I have some good gnus, and some not so good gnus...

[Rami]

Hey guys,

After recovering for several days from my vacation-surgery-more-vacation epic, I'll get back into CFS2 this week. That's the good gnus. The bad gnus is my laptop is still not functional, despite having replaced the power adapter. I've tried taking the battery out and recycling the power switch (holding it down for 30 seconds or a minute with the plug and battery out, then plugging it in and hitting the power button) to no avail.

I know early in the trip the laptop was working, at least until the battery drained completely. The charging light does not come on, nor do the three dots that happened when I hit the power button earlier in the trip, even though the laptop did not turn on) I've tried contacting HP support, but to date have not gotten a response.

Tomorrow morning I will bring the laptop to a local repair shop and see if we can explore whether the internal power supply went bad, or if the motherboard itself is gone. If the latter proves true, I will ask for the hard drive to be removed and get a SATA to USB converter so I can extract all my CFS2 files and other stuff while I purchase and wait for a new laptop to arrive.

In the meantime, I'll try to take care of No Dice's website situation this week while my laptop is in the body and fender shop.

[Captain Kurt]

Let's hope the battery just died and that's all that needs to be replaced.

[Josh Patterson]

No gnus is good gnus with Gary Gnu!

[Rami]

No gnus is good gnus with Gary Gnu!

[Ravenna]

Good gnus stay with the herd. Sounds like yours has gone to the pack.

[Allen]

Depending in how much data in on the HDD using USB to copy could take a night or more. Lets hope it can be fixed.

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Sounds like it could be a bad battery. If not, see if they can transfer your data to an external HD for future uploading.

[Rami]

Hey guys,

Well, I dropped off my laptop late this morning, so hopefully I will hear something by tomorrow afternoon or Wednesday.

[Dirtman]

Hey guys,

Well, I dropped off my laptop late this morning, so hopefully I will hear something by tomorrow afternoon or Wednesday.

**** cue the theme from "Jaws" ****

[Rami]

Hi,

I heard back today. Just the DC power jack got damaged, which is only about $30 or so to replace. The internal power supply and the motherboard are fine.

[glh]

I think Mr. Murphy has given you a warning. If you have development files on the laptop that are essentially irreplaceable, back them up ASAP after your laptop returns. We all have read stories of fellows here who have lost their work from hardware/software updates and failures. Perhaps consider a 500GB-1TB external drive or online storage ??

[Shadow Wolf 07]

I think Mr. Murphy has given you a warning. If you have development files on the laptop that are essentially irreplaceable, back them up ASAP after your laptop returns. We all have read stories of fellows here who have lost their work from hardware/software updates and failures. Perhaps consider a 500GB-1TB external drive or online storage ??

Amen to a backup or two.

That is good gnus about the repair... whew!

[highpockets]

Is Murphy the same guy that kicks the 1/4 inch socket to the underneath middle of the car you are working on!
Glad your in business Rami--more ways than one
You are a tough guy.

[Josh Patterson]

I was wondering if that was the tack you were turning to Rami! I wish The Great Space Coaster would come out on DVD or Blu Ray so I could show my kids!

[Rami]

I think Mr. Murphy has given you a warning. If you have development files on the laptop that are essentially irreplaceable, back them up ASAP after your laptop returns. We all have read stories of fellows here who have lost their work from hardware/software updates and failures. Perhaps consider a 500GB-1TB external drive or online storage ??

Glh,

Lest you think I am somehow lax on my computer responsibilities, let me reassure you that I have a Western Digital 8 TB backup drive, and a full backup copy of all of my installs, as well as a backup of all my centralized files that gets replaced anew about every two weeks. (I never want to have a bobhegf incident!)

But here is the rub - For whatever reason, Mission Builder on my desktop runs slower than molasses in January, and much faster on my laptop. So the files on my laptop essentially "take the lead" in the backup pecking order, and the files from my laptop are what I use to make a full backup on my WD external, and then these files get copied onto my desktop.

But because I use my laptop at work and in other places as I am out and about, the other two backups of my current work always lag several days to about two weeks behind what I'm working on at that moment. But if I backed up daily, I'd spend so much time just doing that that it would take a serious bite out of the limited simming time that I have.

In short, it's a balancing act.

So if I were to in fact "lose" the files on the laptop, I would lose some GSL wor, as well as a few missions that I completed since the last go-round, but nothing uber-critical that could not be replicated.

[Rami]

Amen to a backup or two.

Greg,

Tsk, tsk. You of all people know how I roll.

[Rami]

I was wondering if that was the tack you were turning to Rami! I wish The Great Space Coaster would come out on DVD or Blu Ray so I could show my kids!

Josh Patterson,

[Josh Patterson]

Josh Patterson,

Oh, Family Guy. They have such fidelity in their parodies! The love of the source material shows in the quality of the work the do to make things look right. They did a great job with the Star Wars movies and then The Shawshank Redemption. I wish they would do a Back to the Future parody next!

[glh]

Is Murphy the same guy that kicks the 1/4 inch socket to the underneath middle of the car you are working on!
Glad your in business Rami--more ways than one
You are a tough guy.

He could be. I do remember (quite a few years back) when I removed a carburetor from a v-8 engine, he was the guy that dropped a mounting screw down and into the intake manifold. Did I cuss him then !!!!!

[Dirtman]

Glad to hear the repair turned out to be a cheapo.

I guess that means yer buying the beer tonight too eh?

- now have Mrs Rami yank that "lucky horseshoe" outta yer butt & polish it up real nice ..... for the next time you'll need it !!

But here is the rub - For whatever reason, Mission Builder on my desktop runs slower than molasses in January, and much faster on my laptop

Maybe try that old trick when the performance of a PC is less than "snappy":

Disconnect all external H/Ds

Run: a complete "Disk Clean-up" all the way thru to: Delete all except the most recent "restore point"

Using "CCleaner" - over-write the existing "free space" of C Drive, 1x - including the "alternate data streams" & "cluster tips"

Then defrag & reboot.


Recheck MB - does it work better?



Also: Some things just never change

- always maintain a MINIMUM of 40% of free space on ANY mechanical H/D (dunno about ssd's) otherwise you will suffer a noticeable degradation in performance.
True in 1999 ... and still true today; even on WD Black series H/D's I've seen - starts around 37-38%.

[Rami]

Glad to hear the repair turned out to be a cheapo.
I guess that means yer buying the beer tonight too eh?

- now have Mrs Rami yank that "lucky horseshoe" outta yer butt & polish it up real nice ..... for the next time you'll need it !!

Maybe try that old trick when the performance of a PC is less than "snappy":

Disconnect all external H/Ds.

Run: a complete "Disk Clean-up" all the way thru to: Delete all except the most recent "restore point."

Using "CCleaner" - over-write the existing "free space" of C Drive, 1x - including the "alternate data streams" & "cluster tips."

Then defrag & reboot.

Recheck MB - does it work better?

Also: Some things just never change

- always maintain a MINIMUM of 40% of free space on ANY mechanical H/D (dunno about ssd's) otherwise you will suffer a noticeable degradation in performance.

True in 1999 ... and still true today; even on WD Black series H/D's I've seen - starts around 37-38%.

Herr Durt,

1) The WD External drive has 5.47 of 7.27 TB free, so we don't need to worry about space right now.

2) The MB issue has been a problem on my desktop for years, and I have tried that suggested method of yours several times. The MB program loads quickly, but zooming in and out, as well as placing of objects is painfully slow. Only, it does not happen on my laptop, and I have basically the same OS, and the same BitDefender version and settings.

[Rami]

Good evening,

Laptop is fixed and back home...I picked up right where I left off on the Dutch missions I was in the middle of. No files lost!

[highpockets]

He could be. I do remember (quite a few years back) when I removed a carburetor from a v-8 engine, he was the guy that dropped a mounting screw down and into the intake manifold. Did I cuss him then !!!!!

Yep, I know him