| Saturday, June 23, 2007 |
| Getting That Old PC Up And Running |
My son plopped his old PC in the den. "Doesn't work anymore Dad," was what he said to me.
Surely I would not have to load the entire system software. No such luck today. After pulling the PC case open, I found two fans not working. Decided to blow out the case. One big dust storm ensued from the small compressor in the garage. Now I could see the fans. One fan that was not turning was on the mother board and the other was on the video card. Well, I surely can get those working. But, I only got half way there. Pulling the little sticky off the back of the fan, I was able to place a drop of tri-flow, the super lube with teflon on the rotating shaft. Turned the fan by hand and got the one on the mother board running. The other fan on the NVIDIA video card was a little more problematic. I suspect this fan was not turning for quite some time because the fan blades were cracked.
Next Step, Micro Surgery
Not wanting to give up, I decided it was time to do some micro surgery on this fan. After pulling it apart to the point that I had the fan and circular magnet in one hand and the small motor windings in the other, it was time to get out the glue. I thought, I'll just glue the cracked pieces of the fan blade assembly back onto the circular magnetic. We'll see if that holds. The PC should run without the video card fan running, since it wasn't turning in the first place. In the meantime, the rest of the story.
Back To The Computer
Decided to wipe out the old operating system on the hard drive and start with a fresh install. Found the Windows 2000 install disk for that PC and loaded it in no problem. But, I forgot what happened to the mother board installation disk with all the drivers, especially the one that allows the computer to go online through the Ethernet port. I decided to go online on another PC and search for the Abit NF7 mother board. Well, this proved troublesome in that there were too many choices and nothing seemed to match up. Also, I read that "this product is discontinued," or something like that. Gave it my best shot and downloaded a driver. Burned a CD on my PC. Loaded it in the other one. Clicked the install, and nothing. So much for that one.
It's got to be around here someplace. Where the heck is that mother board install disk. After searching the entire office, I finally found it in the box, underneath the other box, underneath whatever that other thing was.
Plopped the installation CD disk in, clicked the load drivers menu, and walla (is that the word) it was loaded. Now I had an Internet connection. Time for the dozens of Windows updates to download. No, OH no, I need Internet Explore 6.0. Internet Explore 5.0 just will not do for the Windows update to work. After searching Microsoft website with a monitor that is 600 resolution, which is much too small to do anything on, I finally found the download IE 6.0. Restart after restart, update after update, it seems to never end. Still don't have those right video drivers yet for the NVIDIA card, which is several years old, which is probably like 40 man years old. More work, let me go hit the Windows update again. Another update that must be installed as a single download, and then restart again. My OH my will it never end!
Thanks to high speed Internet, Comcast is getting a workout today from my location. Good thing my son didn't have anything important on that hard drive. Yep, I could have done a backup, but seriously folks, if you have any teenagers that have downloaded garbage, would you want to keep it? Get rid of that old stuff.
But, the son had long ago turned over to a new laptop PC from Dell (at least two months ago anyways). He knew what he wanted, a powerful laptop. After saving his money from a recent job, he ordered the PC directly from Dell himself. Man, these kids are getting smart.
Now, there are hardware driver updates to be had from Microsoft. Click more to download them and hit the Restart Now.
"Hey Dad, wants up with my computer?" asked my son.
"Let me tell you the story," I said...
Now it's back to the computer once more. It looks like I'll have to search online for that video driver for the NVIDIA card. But before that, let's see what else Microsoft has for recommended software downloads. OH yeah, Windows Media Player. Now a whole round of new security updates for the Windows Media Player. Why didn't Microsoft include those security updates with the Windows Media Player download in the first place? Who knows.
Break time, need some fuel for the body.
Back again, and ready to go. Two more drivers required so I don't see those pesky yellow flags in the hardware profile. Well, I found a trusted source for the NVIDIA graphics driver directly from the NVIDIA website. I just had to determine which driver I needed. I remember what I forgot. I forgot to look at the information as it was loading at the bios level. That's right, I have an FX 5200 card. Good, the website has the driver for the Windows 2000 / XP.
Now when I look at my hardware profile it shows only one pesky yellow flag. Now I remember, that's the add on Sound Blaster card. What was the model number? You mean I have to turn the computer off again? OK, let's take a look at the card. Sound Blaster Model SB0220 with Live 5.1 Digital sound. Time to do a Google Search online. But wait, before I do that, I need my favorite browser.
Download Firefox now. Set this as my default browser. Now I feel more comfortable driving around on the Internet. Time to search Google for that Sound Blaster driver. OK, found a place online. Not sure if it is a trusted site though. Man, the download site is making me look at a dozen ads before I can even begin to download the driver.
STOP RED FLAG TIME
I need an antivirus program. Comcast fortunately provides McAfee antivirus software for free to their customers. Need to load that on this computer before I do anything else.
I think I'll also download the McAfee SiteAdvisor. At least McAfee SiteAdvisor gives me an indication if I can trust the site before I download anything.
Back to the Internet for more searching and acquisitions. But before I do, let me check that pesky fan again. Stuck it in, but not a single turn. Down for the count. I guess I'll see how that video card does without the fan for the moment. Oh yeah, I forgot what I was doing. Now that I got that issue placed on the back burner, it's time to get back online. Research into the Sound Blaster Model SB0220 reveled some interesting information in the online forums. Apparently Creative Labs no longer supports this product. Of course I lost the install CD for this little puppy. After trying several of the download drivers, and seeing the repeated message, no Sound Blaster Card found, I think I'll just revert back to the sound on the motherboard. Hey, wait a minute, I just found the driver install disk. I think I'll uploaded it for everyone else. Download the zip file from the following link for the Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Model SB0220 Drivers. Drivers are for Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows ME, and Windows 98.
Now for the rundown. Since I did not do a complete reformat of the hard drive, I found many of those miscellaneous files that my son had downloaded. The McAfee virus checking software is having a field day with all these old files. We'll see if we have to go back to square one, and do a complete reformat. I hope not, but if I do, at least I have this detailed analysis to fall back on.
So much for my son's insistence that there were no viruses on the computer. 63 items detected and 3 quarantined so far, and still counting. Good night for now. If I have any other news on this PC, I'll be sure to let the world know. Good luck on your computer project. Don't forget what you were doing.
Jim Warholic the Internet marketing specialist.
For a continuation of this story visit the Circle of Life in a Computer's Life.Labels: Computers, PC
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posted by Jim Warholic @ 11:01 PM   |
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| 3 Comments: |
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You have the patience of Job...and then some! Oh, and the word is "voila", French for "there." When the job is finally completed you are definitely entitled to a resounding "Voila!" C'est complete!
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Thanks for your comments. However, with computer stuff a job seems to never really be done.
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Yeay at long last, someone put up the driver cd. Been searching and reading countless sites last 8 hours for these elusive drivers. Trying to get an old 98 box back into service with this pesky SBLive 5.1 digital card in it. wish more peps did this. Good on ya mate. Gonna c if it works now.
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You have the patience of Job...and then some! Oh, and the word is "voila", French for "there." When the job is finally completed you are definitely entitled to a resounding "Voila!" C'est complete!