocked as you can imagine.
My lovely new machine was starting, going off, starting, going off all on its own. I held the start button down until the computer was silent. So the only problem I had was on the old hard drive. In retrospect I wonder how many times it's possible to be wrong during a computer repair.
I went to bed that night thinking I understood the problem. I didn't realize my lovely, innocent new Linux Mint computer had been left alone in the junk room with orcs hiding in the shadows.
Tomorrow: The Fall and Rise of the Wounded New Computer
Chapter 5: The Fall and Rise of the Wounded New Computer
Humans simplify the complexities of the universe in an attempt to understand it. We see what we want to, and what we are capable of absorbing. Same with understanding computers. What happened next is beyond my ken, and I really don't want to investigate it too closely. I do know it involves Cyclops of the staring eye, the orcs hiding behind the boxes in the junk room, and the vulnerability of new computers. The presence of malicious forces is obvious, no matter what the rationalist say.
I reinstalled the Mint SSD into the new computer and, just to make sure it was OK, I pressed the start button.
It was like standing up under a second open cupboard door in the kitchen.
The new computer started to boot nicely, everything looked normal, when suddenly it shutdown and rebooted. Odd, but not too frightening, because it rebooted smoothly again. The door hit my head when it interrupted and rebooted again, and again, and again. The bios was corrupted! 'Sadness descended' is the easiest way to describe how I felt.
In the old radio shows and movies, when things looked really bad like this, the Cisco Kid, the Lone Ranger, or Roy Rogers would ride down out of the hills and save the day (with of course Pancho, Tonto, or Dale Evans). And out of nowhere, at the critical moment, a hero did arrive, and I not only have never seen a hero like this, I've never even heard of her.
So, completely unaware that she was riding bravely to my rescue, I watched dumbfoundedly as my brand new computer build went on and off. I guess I was in mild shock, grieving the loss of my new pride and joy. The orcs behind the dusty boxes were probably celebrating, however orcs might do that.
With swashbuckling panache, the computer screen lit up with a message, as if this is an everyday occurrence for a modern motherboard: 'Would you like Terabyte to install the backup bios?' It took me a bit of time to react.
I checked this on the computer upstairs, and found out that yes, a Gigabyte motherboard does this if needed. Back downstairs the message was still on the screen. Keyboard work maneuvered the message to where 'enter' would activate the 'yes' answer. The click on the key returned the computer to normal mostly, and the Mint install could expect, in Operating System terms, a full and healthy life. I didn't feel unbridled joy. Mostly I just felt exhaustion, and relief.
There were scars from this battle that have never fully healed, but nothing serious. Multi deep dives into the bios by me have never resulted in the reinstatement of all the USB ports. But there are so many, the computer and I do manage very well anyway.
But that scary moment had taken Marilyn's unpleasant computer no closer to resolution.
(A link to the building and various trials of the 'New Computer' can be found in the story at, or near the end, of this long thread.)
Tomorrow: A New Strategy
Chapter 6: A New Strategy
There are only 3 rules for further work on the unpleasant computer. And they are easy to remember because all three are the same rule. Don't mess up the new Mint computer!' If what is left of my wife's computer is sophisticated junk, don't add in another shiny new piece of junk that I had just built and then destroyed.
I knew the evil infection, or whatever, was on the hard drive. It could also be in the bios, but that bridge could be crossed if and when I reached it. So step one involved scrubbing the hard drive clean. And I had the tool to do that. The Linux Mint OS has two lovely pieces of software sitting right in plain site in the menu ââ,¬â€œ USB Stick Formatter and USB Image Writer. These two pieces of software, using a simple process, will give you a bootable operating system on a memory stick.
So I booted into my new Mint computer, went to the Mint web site and downloaded the latest stable Mint OS. After that was done, I rummaged through the dust and junk and found a USB stick that had been kicking around, stuck it in, and using the Formatter software, cleaned it up. And magically, and rather cleverly I might add, used the download from the Mint web site, the newly formatted usb stick, and the Image Writer software to place a boot-able Mint operating system on the stick, which took patience but was really no big deal.
I realize this isn't very dramatic, but many times saving injured and suffering computers doesn't require sword fighting, but just tedious grunt work. And as the foot soldier bravely toils, the man on the horse get all the plaudits, and the unfairness of this is seen by few. But these unsung heroes are the saviours of many sad and broken operating systems and should be applauded.
So applauding myself, I opened a beer, and toasted my doggedness in the face of mind numbing boredom. And even after one lovely beer, more slogging was required, which might need another beer. Salvaging Marilyn's Acer was at this stage like being forced to watch a Reality Cooking Competition. And the beer helped.
So after looking up the keyboard keys for booting from other than the main hard drive, I put the USB into her computer, turned the Acer on, hit the appropriate keys and watched with satisfaction as the computer booted into a problem free live Linux Mint operating system! This bios is still OK I now knew for sure, though how that can be after the near disaster with my new Mint computer is a story that shall probably be taken to the Acer's grave. And in retrospect, I have to keep in mind that humans love to use the certainty and clarity of logic to convince themselves that their conclusion is 100% accurate, when in fact their conclusion might be made of clouds and dreams. Logic works best in math class and detective stories. Logical conclusions need rock solid premises. A house needs a solid foundation. Without solid premises, logic is useless.
Marilyn called down to the basement, 'That pretty woman you like to stare at rudely is coming over tomorrow.' And I heard the door click shut. Impossible! I never stare rudely. I always glance discreetly. I observe the way a secret agent does in enemy territory. I never stare. And I did know who the pretty lady was.
Tomorrow: Out with the Bad, In with the Good.
Uh oh. I smell a rat coming!
Chapter 7: Out with the Bad, In with the Good
The shade from the old Maple protected us as Ms Tao, my wife and I sat on our front porch discussing mostly children, grandchildren, and food, which they tended to disagree on with long rambling conversations about health, prices and preferences. (One likes raw fish, and the other doesn't.) I wish I had recorded it so that all the people reading this, who are probably a bit geeky, could revel in words like asparagus, vitamins, and cooking times. But they get along famously. Mostly I just got to listen, enjoying the light breeze. I did notice, quite accidentally and just in passing, that the beautiful Ms Tao had matched perfectly the rich red of her lipstick with the equally rich red of her expensive silk skirt. However IRemoved special characters was much more interested in the fact that her son it seems is doing very well as the assistant programming manager for a relatively new start up. Ms Tao herself seems wealthy, and dresses very well and obviously expensively, and with great taste I might add, though the source of the wealth is unknown to us. And her son gets a pretty fair stipend. Her son and mine have actually been in touch though their businesses, though I can't begin to comprehend what it is that they discuss.
She reminded me with a sort of forceful, off the cuff comment, of the day she had found the silver hard drive in my junk room, and I sensed she was taking a fair chunk of the credit for the computer repair back then for herself. At least in her mind finding the old hard drive was 50% of the repair. But her reminder of that day put an idea into my head. But first I needed to do some clean up.
Downstairs was thankfully free of food and offspring talk, and I settled down with the 'sort of functioning' computer that had been my wife's. And as I rested my hands on the keyboard, I worked out that the daemons on the hard drive had to be annihilated to make the computer safe. So that would be stage one, destroy the hiding places and burn the landscape to the ground.
I booted into a live Mint OS and called up GParted, one of the best pieces of software for manipulating hard drives anywhere. (It became quite famous you remember about 2015 or 2016 when the popular little ditty 'Let's never be parted Gparted' was filling the airwaves with its catchy tune.) And starting from the right, I eliminated the partitions one by one.
And for the final cleansing act, within the live Mint I hit the install button, and within about 15 minutes I had the drive converted, and it worked when rebooted, and there was no trace of the malignant threat. And Mint functioned perfectly! A lovely system. And everyone who uses Linux is muttering as he or she reads this, 'Well use Mint you bone-head!' Or maybe even a less polite term is used? Whatever, the Linux kernel had the drivers for the hardware. But the voyage was not headed for that particular port. I could hear the muttering and complaining from our Linux group all the way up into the North End. My wife would strongly prefer Win 10, and that would make her happy, and that would satisfy rule #1 for a happy marriage. And that is the end of that decision making process! But I was not defeated yet. Ms Tao had reminded me of the silver hard drive she had found in the workshop. Oddly enough it was free again. It had been used in Adventures with an Old Desktop, but it had been replaced with a much quicker SSD. So it sat forlornly in the dust and dark waiting to be put back into harness, to be useful again. Hard drives do not do well in retirement.
So here was the plan: Set the Mint hard drive aside as insurance. That's the backup plan that drive worked fine. Ignore the unpleasant hints from Peterborough Linux members who feel I am a turncoat. Install Win 10 on the other hard drive found by the lovely Ms Tao.
An important question here about my personality and mental abilities: Why will I never learn that things don't ever workout the way I think they will? And why did Marilyn keep insisting that evening that I embarrassed her on the porch by staring, when I know I'd never do that?
Tomorrow: A Long, Long process, and a Disappointing Outcome
Finally caught up with your story and read the last 4 chapters in rapid succession. Fascinating and I look forward to how it will all turn out. I'm thinking an explosion.
The end of the story has been written already. It wont be changed. So here are the choices:
a) there will be no explosion
b) Jason's thought - the Acer will explode
c) Buster's wife Marilyn will explode (sort of) with anger
d) both Marilyn and the Acer will explode.
There are absolutely no prizes for guessing correctly.
I guess I'm stuck with b then. :D
Chapter 8: A Long, Long process, and a Disappointing Outcome
I will guess I was seven when my cousin Ken and I saw an ad on a cereal box that promised a wonderful thing: a jet fighter airplane that sat on a ring, and when you pressed the right spot, it shot from your finger and soared into the sky! This was about 1947, and the war was still in our minds, though my dad was back now. And all we had to do was send 35 cents and one box top to the special address, and it would appear right in our home's mailbox! So Ken and I both sent away.
As you can guess, the ring and plane were tiny, and when you pressed the lever, the plane hopped off the ring and fell sullenly to the floor. We were very disappointed, but apparently the lesson never sunk in. I had forgotten that lesson from almost three quarters of a century before and I approached the flawed computer with confidence.
The Acer had Win 10 on it before, so I knew I could get a legitimate replacement for it from the Microsoft site. As to the install, I have wiped most of that long and painful process from my mind, and even singing the Beatles' 'The Long and Winding Road' doesn't help ease the pain to this day. Here's the problem.
After getting something from the Microsoft site, and transforming it into something boot-able with Mint, I inserted this precious USB stick into the Acer, and turned it on. And it ran smoothly and installed something, though the trauma has erased even that from my memory, but whatever it was worked and I could see I was on the right path. What I didn't see was that it would be a very long and very winding road, though ultimately sort of successful.
If I remember correctly, and I can't be sure of this, I was told to reboot and remove the boot disk. Because I was hungry, I just turned it off, removed the stick and went upstairs to get some food.
..........................................
When you install a Linux distro you go through a fairly simple procedure that puts everything on the hard drive that you need fairly quickly. Then you are asked to remove the install disc and reboot the computer. The system shuts down, it reboots, and Bob's your uncle, you use the operating system. So easy.
The Microsoft people have to graduate from the 'How to Make Things Difficult' program before they are allowed to work on install design. There is a feature of their installs that caused me great suffering, though actually, it's not so bad if you don't have evil beings lurking near the computer. In my case their method was exhausting. And unexpected.
Windows installs are long and slow to begin with compared to Linux. The little installers inside are old and wizened gnomes who take lots of coffee breaks. I started up the Acer and it told me nicely to wait while it did some adjusting and settling in, and then awakened to a new stage of the install, finding even more software and poking about until a message came on the screen that explained I needed to reboot. Sure I said confidently and clicked the button.
And while telling me not to turn off the computer, it poked about inside there somewhere, and finally shut down and restarted. Sort of restarted because the Acer didn't get to the actual restart screen.
The one-eyed Cyclops was staring at me again, like a long lost friend.
Tomorrow: Talking to GeekMan
The plot thickens! And I must say it's good to see you take a shot at the Windows install! You've earned a reprieve from losing your geek patch and a beating by Linux nerds.
Chapter 9: Talking to GeekMan
A beta Microsoft tester friend, living near the capital of Canada, has experienced a multitude of unusual computer problems over the years. We had met Geekman and his young wife Bonnie on a great vacation in 2008 at a Cuban resort. We've been friends ever since. When I phoned him, on a rainy unpleasant morning, and explained my problem, I was taken aback by his complete lack of sympathy and the total absence of words of condolence. He took everything in and said very brightly, 'Well that IS interesting isn't it?'
We actually had a reasonably sociable morning talking mostly about his trials and tribulations over the years with his tests, highlighted by the story of the time his video card had a fireworks display. But he's experienced and rational, and he suggested a way to get past Cyclops when the evil thing appeared.
'Unplug the computer. Press and hold the start button. Let everything rest. Plug it in, and try starting it again.'
It worked! I phone Geekman back and asked him why that worked.
He replied, 'No idea. Any other problems?' And the conversation stalled and came to an end.
But I could now continue with the install and see if Win 10 sorted itself out. And I worked out a big time saver, when it said it needed to reboot, I shut it down! The Acer said not to unplug or something like that and I watched as it played around and settled for the night. I could even take a break and maybe get a glass of Australian wine to celebrate getting back on track. The world is always better with a rich red Australian wine.
And I now had a workaround when Cyclops stared at me. 'Geekman's Solution', while not aesthetically pleasing, did have one quality that all computer people like, it worked!
So time passed and the Australian Red eased the boredom and the job was done. I used the Acer a bit and it was very smooth and good. I felt pleased and satisfied, but I couldn't leave well enough alone, at least for one night, and clicked 'reboot'.
Welcome back, Mr. Zombie Eye.
Tomorrow: Chasing Down a Solution
Chapter 10: Chasing Down a Solution
The remnants of the Great Depression lay scattered about our house after the war. Many ancient ones reading this will remember some of these things. My wooden bedside table, which had lived its former life as an orange crate, was getting little drapes over the open side. My mother had sewn some old clothes into something that slide on string to open or close the space. Her words as she admired her work were heard often in our house. 'That should be good enough.'
My dad used to bring large soap flake bags home from the factory where he worked, and after my mother had carefully pulled them apart, she would sew them into bed sheets, and they were, as she said, 'Good enough.' And my dad used the same phrase when he made a yard gate from scrap wood gathered from the alley behind the house, and again when he put a hole in a piece of wood, put a screw into it to attach it to the fence post, and by spinning the piece of wood around the screw, we could lock or unlock the gate. Even I knew 'that it should be good enough'.
So what I actually needed was something 'good enough'. But in hindsight, I wasted too much energy and time looking for perfection.
I had spent the beautiful day inside on the phone when I should have been outside, almost anywhere outside. And I chatted with three people ââ,¬â€œ my son, Geekman, and a friend who builds and repairs computers for a living. All seemed to agree on the problem, and from that a solution could be found. Apparently, over the years, Microsoft had forgotten about some piece of hardware in the Acer, and there was either outdated driver software for it, or no useful driver at all. That was the consensus.
Solution: Download free driver analyzer software, and decide what to do.
Reading the software reviews, choosing the software, learning how to run the software doesn't make interesting reading. And reading about how I used the software to chase this driver a number of times over the next few days would serve no purpose. The end result was simply a reality that had to be faced - if the problem was a faulty driver or missing driver, I couldn't find it. If I spent anymore time looking for the mysterious thing, my love of wine and beer would tip over into full blown alcoholism, and I had no desire to go there. So I would have to find a 'good enough' solution to keep Cyclops at bay, at least for now. And that was the best I could do.
A good enough solution is obvious once you think of it, but not necessarily easy to find before the idea hits you. I mentioned this earlier. You simply can never let the computer reboot. And with some poking about you can make this so. Now most of us know that the only way truly to refresh Win 10 is with a restart. Oddly the off/on doesn't quite do it because some stuff is stored. Nonetheless my solution did seem to do most of the job. But there are times when a restart must be done, and Geekman's Simple Solution must be used. And this is fairly easy to do.
So change the update procedure to 'download and ask' or words to that effect. And never reboot, but shutdown. Restart when you're ready.
You would think that this is the semi-happy ending to this quest. But I decided to engaged the enemy with one last battle.
But before I do, I think I should reply to an email from a reader, and reply publicly. Geekman thinks that his carefully cultivated James Bond image has been tarnished by what I wrote, and that he should be presented as he would present himself. "The name is Geek, Resident Geek, Agent 01010100 01000010". However, in my mind, I always see him prancing across the floor in his leotards, his cape fluttering behind, and a large G emblazoned on his chest. And even more important, his young wife thinks he would look cuddly and adorable in a cape and leotards, and is going shopping for supplies tomorrow. And the teller of this tale has been strongly swayed by the word 'cuddly'.
Tomorrow: Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more ....
150 views and counting. :-)
Chapter 11: Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more
One bright, sunny, and quiet day I pressed the start button for the Acer and looked away as the longest boot in the history of computers started its sloth-like amble towards usability, and in the calm, I thought I heard a soft thunk. New hope bubbled up. I shut down and started the computer again and listened intently. And it was easy to distinguish now - a mechanical sound like the grunt of effort that a man might make lifting something heavy.
It seemed the quite old and maybe sick hard drive required a big jolt of juice to get rolling. Is it possible that the effort needed for this prevented the reboot from getting beyond the zombie eye ? And the Acer said quietly but unheard, 'My muscles are too tired and weak.' And in a very tiny weak voice, it might have whispered 'Power supply......'
The world seemed a brighter, happier place for the next few days while I plotted out my purchase and use of an SSD. This would be the third time I had put a functioning OS onto an SSD so the process should be easy. And it was 500 g to 500 g which assured a simple procedure.
As it turned out, there was a bit of a snag when the really good Macrium Reflect software tried to make a process backup on Microsoft One Drive, which I don't have. The help page told me to redirect the files, quite small, to some spot on the hard drive. And on the third attempt everything worked. (So I guess in my life threes are important.)
And now the mop-up of this long campaign that started with my wife saying 'The bloody computer won't start' was taking place. The final stages. The SSD with the cloned Win 10 was removed from the USB gizmo, and the side and front panels of the Acer were removed. The weak old probably infirm hd was removed and placed somewhere in the junk room. The SSD was installed and I was ready for the dawning of a new day.
With a sense of excitement, I pressed the start button and heard a very soft soul-destroying clunk.
Some less battle-hardened soldiers might have given up and walked away, but immediately something at the edge of my awareness was nagging at me. And it only took a moment to deduce that whatever was making the noise was still there, and it could only be the DVD player! So I could have solved this problem long ago by listening and thinking a bit. Ah well. And I turned back to the task.
Take the front and side off the Acer, reach in and disconnect the DVD player, put it back together and Bob's your uncle.
I pressed the on button, listened carefully and there was no thunk. And it booted quickly and has proved to be an amazing machine. And to do the final test I pressed the 'reboot', or actually in Windows, 'restart', and quietly watched. It was blissfully quick until Cyclops stared out at me.
Red wine wasn't going to handle this disappointment. Time for the Irish Whisky.
EPILOGUE
Almost every problem has been solved, except this one. And the workaround is no big deal. It's a wonderful computer, so I've adapted. Sorry, I couldn't end the narrative with a complete victory, though in some ways it was complete, or at least satisfying. My family's dictum that 'good enough is totally fine' shall be my new motto. My grass is green enough. My house is clean enough. My furniture is not quite dilapidated enough to need to be replaced.
And I, after all this, see Cyclops as a worthy adversary who probably just needed some attention. And we went at it pretty well for awhile. As I'd grown so fond of him in the game we played, I renamed him Oscar, and he's become a bit like a pet, like a cat sitting on my lap while I use the computer. When I sit down at the computer I always now say, 'Hi there Oscar. Good to have you around my friend.' And he apparently, as a thank you, told the Orcs to go away and torment someone else other than his human friend. And we both find the dusty, cluttered basement room feels less lonely now.
Note: In April of 2021, months after this story was written, I did an update on Win10. I just wanted to turn it off and let it complete the process when I turned it on again. So I selected, sensibly I thought, 'Update and shut down'. The big unforeseen here is that the process is not quite what the words imply. What actually happened is that it did do the expected update. And it did start to shut down. And here the '"let's make it difficult'" Microsoft programmers added a very short Restart to the process. Not much of a restart ââ,¬â€œ but just enough. Oscar and I stared at each other grinning. I held the off button manually til Oscar went away. I didn't do anything with the power cord, but I did count to 10. Then I pressed the start button and magically it worked! So I have been forced to come to the conclusion that Oscars in a computer are exactly like dragons in the forest. If you treat them with respect and kindness, you find out they are not so bad after all.
And at this point, finally, after a long, long struggle, I think I can say that everyone lived happily ever after.
Tomorrow the final, end of story, post: Some Fan, and Some Not So Fan, Followup Messages I Received
So let me get this straight. The "cure" is to hold the power button until the boot is complete?
"The "cure" is to hold the power button"
Goodness gracious Dr Mike, there is no 'cure' if you have a Cyclops living in your computer!!! As with any computer, if it freezes, you can hold the power button to turn it off. If Oscar is in a good mood, a few seconds rest and the power button restarts it. Until we got to know one another, I had to use a full 'Geekman's Simple Solution' to get it up and running again.
Next time I see Oscar I'll tell him that Dr Michael Fox wants to 'cure' him. Oscar will get a kick out of that.
I can just picture, all those old Acer desktop machines sitting in the recycling centres, throughout the world, because of the cyclops eye syndrome. When all that is needed to make the perfectly useful again, is to hold in the power button until it shuts down, wait 10 seconds and the hit the power button again. Such a waste of perfectly good computers.
Thanks for posting a great story, Buster. I enjoyed reading it very much. :-)
I suspect there is probably more to it Bill for my Acer. Something malicious was on the old hd. Hard to explain how the bios on the new computer got damaged unless it came from that old drive. Scrubbing that drive clean was probably a big step too, and then replacing it ultimately with a new ssd.
Towards the end it was just Oscar that I had to deal with, and that was not much of a problem, and he often doesn't show up for weeks.
But it could be that this particular build by Acer did result in many computers suffering from CES (Cyclops Eye Syndrome) and ended their life sitting in recycling centres.
Quote from: ssfc72 on May 05, 2021, 02:20:34 PM
I can just picture, all those old Acer desktop machines sitting in the recycling centres, throughout the world, because of the cyclops eye syndrome. When all that is needed to make the perfectly useful again, is to hold in the power button until it shuts down, wait 10 seconds and the hit the power button again. Such a waste of perfectly good computers.
Not sure if you meant that to be funny, Bill, but I laughed. :)
A lovely story with a hero and a villain and intrigue but it needs a love triangle for it to really work. :P Seriously though, I enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing it with us. I would have said it was the power supply right up until the end which is what I think William prophesied. Although, perhaps the power supply had second thoughts about its approach after you abandoned it and wanted to get you back.
"Not sure if you meant that to be funny, Bill, but I laughed. :) "
The clever phrase 'cyclops eye syndrome', which I'll never ever forget, tells you all you need to know.
You mean that's not a real thing?
An intriguing story indeed. The only thing wrong with it was that your Linux Mint didn't save the day.
Some Fan, and Not So Fan, Followup Messages I Received, and the Final Post
From Cynthia Softbottom:
Your understanding of poor locked in Oscar touched my heart. You must be a very caring person. If you ever need anyone to bring you coffee while you struggle with a story, or just need someone to provide sympathy during the lonely hours of the night while you do your magical creating, I can be there for you. Get in touch.
From Lord Blackmoor of Blackmoor Estate
The common people, such as yourself, do not understand that the invaders, including Oscar, are not friendly furry little pets! They are the first wave of the invasion! Get your head out of the clouds! Use your writer's platform to warn governments and the masses! Simply observe the obvious!
From Bertha Fulltop
Your knowledge of computer repair is quite untutored and naive. I could have fixed your Acer easily. It's as if no one has taken the time to teach you how to make the living thing in front of you hum and respond in the unimaginable ways a fully ready thing can. Your hands and mind have to guide this ready-to-react object properly in order to get a fulsome and eager compliance. I am willing to be your guide Buster. Call.
From Dr Edgar Tightmore, Physics Professor, Baskerville Academy
Where are the dates, where is the data, where is the scientific discipline in this pursuit to solve? My guess is that this whole story is a fabrication, and in fact I'd wager that the only real part is the conversation on the deck between your wife and Ms Dao. Am I correct?
From Stan Hardson, Leader of the New Royal Canadian Tory Party
What a bunch of namby-pamby twiddle-twaddle! Of all the wrongheaded hogwash this story takes the cake. And in the future, the new Prime Minister of our country, Stan Hardson, will be someone who can lead the citizens, willing or unwilling, back to the right thinking ways of our ancestors. Put the 3Rs in the forefront of our schooling, and bring back the strap! Get rid of the story stuff and the music and the poetry. And for sure get all Canadians back into the warm, loving world of our Christian churches on Sundays. (And I wont be afraid to use guns to get them back if they are reluctant!) This is what me and my party stand for. (Find our web page and click the donate shortcut. Any amount helps.)
From Willa Bedthrasher
We are both very similar creative spirits. I can sense it in the way you caress the words, twist and bend the sentences, and finally thrust extravagantly into the tale with climaxes that fill to overflowing the pages. It is deep and satisfying prose. We need to compare techniques. Get in touch.
From Your Wife
My dear sweet husband of multiple decades, if any one of Softbottom, Fulltop, or Bedthrasher agrees to do the wash, the shopping, the house cleaning, the cooking, the garden weeding, and the dishes for the next year, then she is welcome to come here and live. Otherwise, tell them all to bugger off!
The Final, Complete, and Total End
Quote from: fox on May 06, 2021, 08:59:41 AM
An intriguing story indeed. The only thing wrong with it was that your Linux Mint didn't save the day.
Right!? It should have had a happy Linux ending. Maybe that was the time to do poetic license, Buster. ;) But to be fair, you did say it wasn't a typical repair story.
Nice variety of comments there, Buster! The rest are fine but I would not want to have lunch with Stan.
"It should have had a happy Linux ending."
Ummmm. You do know how to read don't you Jason? It could have been different, but it couldn't have been happier at the end, unless maybe Willa Bedthrasher came for a short stay at our house.
"I would not want to have lunch with Stan."
Stan appeared a year of two ago in the stories when he was the author of a book and did a review on my story. At that time he was not destined to be our next Prime Minister, though maybe he was thinking about it. You might remember him. This should still be somewhere in our forum:
Stan Hardson, author of Plain Talk for the New Society, wrote
"What a waste of paper! Anyone who can handle the language in a clear, succinct manner could have reduce this to 15% of it's length! Reading this keeps you away from accomplishing things that need to be done. What's all this canoe stuff? Does he think he's bloody Walter Shakespeare?"
Quote from: buster on May 06, 2021, 10:55:43 AM
"It should have had a happy Linux ending."
Ummmm. You do know how to read don't you Jason? It could have been different, but it couldn't have been happier at the end, unless maybe Willa Bedthrasher came for a short stay at our house.
Was Linux mentioned in the happy ending? I don't remember seeing it. And don't make fun of my reading skills. I can't help that I only read a grade 1 level.
Ah yes. A happy LINUX ending. My mistake. However a Linux ending would not have been happy at our house. An impossibility in fact. It would have broken rule #1. And that would have made my life unhappy as well as Marilyn's.
But technically you are correct in what you wrote, and I was in error.
Wow Buster, that must be some pretty good wine you are having. :-)
Quote from: buster on May 06, 2021, 09:11:24 AM
Some Fan, and Not So Fan, Followup Messages I Received, and the Final Post
From Cynthia Softbottom:
Your understanding of poor locked in Oscar touched my heart. You must be a very caring person. If you ever need anyone to bring you coffee while you struggle with a story, or just need someone to provide sympathy during the lonely hours of the night while you do your magical creating, I can be there for you. Get in touch.
From Your Wife
My dear sweet husband of multiple decades, if any one of Softbottom, Fulltop, or Bedthrasher agrees to do the wash, the shopping, the house cleaning, the cooking, the garden weeding, and the dishes for the next year, then she is welcome to come here and live. Otherwise, tell them all to bugger off!
The Final, Complete, and Total End
Quote from: buster on May 06, 2021, 03:08:58 PM
But technically you are correct in what you wrote, and I was in error.
Very good of you to admit that. For a minute there, I wasn't sure what was wrong with my brain. :D Were you hitting the Irish whiskey when you wrote that? Even if you weren't, it's okay to lie and say you were.
The story needs pictures. Maybe just a gif of the cyclops eye for every chapter punctuated by Windows 10 update error screens.
Needs a picture of Ms Tao!
I believe she made her money in the movie industry in China. If I can get an autographed copy of her picture, would you like me to send it to your house? Or would your Trent address be more, say, convenient?
How 'bout you post it here? 8)
Well thanks for that Fox. >:( I informed Ms Dao about your suggestion and she lit into me with venom and spite, fortunately mostly in mandarin, the gist of which was that she didn't want geeks living in basements staring at her picture. Under no conceivable conditions was her picture to be posted on the site. And no, she did not make her fortune in the 'movies'.
She was steaming angry, but maybe after time passes she'll phone back.
That reminds me of something. I was married almost right after I left home but my older brother stayed. I went back to my old home one day with my wife to see if there was anything I forgot. She waited in the car. He looked at me sheepishly and said, "I don't know if you want to see this." It was a letter from an old girlfriend I hadn't talked to in a couple of years. I should have read it inside because when I get into the car with it and honestly (stupid, I know) told her it was from an old girlfriend, I've never seen her move so fast then or since to grab it out of my hands and open it. And then she wanted me to write a letter back to tell the girl that I was married. So yeah, don't get that picture sent to your home, especially if it's from an old girlfriend. But a new girlfriend would be fine.
And of course, this has nothing to do with Buster's story but there we go.
That's very funny. Thanks for sharing, Jason.
Quote from: ssfc72 on May 07, 2021, 04:56:20 PM
That's very funny. Thanks for sharing, Jason.
Thanks for reading. I'm sure Buster could have written it better.
Quote from: Jason on May 08, 2021, 06:47:08 PM
I'm sure Buster could have written it better.
I doubt that very much!
Quote from: Jason on May 07, 2021, 02:22:06 PM
That reminds me of something. I was married almost right after I left home but my older brother stayed. I went back to my old home one day with my wife to see if there was anything I forgot. She waited in the car. He looked at me sheepishly and said, "I don't know if you want to see this." It was a letter from an old girlfriend I hadn't talked to in a couple of years. I should have read it inside because when I get into the car with it and honestly (stupid, I know) told her it was from an old girlfriend, I've never seen her move so fast then or since to grab it out of my hands and open it. And then she wanted me to write a letter back to tell the girl that I was married. So yeah, don't get that picture sent to your home, especially if it's from an old girlfriend. But a new girlfriend would be fine.
And of course, this has nothing to do with Buster's story but there we go.
Even better if your "current" girlfriend/wife supports the thought of a "new" girlfriend
Quote from: gmiller1977 on May 09, 2021, 10:05:27 PM
Even better if your "current" girlfriend/wife supports the thought of a "new" girlfriend
I couldn't be so lucky! lol But to be honest, taking care of a single woman is hard enough. Two would melt me.
I'm not sure how many times I used the 'good enough' idea in this narrative that my family used as a core philosophy. However, as I age, I think of what I could put on my grave stone that might catch some attention. I'd like to avoid a line of verse or a comment on life. The 'good enough' philosophy can be applied in other ways. So my grave stone will read:
Buried Here Lies Harry Ellis
Dead Enough
And merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you as well, Harry! :-) Thanks for my chuckle, today.
A short while ago this 'recovered' desktop decided it had had enough. Not sure how dead it is. As in Princess Bride, "There's dead, and there's really dead."
While it's a desktop in the full sense of the word, or was, it is a much smaller size, and is difficult to work with. This means it may not get worked on, though it is, or was, an excellent system.
All things pass away. Anyway, I'll see. Not sure if Oscar the One-eyed Cyclops still lives there. I'd rather he stayed inside than wandered the house looking for another home.
Quote from: buster on June 11, 2023, 09:53:29 PMA short while ago this 'recovered' desktop decided it had had enough. Not sure how dead it is. As in Princess Bride, "There's dead, and there's really dead."
My condolences on your loss. You can be proud that you kept it alive all this time and saved the energy involved that is used to make a new PC (by the industry, not you). How old was the dearly deceased?
" How old was the dearly deceased?"
Don't really know. It had Win 8 on it when we purchased it for Marilyn.
Quote from: buster on June 14, 2023, 12:56:12 PM" How old was the dearly deceased?"
Don't really know. It had Win 8 on it when we purchased it for Marilyn.
I would imagine at least 12 years then. What was the CPU on it?
"I would imagine at least 12 years then. What was the CPU on it?"
That is too difficult a question at the present moment.
Quote from: buster on June 15, 2023, 10:23:20 AM"I would imagine at least 12 years then. What was the CPU on it?"
That is too difficult a question at the present moment.
Good point.
If you read this story and enjoyed it, you may wish also to read about another computer, a contemporary of this one, that I almost destroyed with silly choices. However, with brave and heroic efforts, I managed to bring it back to health and it works nicely to this day. The Christmas Computer can be found here:
https://plugintolinux.ca/forum/index.php/topic,1887.0.html