Death Metal Moe
12-22-2009, 07:25 PM
:: DISCLAIMER ::
If you're not a tech head or you've read my past computer threads and found them boring, please, feel free to skip my thread. I don't want to waste your time, this might get mind numbingly awful for you, it's really just for the handful of other tech heads on here to comment on, chuckle at and maybe even learn something from.
So an old co-worker of mine asked me to look at her computer. It's been very slow and since she was getting laid off for 3 weeks (Merry Christmas, huh?) she needed it to do her bi-weekly check ins to unemployment more easily.
I decided to try to go up there 2 Sunday's ago, during that huge ice storm we had in the northeast. So that didn't happen. This weekend my car was fucked up and I actually missed playing a show with my band due to it. Extremely weak, car is fine now, that's another story. The point is I've been missing appointments to look at this comp for over a week now, so I went up tonight.
Problems:
She complained that there was a lot of crap on the comp she didn't want, stuff that came preloaded on it from Dell when she bought it sometimes in late 2001 or early 2002. It moves very slowly, on the internet, everywhere.
OK, so here's the situation. The comp has AOL preloaded on it, that's a slamdunker right there, remove that and things will speed up a little right off the bat. As I keep looking at things that are loaded near the clock I see a Windows Update is due.... for Service Pack 2. Holy shit, for realz? She never even got SP2? Turns out her and her husband HAVE NEVER HAD INTERNET IN THEIR HOUSE UNTIL 2 WEEKS AGO. Holy shit, how do people live like that? I was shocked. Seems their choices up in Franklin, NJ are limited so they got some locak DSL, fine. I have DSL and the speeds are quite acceptable.
So I start the comp downloading SP2............and I sit there. We chat about goings on in the company since I left, company gossip, more shit that's gone wrong since I left, this and that....and SP2 is still downloading........she goes to check on dinner..........still downloading. I sat in front of the FUCKING computer for 45 minutes as SP2 installed. Let's dig a little deeper here..
Holy sheep balls, there's only 256MB of RAM in this fucking machine! How can you even USE this thing?!
OK so now we're faced with an older computer with shit for RAM. Single core Pentium 4 CPU is actually not that bad, it was like 2.5 GHz. Is the RAM really slowing me down this much? I guessed so and kept moving on.
After the long wait to install SP2 I decided to change gears a little by uninstalling AOL and McAfee which was bundled with it, then install Avast! for them, which is what I trust at home. Uninstallation wasn't that bad actually. Ad I start to download Avast's installer program, I am greeted with an APPALLINGLY slow download speed again. What the shit is this fuck? This shouldn't take more than a minute, even at minimum DSL speed, I should be waiting on the comp not the internet.
But I let it go. After about 20 minutes of downloading the status bar wasn't even half full and this was just the set up files it was getting. I told her and her husband that if they didn't mind I would stop this download, take their comp home tonight to update and check their internet speed with my netbook. This time I was smart and packed myself a little nerd toolbox including my netbook to check the speed. So they agreed and I hooked my netbook up to their DSL, went to Speakeasy for a speed test and hit GO!
Fuck me. They were getting 85 Kbs down! Woah, that is like double dial up! And even more strange, they were getting 130 Kbs UP! I've never seen faster up than down speeds.
Now I just feel like a moron, because the internet speed was the easier, quickest thing to check but since she said it was newly installed, I figured it was the last place to check, especially after seeing SP2 ready for download on the comp. Seems she was mailed the modem and phone filters she needed and set it up herself, no one ever came out. Well they're coming out now I can tell you that, with shit speeds that barely break dial up. Turns out the house they live in was built in 1910 or some shit, probably the original wiring when the phone came to the town, so this may require the current company to come out and wire some stuff.
So in summation, our problem really was the internet 1st and foremost. But it was exacerbated by a comp that wasn't updated to the latest service packs, security updates and even IE version. Taking the fully updated comp back to them tomorrow and hoping they get a service guy out there before New Years. Another computer adventure hopefully in the bag. Thansk for reading, may all your hard drives be solid state.:tongue:
If you're not a tech head or you've read my past computer threads and found them boring, please, feel free to skip my thread. I don't want to waste your time, this might get mind numbingly awful for you, it's really just for the handful of other tech heads on here to comment on, chuckle at and maybe even learn something from.
So an old co-worker of mine asked me to look at her computer. It's been very slow and since she was getting laid off for 3 weeks (Merry Christmas, huh?) she needed it to do her bi-weekly check ins to unemployment more easily.
I decided to try to go up there 2 Sunday's ago, during that huge ice storm we had in the northeast. So that didn't happen. This weekend my car was fucked up and I actually missed playing a show with my band due to it. Extremely weak, car is fine now, that's another story. The point is I've been missing appointments to look at this comp for over a week now, so I went up tonight.
Problems:
She complained that there was a lot of crap on the comp she didn't want, stuff that came preloaded on it from Dell when she bought it sometimes in late 2001 or early 2002. It moves very slowly, on the internet, everywhere.
OK, so here's the situation. The comp has AOL preloaded on it, that's a slamdunker right there, remove that and things will speed up a little right off the bat. As I keep looking at things that are loaded near the clock I see a Windows Update is due.... for Service Pack 2. Holy shit, for realz? She never even got SP2? Turns out her and her husband HAVE NEVER HAD INTERNET IN THEIR HOUSE UNTIL 2 WEEKS AGO. Holy shit, how do people live like that? I was shocked. Seems their choices up in Franklin, NJ are limited so they got some locak DSL, fine. I have DSL and the speeds are quite acceptable.
So I start the comp downloading SP2............and I sit there. We chat about goings on in the company since I left, company gossip, more shit that's gone wrong since I left, this and that....and SP2 is still downloading........she goes to check on dinner..........still downloading. I sat in front of the FUCKING computer for 45 minutes as SP2 installed. Let's dig a little deeper here..
Holy sheep balls, there's only 256MB of RAM in this fucking machine! How can you even USE this thing?!
OK so now we're faced with an older computer with shit for RAM. Single core Pentium 4 CPU is actually not that bad, it was like 2.5 GHz. Is the RAM really slowing me down this much? I guessed so and kept moving on.
After the long wait to install SP2 I decided to change gears a little by uninstalling AOL and McAfee which was bundled with it, then install Avast! for them, which is what I trust at home. Uninstallation wasn't that bad actually. Ad I start to download Avast's installer program, I am greeted with an APPALLINGLY slow download speed again. What the shit is this fuck? This shouldn't take more than a minute, even at minimum DSL speed, I should be waiting on the comp not the internet.
But I let it go. After about 20 minutes of downloading the status bar wasn't even half full and this was just the set up files it was getting. I told her and her husband that if they didn't mind I would stop this download, take their comp home tonight to update and check their internet speed with my netbook. This time I was smart and packed myself a little nerd toolbox including my netbook to check the speed. So they agreed and I hooked my netbook up to their DSL, went to Speakeasy for a speed test and hit GO!
Fuck me. They were getting 85 Kbs down! Woah, that is like double dial up! And even more strange, they were getting 130 Kbs UP! I've never seen faster up than down speeds.
Now I just feel like a moron, because the internet speed was the easier, quickest thing to check but since she said it was newly installed, I figured it was the last place to check, especially after seeing SP2 ready for download on the comp. Seems she was mailed the modem and phone filters she needed and set it up herself, no one ever came out. Well they're coming out now I can tell you that, with shit speeds that barely break dial up. Turns out the house they live in was built in 1910 or some shit, probably the original wiring when the phone came to the town, so this may require the current company to come out and wire some stuff.
So in summation, our problem really was the internet 1st and foremost. But it was exacerbated by a comp that wasn't updated to the latest service packs, security updates and even IE version. Taking the fully updated comp back to them tomorrow and hoping they get a service guy out there before New Years. Another computer adventure hopefully in the bag. Thansk for reading, may all your hard drives be solid state.:tongue: