Adventures in computer failures

[fenchurch]

Well, that made for an interesting day. This morning, my mouse quit working. Now, the mouse on my desktop is cordless, so I just assumed that the batteries had gotten low enough that it was no longer connecting to the base. No biggie, I just swapped in some new batteries and... it still didn't work. Still not a big deal. It's an older mouse and I have the second mouse already hooked up to the computer and set up so I can use it with my left hand (yes, I'm a double-handed mouser... I'm ambidextrous and I like having a mouse available for whichever hand feels like using it). So, I proceeded with my day under the assumption that my mouse had died.

A little while later, I decided it would be worth unstrapping the mouse cord from under my monitor stand so I could easily move it from left to right... but before I did that, I realized it might be worth rebooting the computer in case the other mouse had simply lost touch with its driver or something silly like that. So, reboot... and up pops an alert letting me know that it can't find the bootdisk and can I please put it in the drive? Oh, crap.

I didn't panic... figuring there was a good chance we could hook the hard drive up to another computer and actually get data off it, unless it turned out to be truly fried (at which point, there would have been whimpering, and possibly a little teeth gnashing, because I hadn't done a backup in a few months). But rackham got the hard drive hooked up to our nifty SATA to USB cable and after some fiddling got it running, whirring away on top of the desk. Yay! So, I quickly backed up everything I thought might be important... and, after a quick check online to get an idea of prices, we headed down to Fry's Electronics to see what sort of hard drives they had available.

Apparently, they were having some sort of "Buy $50 worth of stuff and get free tickets to Disneyland" Sale going on at Fry's (not really, but it was the best explanation I could come up with for the ridiculous line -- seriously, it went through the regular switchbacks and down the incredibly long aisle of impulse buys, then wrapped around outside that and up the center of the store o_O). We had found a hard drive to buy, but decided the wait was absolutely not worth it... especially since we had an older, working hard drive at home I could use in a pinch. So, we put the new one back and headed down into Tukwila to grab some dinner at Zoopa (where I broke down and indulged in a small bowl of their yummy clam chowder, despite the fact that my lungs were already not too happy. Thankfully, it didn't trigger an asthma attack this time, just a bit of a cough. Stupid allergies). After dinner we went back by Fry's and encountered no line this time (and had our other theory confirmed... that they'd sent home a bunch of cashiers and then had a huge rush of customers).

We headed back home, triumphant from the kill hard drive hunt. Then it got interesting. We tried putting in the new drive and installing Windows... and kept getting odd errors. This led to Rackham trying a few things and coming to the conclusion that the original hard drive was probably fine... and the problem was with the onboard SATA controller. Not a huge deal, since there's a secondary controller... except when we got the drive hooked up there, it would start to work but would eventually fail. A bit more fiddling and the sad truth became clear. My motherboard is toast.

On the bright side, it means my original hard drive is probably just fine... and I do have a nice laptop I can use in the interim, although the keyboard might drive me nuts. It's not bad for short term use, but I love the one I have for my desktop (it uses the switch technology from the old IBM keyboards, which means it makes a lovely click-click-click when you type and has a very satisfying tactile response that makes it much easier to tell when you've hit the keys. It also is not USB, and I don't think we have an adapter that will let it work in a USB port at the moment). But I do have the laptop hooked up to my monitor, so I'm not having to deal with the smaller and lower screen.

Gah! Stupid motherboard. And looking back on it, I think it's been dying for awhile... there were all these little things that I just shrugged off as software hiccups that were very likely hardware related, after all.

Comments

[kazzy-cee.livejournal.com]

Ack - computer problems are the WORST!! Especially if it takes a while to track down exactly what the problem is. At least you've isolated the issue :)

[ayinhara.livejournal.com]

That is the perfect icon.

[kazzy-cee.livejournal.com]

Snaggable if you'd like it, I just resized it from the web somewhere, so no credit necessary! :)

[sp23.livejournal.com]

All my USB ports stopped operating the other day. I have a notebook, and it doesn't recognize the mouse, printer, my full-sized keyboard, or my external hard drive. *weeps*

I ordered a new computer, and after I get it set up, I guess I'll take this into the computer guru and see if he can get it fixed, if it doesn't cost too much.

Man, I *hate* using the notebook touch pad for the mouse. :-(

[geojlc.livejournal.com]

I have a ps2/usb adaptor I could give you. I'll bring it tonight... And I think it's the month for computer failures. A whole bunch of my family and friends (and me!) have had them die unexpectedly. I think there's a computer conspiracy involved... :-)

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

That would be wonderful! We actually have a bunch of them around here somewhere, since I don't think we ever got around to throwing them away. As you probably know, they used to come with every new keyboard... and we never needed them, but we also never got rid of them (or at least I don't think we did).

[pmgoose.livejournal.com]

"Buy $50 worth of stuff and get free tickets to Disneyland" Sale going on at Fry's (not really, but it was the best explanation I could come up with for the ridiculous line

This made me laugh. :)

Yikes. Glad your hard drive is ok. The motherboard died on my laptop a couple of years ago. Fortunately, it's still under warranty, so a tech came to my house and repaired it.

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

ARGH, motherboard! That's been the single biggest grief of all my years of computer owning! At least you guys are both significantly savvy about computers and can take care of it! (And these days, pretty much everyone has a "backup" computer handy...) *condolences anyway*

[lage-nom-ai.livejournal.com]

I envy you and rackham, because for me computers are either working! or not!working, and the latter means wailing and gnashing of teeth, but no in-home ability to figure out what's wrong! :D

[sillymagpie.livejournal.com]

Same here. My only options are to whine to my more computer-savvy friends or take the computer to one of the Nerd Herds. :/

[lage-nom-ai.livejournal.com]

And then I'm totally paranoid about using a Nerd Herd, too! :/

[sillymagpie.livejournal.com]

That sucks, but thank goodness you have a backup computer and your drive is all right. It's a good thing you have someone who can diagnose such problems. For me, that would have involved an expensive trip to the Nerd Herd at the Buy More. :/

BTW, although rahirah and wildrider may not have mentioned it yet, Killer Bunnies is a very addictive game. :-)

[zotel.livejournal.com]

I'm not ambidextrous - but I am ambimoustrous. I have one motherboard that has intermittent problems and errors thats probably fried - and the sad bit is that it would be my best machine if it worked. Sigh.

[fishsanwitt]

The one thing I miss on both the laptops is the click-click-click of the keys. I really love it. I know a lot of people find it annoying, but I love typing (and typewriters), so the noise has never been a problem for me.