Oh no! More boring computer problems! Oh no!

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I might even go the belkin way

airport can be such a fanny

― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 10 September 2005 05:08 (twenty years ago)

Any external ADSL modem that supports Ethernet should be fully Mac-compatible.

*Most* ethernet hardware that doesn't have separate link and activity lamps will have a lamp that stays on for "link up, idle" and blinks rapidly for "link active". Slow blinking sounds like an error indication.

If you can, test it with the shortest cable you have that has moulded-on plugs - that's your best bet for cable-reliability.

(I've just spent three days sorting out the Ethernet cabling to an office. On all the cables, the link claims to be up but magically fails to transmit packets - but only when the cable is fitted in the last 5m or so of duct. If you pull it out, leave the cables dangling out of the wall in the next corridor and test it then, it works FINE. I hate hardware problems.)

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Saturday, 10 September 2005 06:52 (twenty years ago)

GOD FUCKING DAMNIT what the fuck? So I bought a new external hard drive, a seagate this time. recovered what files I could from my other corrupt drive. Reformated old corrupt drive. Works fine now. Suddenly: bam, can't write to my new drive for no reason. Run Noron Disk Doctor on it. EVERYTHING IS NOW GONE. Although I'm sure the data is still there (it says there's 70GB on the disk), I can't see anything, it created some "recycled" directory, and removed the name of the drive. What the hell?

― kyle (akmonday), Saturday, 10 September 2005 15:50 (twenty years ago)

RECYCLED is the real name of the Windows trashcan. Normally, the real RECYCLED directory is hidden; clearly Norton has done something to unhide it.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Saturday, 10 September 2005 16:06 (twenty years ago)

I fucking hate Norton. Oddly looking in the directory, there are no files (they aren't hidden, either); outside of the directory, no files. Something keeps happening to my file indexes, I think, and so the OS can't read the index to see what files are there. This happened last time as well, which is how I lost my last drive and 113GB of music (see above). I'm not sure what's doing it, but it's either slsk or azureus, I suspect.

― kyle (akmonday), Saturday, 10 September 2005 16:31 (twenty years ago)

I'm not an expert on either of those problems, but I'm suspicious whether either would be accessing the disk at a level liable to cause that sort of corruption. That sort of FS structure should be maintained solely by the OS, and the only other programs that modify the FS at that level should be disk repair tools.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Saturday, 10 September 2005 16:42 (twenty years ago)

Guh. Problems = programs.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Saturday, 10 September 2005 16:44 (twenty years ago)

I'm going to guess that it's actually the disk repair tools that are fucking this. maybe they're reading partial files downloaded by bittorrent or slsk as corrupt, and trying to repair them, and in so doing, somehow modifying the file indexes? the sad thing is that I know the files are still there, I just can't seem to retrieve them. Also, when did Norton programs become so terrible? They're so stripped down for idiots/

― kyle (akmonday), Saturday, 10 September 2005 17:05 (twenty years ago)

I fixed my problem

thanks for the linksys tip stet

: )

― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 10 September 2005 17:17 (twenty years ago)

Did you work out what the problem was in the end?

(I'm intrigued)

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Saturday, 10 September 2005 17:33 (twenty years ago)

well

I think it was the ethernet link

whether it was the hayes box or the cable

I don't know

I just replaced it with the linksys

and voila

I found messing about with computers, at that level, very stressful though

god knows how IT techs. cope

― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 10 September 2005 18:04 (twenty years ago)

Ever since I installed iTunes 5 and the new QT my iBook isn't recognizing FW harddrives! Including my iPod. I don't think it's related to the installations but...

Anyway, is there any utility to check my FW ports? Or somesuch?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 11 September 2005 21:50 (twenty years ago)

Do they show up in System Profiler? (In OS X, choose About This Mac from apple menu, then click "More info" or look in Utilities folder)

― stet (stet), Sunday, 11 September 2005 22:10 (twenty years ago)

It just says "Firewire Bus:" and then nothing.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 11 September 2005 23:01 (twenty years ago)

boo. do they show up if you start up from the installer CD? (Boot from it, then open disk utility from the Installer menu. Connect a FW HD and see if it shows up)

― stet (stet), Sunday, 11 September 2005 23:10 (twenty years ago)

Good idea! I'll try that in the morning.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 12 September 2005 05:11 (twenty years ago)

I'm having speed issues on my ADSL

how do I best

1. test the speeds I'm getting

2. fix it so it's faster, because I know my speeds are too slow

(I was downloading tricky's mix on ILM earlier and only getting speeds of 5/6 kbps, when I'm on 2meg broadband)

― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 18:03 (twenty years ago)

1. Use the speed test here.

2. God, I wish I knew. There are all sorts of voodoo things you can do with packet sizes and the like, but they have a negligble effect from what I can tell. If you're only get 5k/s on the speedtest tho, it's probably time to call yr provider

― stet (stet), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 18:18 (twenty years ago)

downstream 280 Kbps (35.0 KB/sec) 302 Kbps (inc. overheads)
upstream 211 Kbps (26.4 KB/sec) 227 Kbps (inc. overheads)

rubbish!

I am phoning my provider

― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 18:31 (twenty years ago)

(Zapping the PRAM turned out to be the answer for me.)

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 18:34 (twenty years ago)

wow: does the PRAM still have any useful purpose in OS X?! i thot it was just a relic.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:32 (twenty years ago)

if anything, it's got even *more* stuff in it now.

― stet (stet), Tuesday, 13 September 2005 21:33 (twenty years ago)

well bugger. me. wot like?

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 07:21 (twenty years ago)

Steve Jobs' babies, obv.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 07:32 (twenty years ago)

I think the PRAM contains all sorts of magic settings for OpenFirmware to use for bootstrapping the kernel.

― ~~~~ DODONGO DISLIKES SMOKE ~~~~ (ex machina), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 08:22 (twenty years ago)

see, this suggests there's nowt exciting in there at all. i'm really intrigued as to what setting was causing casuistry's problems.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 12:23 (twenty years ago)

this is pretty much the best source of info for OF on mac page http://www.netneurotic.de/mac/openfirmware.html

if you boot into openfirmware and enter "printenv" that shows you all the stuff in there. LOTS of little things, and some of them do control how the booting progresses

― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 12:33 (twenty years ago)

-- ~~~~ DODONGO DISLIKES SMOKE ~~~~ has it right. PRAM's packed with Open Firmware bits -- basically all the settings that must stay the same regardless of what disk you boot from, plus hardware configuration stuff, boot device etc etc. Also, you used about.com? eugh.

― stet (stet), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 16:43 (twenty years ago)

It has essentially all the BIOS information on the PC and then some!

― ~~~~ DODONGO DISLIKES SMOKE ~~~~ (ex machina), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 16:44 (twenty years ago)

I've had to send my Powerbook off to the menders cos:

- I got the Tiger 'let's fail to recognise the lower memory slot' problem.

- I got the Tiger 'let's fail to wake the display from sleep when the lid has been closed.

- I got the Tiger 'let's have a kernal trap when we turn Airport on/off'.

PRAM zapped and reset, PMU reset, RAM tested and still the problem remains. Think it might be a dodgy airport connection, but it's a grade A pain whatever it is.

― Dave B (daveb), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 18:12 (twenty years ago)

yea, sounds like a faulty bus

― ~~~~ DODONGO DISLIKES SMOKE ~~~~ (ex machina), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 18:38 (twenty years ago)

sorry to be such a fkn computer remedial. I'm trying to forward the ports on my airport base station for soulseek (2234, 2240 &c.) but my ISP says I am on a dynamic IP address. the port forwarding I believe can only go on if I'm on a static IP. is there a way to set tht up, despite my ISP's advice? airport only allows you to forward to 10.0.1.x addresses. I'm currently on a 192.168.1.x address - using DCHP. I'm loathe to get into using "DHCP with manual" which is what I presume I need to use cos it would mean having to a. go in re-configure my network settins b. my airport settings and c. my modem settings which all seem finely balanced at the moment like some fkn annoying jenga of sloth.

:*/

― cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 19:27 (twenty years ago)

is airport running the DHCP server?

― ~~~~ DODONGO DISLIKES SMOKE ~~~~ (ex machina), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 19:38 (twenty years ago)

uh haha I don't know jon. I got this setup:

wall jack -> linksys ADSL modem -> airport

network settings: TCP/IP using DCHP
modem settings: PPPoA (even though it should be PPPoE? or even bridged?)
airport settings: configure TCP/IP using ethernet using DHCP

I guess the ISP is running the DHCP server?

― cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 19:41 (twenty years ago)

can you tell what IP(s) the airport box thinks it has?

― ~~~~ DODONGO DISLIKES SMOKE ~~~~ (ex machina), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 19:48 (twenty years ago)

It doesn't matter if your ISP gives you a dynamic or static IP for this. What you need to do is set your laptop (assuming that's the one you want to slsk) to a static IP, and have the airport forward from to that. So, set the DHCP to manual in Network pref pane, then use Airport Admin Util to forward the slks ports to the newly-static laptop IP.

Er, did that make sense?

― stet (stet), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 19:56 (twenty years ago)

You can probably configure your airport's DHCP to always give that computer the same IP also...

― ~~~~ DODONGO DISLIKES SMOKE ~~~~ (ex machina), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 19:58 (twenty years ago)

haha ok I'll give it a try

the modem keeps hanging too but that's a separate (really fkn annoying) issue

― cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 14 September 2005 20:08 (twenty years ago)

hey thanks fr the help people

I think I know what's going on but I have one last (for now) question

I'm running a wireless network through airport: one mac, one PC

the mac is always on, but the PC goes on and off

I've no evidence (I've not tested) but I think the PC being rebooted / re-initialised is causing the modem to hang - and my connection is lost

is this possible?

and also if this was the case, shouldn't the modem just reconnect to the adsl (I have a linksys modem set to "keep alive", with a redial period I've now changed to 3mins instead of the prev. 1min) since the mac is still on?

― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 15 September 2005 16:40 (twenty years ago)

I was messing around with the processes in the Task Manager and trying to quit out of them to free up some memory so that I can edit some video. But after I restarted, I noticed that the little arrow in my system tray that lets me expand the tray to see 'hidden' tray icons has disappeared. Does anyone know what program it is that manages this function?

― Leeeeeeeee (Leee), Monday, 19 September 2005 23:16 (twenty years ago)

try right-clicking on yr taskbar, select properties, un-check 'hide inactive items', hit 'apply', then re-check 'hide inactive items', hit okay

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 00:34 (twenty years ago)

any ideas about this - seems very strange, and seemingly no luck on google

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Service Control Manager
Event Category: None
Event ID: 7035
Date: 9/5/2005
Time: 4:53:49 PM
User: MUSIC\RH
Computer: MUSIC
Description:
The soylentgreen service was successfully sent a start control.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

― ronny longjohns (ronny longjohns), Friday, 23 September 2005 03:28 (twenty years ago)

I've no evidence (I've not tested) but I think the PC being rebooted / re-initialised is causing the modem to hang - and my connection is lost

is this possible?

I don't know if it's possible, but it used to happen to me all the time.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 23 September 2005 04:00 (twenty years ago)

ooh:

http://www.fullspeedahead.com/flyimage.aspx?nm=CK_Vigorelli.jpg&big=true

― Ed (dali), Friday, 23 September 2005 04:51 (twenty years ago)

oops, not there

― Ed (dali), Friday, 23 September 2005 04:52 (twenty years ago)

bueller?

soylentgreen service ?!?

― ronny longjohns (ronny longjohns), Friday, 23 September 2005 14:17 (twenty years ago)

So Juulia gave us DVD-Rs with the Divx files for the first season of Lost. But I can't get them to play on our Powerbook. When I put the discs in, I get a message that says there are no files on the disc that OSX recognizes, do I want to eject or ignore? I installed two different DIVX player things, but still nothing happens. Is the problem that she's using a Dell and we have a Powerbook?

― n/a (Nick A.), Monday, 26 September 2005 14:09 (twenty years ago)

TELL ME WHAT FILES YOU DO SEE I IMAGINE YOU HAVE TO INSTALL VIDEOLAN BYE

― ~~~~ DODONGO DISLIKES SMOKE ~~~~ (ex machina), Monday, 26 September 2005 16:21 (twenty years ago)

I don't see ANY files, because OSX doesn't see any files on the discs, so it makes me either eject it, or ignore it (which doesn't let me access the disc at all). I know the files are on there because they are the same discs that we used to watch Lost at Julia's house.

― n/a (Nick A.), Monday, 26 September 2005 16:41 (twenty years ago)

I suspect that the DVD-Rs were burned in a non-standard format that's only readable on the original PC. I ran into this once with some CD-Rs of mp3s. The way to double-check is to load the discs on a third computer and see what happens.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Monday, 26 September 2005 20:23 (twenty years ago)

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