John Lamansky

[Note: This recollection of events is part 2 of a series, so to get the complete story, you'll probably want to read part 1 first.]

What?! The account was locked?!

I couldn’t believe it. My last hope, so it seemed to me, in order to fix my busted computer was to check if there was a sliver of warranty left. I knew my computer had been purchased about a year ago, but I was really hoping that there would be some left. But I couldn’t really do anything about the red-text error message on the Dell website. My mom’s Dell account was locked because someone had entered an incorrect password 6 times. The account would be automatically unlocked in 23 hours.

I couldn’t wait that long! If I had any warranty left at all, it was almost all gone. I didn’t really think there was anything else I could do. (But now that I think about it, I suppose I could’ve called Dell instead, but due to a dislike for Dell phone support resulting from previous experience…)

Two days later…

We were gone all day Sunday, so I was able to go back to working on the computer problem on Monday. I logged into my Dell account. (Please, let there be some warranty left!) Oh, the suspense; oh, the drama… (etcetera…)

I couldn’t believe it. 5 days of warranty left. I was relieved and thrilled. I began looking for ways to contact Dell.

Let’s see… I can do a chat or I can make a phone call. I decided to choose chat, for several reasons:

1. No accent problems.
2. No more calling me “ma’am” because my voice is rather high at my current age.
3. No more holding for half an hour just to talk to someone.
4. No more keeping the phone glued to my ear as I work at the back of the computer, etc.

So I started a chat. I was connected with someone named “Pooja,” obviously a foreign name. I remembered the name by thinking, “it’s a cross between Winnie the Pooh and Jar-Jar Binks.” He had me do many things: unplug everything but the power cord, check the voltage settings, etc. Nothing worked. Then he told me to reset the PCI cards.

Bother. Removing and replacing things in the computer was what was giving me trouble before. But I had to try it. The Dell technician gave me the URL to an article on removing PCI cards. I started with the graphics card. I got one end out, but I could not get out the other end. It suddenly dawned on me that I was trying to remove a PCI Express card using instructions for PCI cards. I had to push the little green lever first, then the card would lift out!

Anyway, by the time I was finished, I was greeted with an unpleasant surprise - the Dell technician had ended the chat. At first I was indignant that they would become so impatient as to terminate our connection, but then I saw a template message saying that due to my chat inactivity for the past minute, I had one more minute to respond before I would be cut off. Oh, the frustration of it all. But it turns out that the termination of our chat was one of the luckiest things that could have happened.

I started another chat and ended up with someone named “Prabal.” Another foreign name, obviously. I told him that I had been cut off, so he asked me what steps I had been able to complete. I responded with a list and the exasperated explanation, “I am now trying to reseat the PCI cards without breaking anything…” There were a few things I overlooked when making my list of successfully completed steps, so he asked me to do them over again, and — here’s the weird, but unsurprising, thing — some of his instructions were identical to those given by the “Pooja” person. Sometimes I wonder how much of a technician chat is actually original conversation. But I later found out this guy was awesome.

After those few repeats, Prabal had me remove (not reseat, as Pooja had instructed me to do) the cards and RAM from the system. I realized that this guy knew his stuff. It was common sense, yet brilliant - if we get a different error after removing a group of components, then it has to be one of those components! I was also excited because I was getting better and better and removing the cards and RAM modules. I removed both of the RAM modules in 2 minutes, instead of the 30 or so it took me to remove one of them two days ago. The orange power light prevailed, so it wasn’t one of those items. Then Prabal had me unplug the power and data cords from the disk drives and hard drives. Still the same orange power light.

Then he had me listen for beep codes (the noises the computer makes when it first starts up). I explained to him that I have never been able to hear beep codes even when the computer is working normally. He suggested that the speaker cable was disconnected. I believed him, but I found out later in the week that that was completely untrue (to be explained in part 3).

It had to be the power supply or the motherboard. Prabal had me see if the fans were spinning. Again, he was so smart - if the fans were not spinning, then they weren’t getting power. The fans were spinning. He told me it was the motherboard and got to work on dispatching a technician.

After giving me my dispatch number, case number, etc., he asked me to press a button on the chat website to end the conversation and complete a survey. Of course, I was so elated I wanted to tell the people at Dell how wonderful this technician was (compared to the first one I got), but with my blog in mind, I wanted to copy our conversation.

I was using my mom’s computer to perform the chat. And her computer was unusual in the sense that you cannot paste something into Word if you copy the item when Word is not open. So I started Word. Oh, yeah - Word is really slow on my mom’s computer. Apparently Prabal lost patience, or else he was just following the rules of the workplace. He terminated our session just as I was able to copy our conversation. The bad thing is I wasn’t able to complete the survey since it was terminated on the technician’s end. So that was disappointing that I wasn’t able to express my appreciation for his excellent expertise and troubleshooting skills, but at least a technician was coming to solve (dun-dun-dun-duuuuunnnn…) the Mystery of the Orange Light!

To be continued…

The Mystery of the Orange Light:
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Earlier this evening, our doorbell rang. Hmm.

My mom opened the door, and there was a trick-or-treating boy and his mom. My mom, of course, was surprised. For one thing, it was 4:55 P.M., which was five minutes before trick-or-treating was supposed to begin in our town. Plus, we were not inviting trick-or-treaters.

So my mom asked “Is our porch light on?”
“Uh, yeah,” was the response.

My mom looked and, sure enough, our light was on. In our town, the illumination of the porch light or some other light on the front of the house was an indication of the invitation of trick-or-treaters on Halloween.

My mom then saw the paper boy walking away from our house and realized what had happened and explained to the expecting trick-or-treaters. The paper boy had apparantly activated our motion-sensitive porch light as he walked past our house.

Hmm… as the trick-or-treater and his mom approached our house, they probably saw the paper boy pass our residence, an event followed by the illumination of our porch light. I wonder…

Anyway, we now return to the trick-or-treaters standing outside our front door. My mom has finished her explanation.

Silence.

“Um, okay, I’ll see if I can find you something,” my mom said. So she headed for our pantry. I followed behind her, trying to explain that just because our light was on, “…legally, you don’t have to give them something…”

Anyway, my mom takes a bag of Snickers, opens it up, and drops one into the pillow case that the little boy was using as a container for donated candy. My mom was then, as she puts it, “stunned” to see the mother of the boy hold out a pillow case too. A second Snicker candy was given away.

And then, the boy held up his pillow case and said expectedly, “More!”

My mom did not honor that last request.

It started out as a normal Saturday. It was October 8, 2005. Shortly after waking up, I proceeded to go through the steps of turning on my computer.

I successfully completed two out of the three steps I would normally take to turn on my computer. I first plugged in the surge protector. Then I flipped the surge protector on. Normally I would then press the power button on my computer, but I was startled to hear my computer turn on all by itself. Eek! It’s trying to take over the world!… uh, just kidding.

I looked at my Dell computer case. The power light was orange instead of normal “everything’s okay” green. The monitor was blank and its power light was also orange. And so began The Mystery of the Orange Light. Dun-dun-dun-duuunnn…

Although orange is one of my favorite colors, I knew my computer was not trying to appeal to my color favorites. Something was obviously wrong. I held down on the power button in an attempt to turn off the computer. It didn’t turn off. So I flipped off the surge protector. Of course, the computer turned off (I would get really freaked out if it didn’t…). I flipped the surge protector back on. The computer turned on by itself - again. I repeated this; same result. I held down the power button… longer. The computer finally turned off. Flip off, flip on, no automatic starting up. Whew!

After that was solved, I ran downstairs and made a beeline to the location where my computer’s packaging was stored. I grabbed my Dell Dimension 8400 User’s Manual and went upstairs. After a bit of searching through the manual, I found a section that read “If the power light is steady amber - a device might be malfunctioning or incorrectly installed.” It then suggested that I reseat the memory modules, the graphics card, and the other PCI cards in the case.

Oh, great. I was a little nervous about opening my case, though because this computer had died on me before I had had some experience with accessing the innards of my computer. After going through the routine of unplugging everything from the back, I pulled out the case into an open area, put it on its side, and opened it up.

My last computer failure was due to what appeared to be an overheated hard drive. So the first thing I did was to look for any evidence of high temperatures. I didn’t see any circuitry that looked or smelled like it had been through a barbeque, so I proceeded with the actions suggested in the manual.

I had two DDR2 RAM modules in the slots. I picked the one that was the most easily accessible and delicately took it out of its slot. The instructions then stated that in order to avoid damage to the module, I had to push straight down and push evenly on both ends of the module. If I did it correctly, the latches on both sides of the slot would snap into place to hold the module in position.

The RAM module would not go in. I tried pushing softly. I tried pushing hard. It didn’t go in. I wasn’t sure if I should push harder because I was afraid I would break it. In the end, my dad was able to help me get it back in. Turns out I had to “help it in” by closing the latches while pushing…

After spending about half an hour or more on that one module, I, of course, did not want to try the second. Nor did I want to try the graphics or PCI cards. So I closed the case.

I tried doing some mental troubleshooting. The job of finding the failed component was made even more difficult by the fact that the Dell Diagnostic lights on the back of the computer were off, which the manual said meant the computer is off or “a possible pre-BIOS error has occurred.” I started my thought processes with the list of components whose reseating was suggested by the manual. At first I thought it must be the graphics card, since there was no monitor output. I tried both the analog and digital cables of my LCD monitor with no success. When I thought about what the Dell Diagnostic lights were telling me, I thought “it couldn’t be that.” It must be something that would normally provide data to the graphics card. Otherwise the diagnostic lights would probably indicate a graphics card failure. Could it be the motherboard? The power supply? The power cord?

As I usually do when I’m stuck with a major hardware problem, I called my friend Jordan, who is quite knowledgeable in computer hardware, having built his own computer. He guessed that it probably had something to do with the power supply. He also suggested I check the connections on my motherboard. I checked the connections. No luck.

The only way I could think of as to test the power supply was to get a new one and see if it worked. Same with the other possibly-busted components. Ugh.

In summary, I was stuck. I was sure the warranty was expired. The only thing left that I could think of would be to call a local computer repair person later in the week.

And so concludes part 1 of The Mystery of the Orange Light! Dun-dun-dun-duuunnn…

To be continued.

(By the way, if you can guess what the problem is on the first try, I’ll be quite impressed.)

The Mystery of the Orange Light:
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Bug control is what happens when John swats a mosquito that’s trying to bite him and it falls out of the air onto the Ctrl key of his computer…

(A post intended to be immediately after the fact…)

Once this summer we were camping with our grandparents. We decided to play a game of Monopoly, since it was our custom to do so while camping with them. So we got the Monopoly game set up.

Then there were the bugs, flying around the picnic table on which we were about to play. My brothers and I didn’t really mind the bugs, but my grandma apparently did, so she decided to get her Deet-containing bug spray. Of course, I was automatically repulsed by the thought of using a Deet-containing bug spray, after hearing how powerful the chemical was and how it had been frowned upon by government health agencies. But I figured, “it must be okay; people use it all the time.” So my grandma sprayed it on and around our Monopoly playing area. I really would have preferred that she would have done it before our Monopoly game had been set up, but I couldn’t really protest; it was too late anyway. So we sat down to play.

Suddenly I saw something very frightening: the bugspray was apparantly eating right through the ink on the Monopoly board. (Whoops, there goes St. Charles Place.) The ink didn’t really smear (there was a little smeared ink on the dice, but that was it), it just seemed to vanish. Very disturbing. And they want you to put that stuff on your skin?!

I’m sure you’re already aware of this, but you can never be told enough: when you’re blogging, emailing, or using other Internet forms of communication, you need to be careful about how you present things, because you no longer have inflections, body language, etc., at your disposal. One way to “replace” these is to use emotions (but then of course there are those people who say that a well-structured sentence shouldn’t need emotions, yada yada yada…). But once upon a time I was new to email, and I learned this “be careful what you say” lesson the hard way.

I once had a “email penpal” named Nicky who lived in Australia; he was my very first penpal. After we had been writing for some time, I decided that I wanted to tell him about the funny things that had happened to us recently.

Like the time our fireplace blew up and sent glass shards flying across the living room, leaving burn marks on the carpet? (On the more serious side, it was definitely a miracle that about 15 seconds before the explosion I felt a sudden impulse to get myself and my baby brother out of the living room.)

And remember that one early morning many years ago when the house filled up with smoke because the pop-up-timer mechanism on the toaster had broken? I proudly remembered my fire drill techniques and crawled across the kitchen floor, then quickly jumped up into standing position and yanked the toaster’s power plug out. (And then my parents wake up and say something like, “Why does the house smell like smoke?”) That piece of toast was in a sorry state… (to be more specific, the slice of bread looked like greasy charcoal and had probably shrunk about 25% due to extreme moisture loss).

I never heard from Nicky again. Perhaps I gave a slight impression of pyromania…

I can’t believe that summer’s two thirds over already…

Later that day on July 27 when Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 1 was released, I started feeling very sick… I really didn’t feel like being on the computer, and therefore didn’t feel up to blog posting. The next day, I was still recovering. And yesterday, I was extremely busy due to miscellaneous reasons.

But today I’m back (at least, I think), ready to keep you informed about the Vista numero uno beta release!