Win2K's hdw detection routines are thourough, but also forgiving. If it doesn't have a driver, it will skip it and flag the hdw as unknown.
When you SYSprep a win2k install, there's no reboot(s) involved. Ask the user for some info, detect hardware, and done. I find most modern PC's will get this done in less than 5 min.
Oh, yeah I also meant "L2 cache" in general, not "L2 cache on motherboard" - my bad.
(1) GHOST'ed hard drive with Windows 2000 installed, and the Sysprep utility enabled on it
(4) Processors: a Socket 7, a Slot A, a Socket A, and a Socket 478
(4*2) RAM modules: a couple of 72 pin SIMM's, a couple of PC-66 SDRAM's, a couple of PC-133's, and a couple of DDR's
(3) Power supplies, an AT, an ATX, and one of those new ATX'es
(2) Motherboards, 1 AT, 1 ATX
(2) video cards, 1 PCI and 1 AGP
Step 1:
Replace user's HD with your SYSprep'd one. Boot. If you can boot, Win2K will do it's hardware detection routine. If it finishes, and boots to a 2K desktop, your problem is probably software and you have to narrow down from there. If it's using Windows, boot with user's hard drive in safe mode. If problem does not occur, disable taskbar lint under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Curr entVersion/Run and from user's Startup folder. Reboot. If the problem re-occurs, probably virus'd / spyware'd or corrupt Windows install. Re install Windows. Fixed. If it isn't fixed, follow step 2
Step 2:
If the user's machine did not go past the Win2K hardware detection routine, then the problem is hardware. Go into the PC's CMOS and reset to Setup Defaults. If that doesn't work, CMOS is OK, it's a hardware component. The list of problematic components in a typical PC, listed in desending order of probability is:
RAM
CPU
Power supply (yes, power supply)
Motherboard
Add on cards, including video
Go into the CMOS, disable L2 cache on the motherboard (common problem and you don't have to swap out anything). Try Win2K detection routine. If it works, motherboard L2 cache is the problem. If it doesn't, swap the ram. If it works, it's RAM. If it doesn't, swap the processor. If it works, it's chip. If it doesn't, swap the PSU. If it works, it's PSU. If it doesn't, take out all add-on cards and swap the video cards. If it works, swap back each add-on card one by one until the problem re-occurs. When it re-occurs, the last card you swapped back in was the problem. Replace it, and you are good to go.
Using this technique, I can troubleshoot 90% of PC's in 15 minutes or less, 90% of the time. HTH.
For the current quarter, HP and Sony-Ericsson represented approximately 13% and 11% of total revenues, which you can see results in less concentration than other large EMS companies in the industry in general. Our top ten customers accounted for approximately 72% of total revenues. This is the first quarter that HP achieved the number one position for us in revenues, resulting from our market share wins with this important customer
I've had very good results with Dell, but I had to take the oddity of Dell boxes in general into account. For example, someone mentioned oddball power supplies, check. As well, my OptiPlexes (we have about a dozen) will *not* take a 3rd party hard drive. Otherwise, they are good performing, reliable, and *cheap* boxes. Wipe XP off them, stick on Win2k, and you have a first class corporate box for $300 Cdn (no kidding - i just bought 10, w/Celery 2.0ghz, 256 mb, 40gig, CD ROM, nic, shitty onboard video and sound - $300!!! - even got an optical mouse!)
As long as you know how to manipulate your support droid when you call in, you can get results. I was able to get a hard drive fedexed to me in 24 hours after I had one fail - no problem. Over all, Dell has worked out fine for our company and the bean counter is happy because we got to rig up over a hundred guys for about $500-600 Cdn a piece (Dimension's w/17" monitor)
Conspiracy theorists, go nuts.
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...for.NET, and SOAP. People this *is* a Good Thing. As long as you can get two different parties to agree on a schema, you are off and running. Open source version of this is XMLRPC and as far as 'closed' source, I am already running Project Server 2002, which has an XMLRPC implementation in it. Third party clients can parse my Project database (over 500 projects and counting) with an XML Web query and Project Server spits back the results. This stuff kicks ass, and I, for one, am pleased that Microsoft is taking a lead in it.
Mod duffbeer703's comment up. Unlike some other posters, he has a clue. RPC is an absolutely critical Windows component and shit will *just not run* right unless RPC is running. Clipboard is just a simple example. Anyone running a 2K or XP box, shut off the RPC service then go about your day. Betcha you turn it back on after 10 min, unless you type in Notepad all day.
er, sort of. 135 is used to listen for client calls, then Exchange uses a random port. Any half-assed Exchange admin though will use this handy KB article to change the RPC and subsequent conversation to a known, predictable, and un-obvious port, then forward those ports thru the firewall. OWA is easier, though, and my users love it. They *prefer* OWA to Outlook. Fine with me - less work, integration with my intranet, and handy email virus control all rolled up into one.
Instead of everyone bitching about how much MS sucks, maybe a good Microsoftie here can try to run the DCOM exploit on random IP addresses, then copy up psexec.exe and kill.exe to the user's HD, kill the msblast.exe process, upload a patched copy of the dll, and merge the registry fix?
Can't see why it wouldn't work, you'd be doing the Net community a favor, and best of all you'd get props for using the same exploit to help solve the problem.
Can anyone come up with a good reason why this wouldn't work?
Quite frankly, command line help sucks. In any Windows command line app, you type:/? | more
And you get a useful screen that says to the effect: "if you use this switch, it will do this, if you use that switch, it will do that"
This behavior is completely universal in the Windows world and works, without exception, on every command line app I have ever used.
In Linux, you type --h and you typically get:
-d -l -F -U -C -K -Y -O -U -R -T -F -M
And that's it. No explanation, just a list of shit you can type.
Reminds me of the Microsoft joke about MS Tech support only yielding answers to questions that were technically correct, but ultimately useless.
Don't tell me to man , or google for it. An app *should* tell me what the hell it does, and what I can expect if I use a switch. Otherwhise, what is the point of the --h switch?
Why is it so hard to spend the extra 30 seconds when you are coding the app to stick in a few simple text strings explaining what a switch does? Or am I just a big pussy not used to using the Real Man's OS??
This guy sounds like my current boss, who wants me to find almost exactly the same thing. I show him a Tungsten, he says, "Too big, and how do I talk into it? " - show him the microphone he says "That's stupid". I show him a Thera, he says "Too small, and how do I type? Besides, who uses audiovox, I would be embarassed to show this at meetings" - nitwit will *not* be satisfied until there is a chip that can be embedded in his head. Just like the first poster, my boss thinks that I'm asleep at the switch / incompetent until I can find a product that can me his arbitrary, and ever-changing "specifications"
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lol serves me right for making such an obvious statement heh
The time: July-ish 1993
The place: University of Alberta
The box: 2-way 486/66 (an ALR I think, anyone remember those guys?)
The app: Mathematical statistics - they wanted to keep their matrices in RAM while they recalc'd.
The RAM: A measly 128mb
The price: A cool $10,000.00. For the RAM.
I remember 'cause I was the sucker that had to get the prick going.
Win2K's hdw detection routines are thourough, but also forgiving. If it doesn't have a driver, it will skip it and flag the hdw as unknown.
When you SYSprep a win2k install, there's no reboot(s) involved. Ask the user for some info, detect hardware, and done. I find most modern PC's will get this done in less than 5 min.
Oh, yeah I also meant "L2 cache" in general, not "L2 cache on motherboard" - my bad.
Prerequisites:
(1) GHOST'ed hard drive with Windows 2000 installed, and the Sysprep utility enabled on it
(4) Processors: a Socket 7, a Slot A, a Socket A, and a Socket 478
(4*2) RAM modules: a couple of 72 pin SIMM's, a couple of PC-66 SDRAM's, a couple of PC-133's, and a couple of DDR's
(3) Power supplies, an AT, an ATX, and one of those new ATX'es
(2) Motherboards, 1 AT, 1 ATX
(2) video cards, 1 PCI and 1 AGP
Step 1:
Replace user's HD with your SYSprep'd one. Boot. If you can boot, Win2K will do it's hardware detection routine. If it finishes, and boots to a 2K desktop, your problem is probably software and you have to narrow down from there. If it's using Windows, boot with user's hard drive in safe mode. If problem does not occur, disable taskbar lint under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Cur
Step 2:
If the user's machine did not go past the Win2K hardware detection routine, then the problem is hardware. Go into the PC's CMOS and reset to Setup Defaults. If that doesn't work, CMOS is OK, it's a hardware component. The list of problematic components in a typical PC, listed in desending order of probability is:
Go into the CMOS, disable L2 cache on the motherboard (common problem and you don't have to swap out anything). Try Win2K detection routine. If it works, motherboard L2 cache is the problem. If it doesn't, swap the ram. If it works, it's RAM. If it doesn't, swap the processor. If it works, it's chip. If it doesn't, swap the PSU. If it works, it's PSU. If it doesn't, take out all add-on cards and swap the video cards. If it works, swap back each add-on card one by one until the problem re-occurs. When it re-occurs, the last card you swapped back in was the problem. Replace it, and you are good to go.
Using this technique, I can troubleshoot 90% of PC's in 15 minutes or less, 90% of the time. HTH.
I'm no fan of RH but parent *was* on topic, you obviously never heard the song before.
Mods, don't waste your points.
Anyone heard of a little company called HP?
From the horses mouth:
For the current quarter, HP and Sony-Ericsson represented approximately 13% and 11% of total revenues, which you can see results in less concentration than other large EMS companies in the industry in general. Our top ten customers accounted for approximately 72% of total revenues. This is the first quarter that HP achieved the number one position for us in revenues, resulting from our market share wins with this important customer
I've had very good results with Dell, but I had to take the oddity of Dell boxes in general into account. For example, someone mentioned oddball power supplies, check. As well, my OptiPlexes (we have about a dozen) will *not* take a 3rd party hard drive. Otherwise, they are good performing, reliable, and *cheap* boxes. Wipe XP off them, stick on Win2k, and you have a first class corporate box for $300 Cdn (no kidding - i just bought 10, w/Celery 2.0ghz, 256 mb, 40gig, CD ROM, nic, shitty onboard video and sound - $300!!! - even got an optical mouse!)
As long as you know how to manipulate your support droid when you call in, you can get results. I was able to get a hard drive fedexed to me in 24 hours after I had one fail - no problem. Over all, Dell has worked out fine for our company and the bean counter is happy because we got to rig up over a hundred guys for about $500-600 Cdn a piece (Dimension's w/17" monitor)
ditto in edmonton alberta there's one just around the corner and i pull that trick all the time while coming home
>this is the result of microsoft's dominance
i think tim berners-lee'd have something to say about that...
Move to Alberta. www.atb.com
Conspiracy theorists, go nuts. Registrant: AT&T Enhanced Network Services (AENS6-DOM) POB 919014 San Diego, CA 92191-9014 US Domain Name: AENS.NET Administrative Contact: CERFnet (CA597-ORG) cerf-admin@CERF.NET PO BOX 919014 SAN DIEGO, CA 92191-9014 US 619-812-5000 Technical Contact: AT&T Enhanced Network Services (CERF-HM) hostmaster@ATTENS.COM AT&T Enhanced Network Services P.O. Box 919014 San Diego, CA 92191 US 858-812-5000 fax: 858-812-3990 Record expires on 28-Jan-2012. Record created on 08-Oct-2002. Database last updated on 8-Oct-2003 18:18:32 EDT. Domain servers in listed order: NS-WEST.CERF.NET 192.153.156.3 NS-EAST.CERF.NET 207.252.96.3
http://www.liberum.org/ we even point it to our sql server db for staff names etc
...for .NET, and SOAP. People this *is* a Good Thing. As long as you can get two different parties to agree on a schema, you are off and running. Open source version of this is XMLRPC and as far as 'closed' source, I am already running Project Server 2002, which has an XMLRPC implementation in it. Third party clients can parse my Project database (over 500 projects and counting) with an XML Web query and Project Server spits back the results. This stuff kicks ass, and I, for one, am pleased that Microsoft is taking a lead in it.
Mod duffbeer703's comment up. Unlike some other posters, he has a clue. RPC is an absolutely critical Windows component and shit will *just not run* right unless RPC is running. Clipboard is just a simple example. Anyone running a 2K or XP box, shut off the RPC service then go about your day. Betcha you turn it back on after 10 min, unless you type in Notepad all day.
er, sort of. 135 is used to listen for client calls, then Exchange uses a random port. Any half-assed Exchange admin though will use this handy KB article to change the RPC and subsequent conversation to a known, predictable, and un-obvious port, then forward those ports thru the firewall. OWA is easier, though, and my users love it. They *prefer* OWA to Outlook. Fine with me - less work, integration with my intranet, and handy email virus control all rolled up into one.
You are thinking of Gerald Bull Close enough, though.
Instead of everyone bitching about how much MS sucks, maybe a good Microsoftie here can try to run the DCOM exploit on random IP addresses, then copy up psexec.exe and kill.exe to the user's HD, kill the msblast.exe process, upload a patched copy of the dll, and merge the registry fix?
Can't see why it wouldn't work, you'd be doing the Net community a favor, and best of all you'd get props for using the same exploit to help solve the problem.
Can anyone come up with a good reason why this wouldn't work?
Quite frankly, command line help sucks. In any Windows command line app, you type: /? | more
And you get a useful screen that says to the effect: "if you use this switch, it will do this, if you use that switch, it will do that"
This behavior is completely universal in the Windows world and works, without exception, on every command line app I have ever used.
In Linux, you type --h and you typically get:
-d -l -F -U -C -K -Y -O -U -R -T -F -M
And that's it. No explanation, just a list of shit you can type.
Reminds me of the Microsoft joke about MS Tech support only yielding answers to questions that were technically correct, but ultimately useless.
Don't tell me to man , or google for it. An app *should* tell me what the hell it does, and what I can expect if I use a switch. Otherwhise, what is the point of the --h switch?
Why is it so hard to spend the extra 30 seconds when you are coding the app to stick in a few simple text strings explaining what a switch does? Or am I just a big pussy not used to using the Real Man's OS??
http://www.eeye.com/html/Research/Tools/Download.a sp?file=RetinaRPCDCOM
Real artists ship.
This guy sounds like my current boss, who wants me to find almost exactly the same thing. I show him a Tungsten, he says, "Too big, and how do I talk into it? " - show him the microphone he says "That's stupid". I show him a Thera, he says "Too small, and how do I type? Besides, who uses audiovox, I would be embarassed to show this at meetings" - nitwit will *not* be satisfied until there is a chip that can be embedded in his head. Just like the first poster, my boss thinks that I'm asleep at the switch / incompetent until I can find a product that can me his arbitrary, and ever-changing "specifications"
Look here.
That was covered in the latter foundation books in the form of the Mule, a mutant that almost wrecked the Plan.
Read your Cryptonomicon. Sometimes, knowing that a conversation took place can yield information as well.