The Year of the Geek

A few weeks ago I picked up a quick freelance job from one of the cab drivers who drives me home often.  He had a computer he wanted me to take a look at and attempt to upgrade for him.  He doesn’t want to spend more than $200, and he just wants basic things done to it, nothing major to me. He drops off the machine and to my surprise it’s an old HP Pavilion mini-tower.  I take it in and stare and it and realize that this is not really worth it; it holds a maximum of 512MB of PC100 RAM, it has a 20GB hard disk, and it’s only got a Pentium Celeron 667 in it.  I let him know this thing is basically worthless and he informs me that a friend of his has given him a newer eMachines computer.  I tell him I’ll take a look at it.

The machine is an eMachines T3092 with an Athlon XP 3000+ processor, 512MB DDR RAM, 160GB hard disk, CD-ROM and DVD-R.  It’s got onboard nVidia gforce 4 video and sound, and it actually works fairly well.  He wants the maximum amount of RAM (2gb) and a fresh install of XP, nothing really major.

Step 1: Order RAM

Easiest part, right?  I order 2GB PC2700 RAM from New Egg for $54 and have it shipped to me at work.  It ships from Edison, NJ…about 30 mins away.  It takes 5 days to reach me. This is annoying to me because I could have used 2 of those days (the weekend) to install and test the RAM.  Why would this have been important to me?  See below…

Step 2: Install RAM

I install both 1GB sticks, computer boots, I rejoice.  While working a bit I notice some issues.  Freezing, slow loading, and finally blue screens.  This is not good.  I’m thinking it’s a driver issue because of the new RAM.  I reinstall the chip-set drivers and still blue screens.  Finally I run Memtest on the RAM, right away both sticks come up with errors.

Step 3: Test RAM

I pop out 1 stick and test only one.  Same deal, red flags like China.  I pop that stick out and test a stick that I know to be 100% working, one from a computer that is used all the time.  Memtest: CHINA!  What next?

Step 4: Begin Google and BIOS

Looking through the BIOS for memory settings; speed, voltage, etc.  Nothing to change that would help.  Google brings some light on this; many people have the same issue, works with 512MB but nothing more.  Some people say it’s the power supply unit (PSU), some had RAM issues.  Since I know it’s not the RAM, it might be the PSU. That’s my next stop, testing a better PSU than the Bestec that’s in there. Many people on forums complain that the PSUs in eMachines are crap, and they tend to burn out boards, RAM, or just don’t give enough voltage. Hopefully it’s the PSU.

If after I test the PSU tonight it does the same thing it’s time to get a new motherboard for this guy.  Now, keep in mind he wants me to try to stay below or as close to $200 as possible, at this point I’ve been VERY generous with costs only charging him 50% of my normal labor costs. If he needs a new motherboard I need to eBay it because no one has them in stock.  The price on eBay with shipping is approximately $60, the same price as the RAM.  I told him I can either get a new motherboard or he can stick with the 512MB RAM for now.  Only issue with the latter, he has to pay for th 2GB RAM still, it’s not returnable, and I only bought the brand I bought because it was well rated, has a lifetime warranty, and was cheaper than the other more known brands.  He wanted me to save him money, so I did.  Now it might bite him in the wallet.

This entry is a little late, but I think it’s something to mention.

If you’re any sort of tech with multiple computer that need to be imaged every so often you know how much of a hassle it can be.  If you have a NetBoot system running it’s a breeze; however, this ease usually comes at a cost (money cost that is).  Mike Bombich, founder of Bombich software has created some useful Mac applications over the years. One is Carbon Copy Cloner, a program which I use all the time and find to be one of the fastest, easiest, and safest methods of cloning any drive (to either another drive or a disk image).

The other program which I use very often is NetRestore and NetRetore Helper.  NetRestore and it’s helper are VERY easy-to-use GUI interfaces to create a MacOS netBoot image and netRestore image for deployment over multiple machines.  My lab has 10 Macs in it which don’t get updated all at once sometimes, and at the end of each semester the computers all have a lot of left over student files and different versions of some software running.  NetRestore makes it very simple for me to make a clean, updated image of a lab machine, then just boot from the network from the other machines and it takes care of the rest. It’s usually 100% automated, and completes all computers in about 2-3 hours.

What makes these pieces of software better than say, Norton Ghost or SuperDuper! or whatever? They’re 100% free to use.  Yep, no charge at all.  No catch, no signing up for anything, no logging into the site to download, NOTHING.  The only thing you’d have to deal with is an advertisement on CCC’s progress screen.  Very small price to pay for this software.

So, why am I writing about NetRestore now?  Well, because I like it and I would definitely reccommend it to anyone who needs to deploy multiple Macs.  But I am writing now because NetRestore has reached it’s end of life. On November 17, 2008 Mike Bombich posted a letter on his site explaining the reasons for ending NetRestore.  It’s very funny when I am sad to see a program go away, but it’s sad to see such a good program go away.  I also find it ironic that of all the software I have never paid for, I have actually donated money to Mike Bombich for all of his hard work for his free programs. That’s how much I like this software.

Even though NetRestore has reached EOL, I will still be using it on all of my lab machines until it stops working on them.  Thanks Mike for all of your hard work, and I’ll continue using CCC for all of my cloning needs:-)

Visit Bombich.com for more info on CCC or NetRestore

Just a short note: In his letter, Mike Bombich reccommends a site called DeployStudio,  I have yet to use this to deploy the lab, but the program does seem promising and nice.  I’ll use it someday and maybe give a review.  Until then, Bombich’s NetRestore will be king.

It’s good to have a week vacation for the holiday’s. I got to spend a lot of time at home and with my girlfriend’s family. It’s bad when you learn that on New Year’s day your entire network gets shutdown by IS.

While at my girlfriend’s family’s house in Sellersville, PA I didn’t bring my laptop of course (why would I? I’m on vacation?). I use the laptop floating around the house to check my mail every so often. I received an e-mail from one of my colleagues telling me that the network and servers are not reachable. Confused, I check online with the laptop and sure enough all servers are down (including the one this site is hosted on). I decided to log onto Meebo and find my IS guy. He’s online and I quickly ask him what the deal is. He tells me that there was an attack on my network from New Year’s Eve until he shut it down the next day. Apparently he couldn’t stop the attacks after around 3 hours or trying to so he shutdown my entire sub-net. Thankfully it’s on downtime, but the website was completely unavailable.

I cannot do anything about this until I go back to work, today. I call up IS to get my network opened again and about a minute after activating it the attacks start up again. I explain to him that I need the network so try to block the attacking address, or tell me which address it’s attacking. After a few minutes I receive a call from him explaining that it’s only one address that’s being attacked. I get the name and address and immediately recognize it as a small server for a special project run by my boss and 2 students. I quickly shutdown the server and wait….

The network load goes down, the attacks cease, and all is finally back to normal.

Four days of complete network downtime all from one small server that should only be used by 3 people at most, not a good thing. So another lesson learned; if you’re hosting a server for a project, even a very small one that no one even knows about, make sure it’s COMPLETELY locked down except the ports you NEED.

Oh and just a small note: I did tell them to make sure it’s closed before they plug it into my network, apparently I need to check beforehand even when people tell me it’s done.

Happy New Year to all, and I hope your holiday was a good one!