"no software can substitute for actually looking at the board."
Some capacitors fail without exploding or exhibiting external signs of failure. For example, my old Peavey Heritage amp. One of the main capacitors had gone bad, but you'd NEVER know until you'd opened all the caps up up to see one that had imploded but the outside shell hadn't imploded with it like they'd normally do.
If they have no clue how to properly handle that data you can expect it to get destroyed.
Microsoft JUST barely got lucky and recovered most everything. You think your friends are going to do a better job? They'd better be getting paid more than the people at Microsoft!
And as a side note, CRTs are built the exact same way, except the phosphor grille was convex.
I'm staring at them right now using a microscope. I move an inch to the right and I have to re-adjust the focus. The screens do have some depth to them, thus the focal plane changes as does the angle of the screen.
There is depth. Most LCD screen matrixes (behind the glass) are SLIGHTLY CONCAVE and not a totally flat plane, this is to compensate for viewing angle issues.
"because my experience on the frontlines of consumer tech support has mostly taught me that Acer laptops in general take a licking, and then the casing breaks, and random components start dying, and then the motherboard fails, same as HP."
Get yourself some experience working in a REAL repair depot, because you're pretty off there. Most HP laptops sent in for repair are due to crappy third-party hardware (nVidia being HP's biggest PITA next to counterfeit RAM,) or the customer tried installing an upgrade by themselves and ESD'd the machine. Liquid spills come in third place.
The actual design and build is good - it's the hardware makers and counterfeiters screwing shit up. blame nVidia and Hynix and Samsung for HP and Acer's crappy builds - also Foxconn.
I should note that a majority of those vinyls are in possession of my father and other relatives, or a couple of friends. We all swap/sample.trade constantly so these albums are anywhere from south Carolina to Texas to California.
According to itunes it's not on the Cd release, but in just a couple of years when a new compilation album comes out it'll be very likely guaranteed that those tracks will be on the disc.
I've got a pre-Sap/Jar of Flies dual demo vinyl with the AiC logo engraved on the back - a REAL LP with songs never released on the official albums and STILL unreleased to this day.
iTunes doesn't have any real exclusives - those that actually know the band have the real exclusives that the rest of the world will never hear. Another example, "The Prince," written by Diamond Head and covered by Metallica, was originally on the Black Album (The Thompson Original Master Tape, anyways) and never made it to the final cut, instead appearing later as a b-side to One and Harvester of Sorrow singles and on the Garage, Inc album. Also, the original title to song #5 on the same Black Album - "Whereever I May Road" yes, not roam, ROAD.
There hasn't been a real "exclusive" in the music market since digital distribution. No mispresses, no off-recordings, nothing that makes anything unique and awesome anymore. Can't carve a shitload of grooves into an optical disc like we did with a vinyl LP and still expect it to play!
Trust nobody to handle that which you can do yourself.
If you'd rather trust your data to a bunch of strangers rather than figure out how to do it yourself, you DESERVE every loss and failure you get.
I still have data from the early 80s, on a 120MB 5 1/4" hard drive, that has survived two house fires in my black box. The drive still works. Data is intact. I don't know of many people that can say that, not even a data backup service.
I read all that you wrote, you still fail to mention this magical piece of software that makes it possible to diagnose things like failed capacitors. I know some BIOS features will let you check for voltage spikes or dips, which are pretty much signs of a screwed capacitor, but is there software that can be run outside of BIOS that will do this?
Does critical thinking take that much brain power now days?
Yes, you steal a black box bolted to a 750 pound metal desk - feel free to try!
And we have this magical thing called front-loading hot-swappable hard drives - they've been around for a decade or so, the tech is cheap and the amount I need to move is minimal. Plug in designated diff backup drive, make diff, unplug and put in safe - 5 minutes if that, no tools required.
I even have a little reminder set to tell me when backup time is getting near.
"Bah. Data lines are easy to find. Hell, nearly every hotel in the country has free Wifi. I buy a laptop, I install some software, I type in my key, and I have instant access to my files."
Sure, you download 1TB over wifi - enjoy!
"Well, if last month's version of the data is good enough... "
While you wait a whole month over that hotel wifi to get your data back...
I have an airline-grade black box - that's proof against any house fire. My data is safe.
Half of your RAM issues wont' be able to be diagnosed with any piece of software. No RAM checking software will keep tabs on the operating speed of the RAM. Ditto with a CPU tester, there's hardware and socket adapters to help you plug in CPUs and test them with hardware.
My time spent in the hardware repair/replacement service has taught me that most software diagnostics just fall short. One place I worked for used a combo of Prime95 and some custom stress-testing software - almost every machine would pass those diagnostics but then we'd go to do a full hardware check or send the unit to burn-in and it would fail. If you don't have the dedicated hardware for checking other potentially faulty hardware, you're just going to play the shotgun game until you find the issue - that's a waste of time and money.
"For RAM it's fairly easy - 2-3 different data manipulation methods used by memtest and you know if there is an issue."
This isn't entirely accurate. Memtest won't tell you the operating speed of the memory module. It's quite common to have a memory module pass every Memtest86+ test and then go to a hardware-based RAM checker only to find out the speed starts at the proper MHz range then drops by half or more - bad RAM chip.
Memtest will not catch that and sometimes that is the ONLY way to diagnose a faulty RAM module.
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"no software can substitute for actually looking at the board."
Some capacitors fail without exploding or exhibiting external signs of failure. For example, my old Peavey Heritage amp. One of the main capacitors had gone bad, but you'd NEVER know until you'd opened all the caps up up to see one that had imploded but the outside shell hadn't imploded with it like they'd normally do.
If they have no clue how to properly handle that data you can expect it to get destroyed.
Microsoft JUST barely got lucky and recovered most everything. You think your friends are going to do a better job? They'd better be getting paid more than the people at Microsoft!
And as a side note, CRTs are built the exact same way, except the phosphor grille was convex.
I'm staring at them right now using a microscope. I move an inch to the right and I have to re-adjust the focus. The screens do have some depth to them, thus the focal plane changes as does the angle of the screen.
There is depth. Most LCD screen matrixes (behind the glass) are SLIGHTLY CONCAVE and not a totally flat plane, this is to compensate for viewing angle issues.
You try again. I know how my screens are built.
"because my experience on the frontlines of consumer tech support has mostly taught me that Acer laptops in general take a licking, and then the casing breaks, and random components start dying, and then the motherboard fails, same as HP."
Get yourself some experience working in a REAL repair depot, because you're pretty off there. Most HP laptops sent in for repair are due to crappy third-party hardware (nVidia being HP's biggest PITA next to counterfeit RAM,) or the customer tried installing an upgrade by themselves and ESD'd the machine. Liquid spills come in third place.
The actual design and build is good - it's the hardware makers and counterfeiters screwing shit up. blame nVidia and Hynix and Samsung for HP and Acer's crappy builds - also Foxconn.
"With 3D display technology your eyes actually do change focal planes. "
As if my eyes don't change focal planes as I read text or shift my head to the side a millimeter when looking at a 2D screen.
Try again!
I should note that a majority of those vinyls are in possession of my father and other relatives, or a couple of friends. We all swap/sample.trade constantly so these albums are anywhere from south Carolina to Texas to California.
"albums are a lost art."
Says you. I've got over twenty thousand vinyl albums that still get played all the way through.
Where else are we supposed to get good musical inspiration? Certainly not the pop-trash we get spewed out incessantly these days.
According to itunes it's not on the Cd release, but in just a couple of years when a new compilation album comes out it'll be very likely guaranteed that those tracks will be on the disc.
I've got a pre-Sap/Jar of Flies dual demo vinyl with the AiC logo engraved on the back - a REAL LP with songs never released on the official albums and STILL unreleased to this day.
iTunes doesn't have any real exclusives - those that actually know the band have the real exclusives that the rest of the world will never hear. Another example, "The Prince," written by Diamond Head and covered by Metallica, was originally on the Black Album (The Thompson Original Master Tape, anyways) and never made it to the final cut, instead appearing later as a b-side to One and Harvester of Sorrow singles and on the Garage, Inc album. Also, the original title to song #5 on the same Black Album - "Whereever I May Road" yes, not roam, ROAD.
There hasn't been a real "exclusive" in the music market since digital distribution. No mispresses, no off-recordings, nothing that makes anything unique and awesome anymore. Can't carve a shitload of grooves into an optical disc like we did with a vinyl LP and still expect it to play!
Trust nobody to handle that which you can do yourself.
If you'd rather trust your data to a bunch of strangers rather than figure out how to do it yourself, you DESERVE every loss and failure you get.
I still have data from the early 80s, on a 120MB 5 1/4" hard drive, that has survived two house fires in my black box. The drive still works. Data is intact. I don't know of many people that can say that, not even a data backup service.
"You just remember that next time you come asking for clean water to drink, my friend."
I run hydroponics - my water is cleaner than most municipalities on the continent thanks to a RO filtration system.
Memristors are the newest fourth fundamental piece of electronics. first proposed in 1971 and still no commercial version available yet.
I read all that you wrote, you still fail to mention this magical piece of software that makes it possible to diagnose things like failed capacitors. I know some BIOS features will let you check for voltage spikes or dips, which are pretty much signs of a screwed capacitor, but is there software that can be run outside of BIOS that will do this?
Does critical thinking take that much brain power now days?
Yes, you steal a black box bolted to a 750 pound metal desk - feel free to try!
And we have this magical thing called front-loading hot-swappable hard drives - they've been around for a decade or so, the tech is cheap and the amount I need to move is minimal. Plug in designated diff backup drive, make diff, unplug and put in safe - 5 minutes if that, no tools required.
I even have a little reminder set to tell me when backup time is getting near.
Because UL class 125 doesn't hold up like UL RSC, which is for fireproof weapons storage.
"Bah. Data lines are easy to find. Hell, nearly every hotel in the country has free Wifi. I buy a laptop, I install some software, I type in my key, and I have instant access to my files."
Sure, you download 1TB over wifi - enjoy!
"Well, if last month's version of the data is good enough... "
While you wait a whole month over that hotel wifi to get your data back...
I have an airline-grade black box - that's proof against any house fire. My data is safe.
Half of your RAM issues wont' be able to be diagnosed with any piece of software. No RAM checking software will keep tabs on the operating speed of the RAM. Ditto with a CPU tester, there's hardware and socket adapters to help you plug in CPUs and test them with hardware.
My time spent in the hardware repair/replacement service has taught me that most software diagnostics just fall short. One place I worked for used a combo of Prime95 and some custom stress-testing software - almost every machine would pass those diagnostics but then we'd go to do a full hardware check or send the unit to burn-in and it would fail. If you don't have the dedicated hardware for checking other potentially faulty hardware, you're just going to play the shotgun game until you find the issue - that's a waste of time and money.
"For RAM it's fairly easy - 2-3 different data manipulation methods used by memtest and you know if there is an issue."
This isn't entirely accurate. Memtest won't tell you the operating speed of the memory module. It's quite common to have a memory module pass every Memtest86+ test and then go to a hardware-based RAM checker only to find out the speed starts at the proper MHz range then drops by half or more - bad RAM chip.
Memtest will not catch that and sometimes that is the ONLY way to diagnose a faulty RAM module.
"In short: It is possible to diagnose a computer entirely from software."
Tell me a piece of software that'll expose a dying capacitor, please?
"For instance, there has not been a new fundamental science discovery in sixty years."
Memristors and nanotechnology don't count? What about quantum entanglement having the potential to transmit information 10,000X the speed of light?
"It takes months to restore data from a box of harddrives? Sounds like a problem with the backup policy, not the technology."
Considering how we're talking about cloud storage, which would require a good connection able to handle large amounts of data.
At current USA ISP offerings, there is no way in hell to get a fast backup made or restored.
Also, in case you haven't read the full sumamry - note this big failure of offsite storage: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/10/t-mobile-sidekick-disaster-microsofts-servers-crashed-and-they-dont-have-a-backup/
Offsite is pointless. Cloud is pointless. Local is GOD.
Guess what else won't work? Your house just got burned down so your data lines are GONE.
Better to have physical copies in a safe fire-proof place that is easy to access. Anything else is too slow, too expensive, and too inefficient.
Especially if it comes to time-critical/sensitive data.
"And if your house burns down, you're screwed. "
God, it's as if people have never heard of insulated FIRE PROOF SAFES or Airline-grade black boxes.
So much advice and knowledge about digital security yet absolutely none regarding physical security.
"One of the reasons you backup files is to protect against local disaster. "
And this is why I hunted online for an airline-grade black box to store my drives in. Fire? I'll lose everything BUT my data.
Local is the most secure location if you have half a clue how to protect things on a physical level.