XYMer's Home away from Home

It has been said that I possess so much patience it's actually a negative, because my bosses lose patience with me long before I lose patience with whatever it is I'm working on.

OTOH I once watched a supervisor wrestle with a technical problem for over 6 hours, when the solution was to let it sit there for more than 60 seconds after implementing the original fix he tried. The more I think about it, the more I'm sure he was/is an undiagnosed ADD-er.

No problem, Leo.

Update us before your big trip.
Hope your chicken dinner turned out nicely.
Thanks for the beer!

I recall that a lot of people here express INTP Myers-Briggs personality traits. I suspect it may all be related.

- Anonymous

I should probably point out that, after getting laid off, I spent a lot of time hanging around a friend who is clinically diagnosed with ADD and takes medication to alleviate the symptoms. Medication which, in his case, does work.

That said I could be in the middle of fixing his car or computer or similarly involved long-term process, which required frequent (though not constant) help or input from him, and he'd just wander off because he didn't take his meds and got bored. Then he'll wander back in 45 minutes later and wonder why work is progressing so slowly.

It's only after hanging around him for extended periods that I started seeing similarities to my old supervisor.

Well, computer no longer crashes at 3:15AM, but now the ethernet port doesn’t work anymore. After uninstalling that Catalyst (cattle cyst?) bullshit the computer restarted, insisting it “found new hardware”, and ever since the ethernet may as well have never been integrated onto the motherboard.

-he who stacks pork

You can try installing the nForce drivers again, the ethernet controller is integrated into the north bridge.

Just remember, for the love of god remember, when asks if you want to install the "Forceware Access Manager" to say no.

Oh shit! That was it! We uninstalled the nForce drivers!!! Seriously, the nVidia video card stuff is tied into the motherboard? The line of thinking was, “Well, since the current video card is made by ATI and not nVidia, it makes no sense to have the nVidia drivers installed”, which seems very logical. Yikes! That would totally explain it. So, where would I look to find the drivers in order to re-install them?

Thanks

-he who stacks pork

Doh!
Sorry, Leo.
Guess when I saw nVidia, I was thinking video stuff.
Good job, Monkey...

nVidia makes video cards and motherboard chipsets. They're usually listed in Add/Remove programs separately.

Assuming you didn't nuke & repave, the latest version that's compatible with the chipset in that board should be in C:\Setup\nForce.versionnumber

Now if it starts crashing 'n crap you can try installing a different version. This is the latest version available from ASUS, the motherboard manufacturer:
http://dlcdnas.asus.com/pub/ASUS/misc/u ... 2000XP.zip

If you were to, say, install the C:\setup version, have it start crashing again, and wanted to move to the ASUS version, you would have to uninstall the latest one from add/remove programs, reboot, then install the ASUS version. You can upgrade to the latest version by just installing on top, but moving to an older version requires you to uninstall the new version first.

As you can tell, I've done this before (though with a different system).

Heh. I had forgotten about the nForce crapola. The last four boards that I had that used nForce chipsets balked at ANYTHING from ATI in the PCI-E slots. ANYTHING. It's as if they purposely made those motherboards to reject ATI cards.

People think I'm lazy. I should just correct them and say that I'm patient.

Well I'll sit there and work on a problem for so long that my boss bitches about how I should've just formatted & reinstalled everything, though when he does that he ends up having to repeat the format & reinstall because the same problem crops up down the road (plus he invariably forgets about some aspect of the reinstall so users are affected beyond the format & reinstall outage). Instead I figure out what the cause of the problem is, resolve it, and then move on to the next problem server that he had performed his quick fixes on.

Patience vs. Impatience.

Actually I had been considering deleting that stuff for a few months for the same innocent assumptions, but held back. No worries.

-he who stacks pork

You saved me a lot of time and frustration! That was exactly where the installer resides. I launched it, installed the garbage, restarted, and voila* the ethernet connectivity now works!

THANKS!!!!!!!

* no, not the stringed musical instrument, viola, rather, the French exclamation of amazement

-he who stacks pork

Consistency is the tyranny of little minds. Or, uh, something. I've been putting all software installers & drivers in c:\setup for so many years at this point it's a habit.

Fingers crossed your 3:15 behavior doesn't come back now (but if it does, try using the ASUS version instead).

Well, I guess I’ll have to wait and see what happens. Going to be out of the country for the month and I will be taking a gamble leaving it plugged in into teh intarwebs while I’m away. Hopefully the house doesn’t burn down.

-he who stacks pork

Quick update on my gaming PC:
ZERO crashes, the nVidia card works wonderfully.
Mass Effect 2 looks friggin' amazing...



Good luck, Leo.
Have a safe trip. Let's hang out when you get back.
I'd love to see pictures...