Tech Stories

2. Good news, bad news, part 2 So a couple weeks ago I mentioned that I had gotten a transfer from the Hardware department to the Connection Center (cellphone) department at work; and that my car needed some serious repair. Well, the transaxle required a rebuild (bad news) to the tune of $1500 (bad news) which Car-Mart is financing in a side note (good news) at $94/2weeks (bad news) on top of my current car payment of $163/2weeks (bad news), but has agreed to let me refinance the car to reduce what I have to pay (good news). Great as that is overall (because I wouldn't have a car to drive if they didn't help out with that), that's nothing compared to this good news. The last, or next-to-last, day I was in the Hardware department, I got a phone interview for a department manager position (a fulltime first-line supervisory position) in a store halfway between home and work. A week went by with no word about it, so I assumed I didn't get it. I assumed wrong. If all the paperwork can be completed in time, I can be in that position so soon I'll have spent only one pay period in my new position in my current store. Otherwise, I'll have to wait one more pay period. So I'm taking all the spare karma I have and returning it to the pool. I hate not being able to format stuff, but with the new job I'll be able to afford to renew my star despite my increased bills. [By: DukeOfURL] Comment on Story Comments Congrats, and I hope all goes well! -Grue Congrats! -Starfury Woot! -Griffin2020 Congratulations!!!! -ecoli Congrats. And damn, what kind of POS car do you have? -Stryker One I hope it's *not* a POS car, because for less than $1500 you could just buy another POS car. -concept14 It's a 2000 Ford Taurus. 133k miles. Book value is right around the repair cost, but it's in decent shape and should last quite a bit longer with the new transmission. -DukeOfURL Congratz on the good stuff! -skippytpodar

3. Good news, bad news. Good news: I got a promotion at work, by way of a move to the Connection Center department (cellphones) which comes with a 50¢/hour raise. Bad news: My star ran out (I just now noticed), and there's something wrong with my transaxle which could keep my car parked for who knows how long. it's doing bad things and it overheated on the way to work, fortunately it did so as I was parking. Good news: I'm pretty sure my Dad will let me borrow his truck, and I can get diesel for it at a place where I can get a 15¢/gallon discount on the way to and from work. Bad news: Diesel is still expensive even with the discount, and gas prices just leapt up 9¢ overnight. [By: DukeOfURL] Comment on Story Comments Congrats, good luck on the rest! -Grue Sounds like you need one of my pony Kegs-O-Karma! Well today is your lucky day! (See, your luck is changing already!) Keg on its way! -ecoli

4. What kind of cable? I work at Wal-Fart. Today, I had a customer wanting a cable to go from his monitor ("screen") to the connector that the item in his hand fits into. That item was a serial-to-PS2 mouse adapter. After trying for 10 minutes to convince him his need must lie elsewhere, either he needs a video card or he must have a video connector somewhere on the "hard drive" of his Dell, I gave up and told him that he'd need to go to a computer store and get a VGA extension cable. I wish I could have just told him to bring his computer by the store, but 1. I'm not doing anything for free and 2. I think management would take a dim view of me freelancing on company time/property. I know that the VGA extension cable isn't going to help him. I just couldn't get through to him as to what he had and what he needed. [By: DukeOfURL] Comment on Story Comments CGA to S-Video? -Stryker One hmm.. could have been S video.. looks verymuch like ps2. svideo out (old but some vid cards still have it) to a TV ( screen. -Harm True, S-Video looks a lot like a PS2 connector, but he never mentioned anything about that side of the adapter being in any way related to what he thought he needed. -DukeOfURL Agree, might well have been S-video. -AlanSmithee

5. Massive self-lart? I bought TES V Skyrim on release day, back in November. Occasionally, the game would slow down to a few seconds per frame. I suspected a heat issue with the root cause being a swollen capacitor on my motherboard, so I left the case side open and pointed a 12" desk fan into the case, and left it running. That helped a little, but as the weather outside started warming up, the slowdown became more and more frequent. On hot days such as yesterday, it was happening every couple minutes. Finally I decided to determine exactly what was overheating and how badly, so to that end I downloaded a little utiliity called SpeedFan. I got it running on the secondary monitor and then played the game. The chipset temperature was 160ºF (71C), the CPU was 127ºF (53C), and the GPU was around 135ºF (57C). When I fired up the game, the GPU temperature slowly began to climb, while the others didn't rise much before leveling off. I went off to continue the quest I was on, and when the slowdown happened I looked over at the temperatures. I don't remember what the CPU was - I was thinking the chipset temperature was the CPU, which I later found to not be the case - but the chipset was 164ºF (73C). The GPU was registering 235ºF (113C) and rapidly dropping. When it got to 220ºF (104C), the issue subsided, but I saved and exited - that temperature is well over the safe threshold, so no wonder it was causing issues! I also noted that the only fan speed sensor that was registering, was registering about 3300 RPM; I noted that information for future reference, but at the time I didn't know which fan that was. I shut down my PC and removed my video card. The heatsink on this thing is copper, with an aluminum plate to direct the airflow from the fan across the copper fins. As you can probably guess, both the fins and the fan were clogged with dust. I blew away what dust I could, then removed the plate and got rid of the rest of the dust. Additionally, I found that the aluminum plate had a piece of plastic on it with a label "remove before use" which was probably hindering the radiating of additional heat through the aluminum plate, so I removed that plastic and then reattached the plate to the heatsink and put the card back in my PC. I also returned the case side panel to the side of the case, closing it up completely. I fired up Speedfan, my web browser, my email client, and Skyrim once the system booted, and played the game again under what is, for me, normal conditions (that is, having the browser and email open in the background). The GPU started out cooler than before, but not by much, and once again the temperature started to climb; but this time, it leveled out and hovered between 140ºF (60C) and 160ºF. I also noticed that the fan that was reading 3300 RPM was now spinning much faster, at over 5000 RPM. I have concluded that this is the CPU fan, and that having the desk fan pointing into the case was interfering with the operation of that fan, causing it to run slower and possibly hindering cooling, though probably not. I do realize that even now, my system runs a little warm, and I do intend to give it a more thorough cleaning at a later date, but that requires equipment I don't have access to at the moment, so it'll have to wait. Idle temp of the GPU is now about the same as the CPU. My hard drives are running exceptionally cool, at about 100ºF (37C) [By: DukeOfURL] Comment on Story Comments HOLY HELL! Your system runs hot. I get up to 30C on the proc and 45C on the GPU under load. -DarkRookie Oh pssh. I kept going over 100C on the CPU (didn't have an indicator for the GPU) when playing Skyrim. Finally blew out most of the dust and applied new thermal paste, now it runs Skyrim around 55-60C. Still somewhat warm, but eh, I think all the snow in that game evens it out. -Calydor I don't play heavy-graphic games on my PC (I have a X360 for that), and my CPU normally runs around 80-85F, and only runs toward 100F during virus scans or backup. -RDMcMains Aided by a Zalman CNPS-7700-Cu (a 1kg lump of copper with a 12cm fan), my i5 2500k doesn't go over 57oC and that was a 20 minute run with Prime95. The GPU is a Gigabyte HD6950 which has 3 large fans for it's "WindForce Cooler". Playing STALKER (SOC & COP) at 1650x1080 (highest monitor res) with all options on high doesn't even get warm. -Wraith556

6. Wish me luck! Hmm, looks like I lost my star again. But anyway, wish me luck - I just got a call to interview to do part-time computer repair work, fairly close by. It's part-time that can turn into full-time over time. If it works out, I could get away from Wal-Mart! [By: DukeOfURL] Comment on Story Comments /me fires the Karma Kannons -DarkRookie INCOMING! -DarkRookie Good luck! -Grue Sending all I can spare! Anything to get away from Wally. -Stryker One I think I did OK, he wants me to try and free up some set days in my Wal-Mart schedule before he makes his final decision, but I did get a tour of the place. Also, thanks to my anonymous benefactor for the star! <s>If all goes well</s> When I can, I'll pay it forward. (yes I know, no HTML in comments, just pretend OK?) -DukeOfURL

7. Kansas techs check in Is everyone OK? [By: DukeOfURL] Comment on Story Comments I'm ok, not in kansas anymore.. -HappyCrappy Toto? TOTO!!!!! -Captain Trips http://www.hdnews.net/Story/tornadoesAP041612 "The massive storm system that plowed through Kansas this weekend damaged businesses, uprooted trees, caused power outages and upended about 100 homes in a Wichita mobile home park." They ALWAYS have to mention the mobile homes... -Stryker One "How is a tornado like a red-neck divorce?", "Somebody always looses a trailer". (no offense intended to those that live in trailers, or happen to be red-necks, or happen to be divorced) -AngrySup I was out in Kansas Saturday; caught three tornadoes in 12 hours. I'm uploading a video to my website now. Will post it as soon as it's finished. -RiffRaff Stuff all that...was the banjo OK? -lineswine

8. Ever forget something REALLY important? So last Wednesday, I got a Motorola Droid (the original A855 model) from a friend. So I went through the process of setting it up and all and started using it, got my new 2GB cap data plan (curse you for that, Verizon! Bring back unlimited data!) and started using it. Since the Droid came in halfway through the month, I get basically double the daily allotment of data for this month, so I've been downloading apps like crazy. You know, normal new Android user stuff. I've been tracking usage with a spreadsheet in the time-honored techie way, too. But that's not the point of this post. Yesterday I went in to shore up my password security scheme (to my shame, I've been using the OPFE method for the past 20 years, I can't see doing that anymore - not just One Pasword For Everything, but the SAME password since highschool). So I got a password keeper app called KeePass, which is open source and has versions for Windows, Android, and lots of other computer and smartphone platforms. And I was going through my password list in Firefox to be sure I covered as many bases as I could from the outset, when I noticed "www.techcomedy.com" in the list and did a mental facepalm. In all that excitement over my new toy, I forgot something important. I totally forgot about this site! I'm back now and I've got the site bookmarked on the Droid so I won't forget - the reason I didn't bookmark it on the PC is because I kept it open all the time so I didn't need a bookmark, but I closed it. It wasn't a big deal 'cause it's still bookmarked in the BlackBerry and I was browsing it from there instead, but I didn't copy over anything from the BlackBerry that Google Sync doesn't back up. [By: DukeOfURL] Comment on Story Comments I'm grandfathered into Big Red's unlimited data. And I will never change my plan, it works for me. Congrats on your new shiny. -areatech I hear they're throttling all the unlimited plans. I suppose that would be better than having a limit though. -DukeOfURL

9. On the road again nt/ot After two years or so of job hunting, my father has finally landed a job. He'll be going back on the road, but not in a big rig; instead, he'll be driving a 2006(?) or so Dodge Ram 3500 dually, delivering travel trailers across the US and Canada (including Alaska). Though for a couple months he'll be limited to the US until he gets his passport. Now, I just need one, and if things don't go so well on that front, he's gonna see about helping me get a CDL (aka paying for the course) so that I can get a job doing the same thing; the company requires all their drivers to have a class A CDL because some of the loads require one. For those outside the US, a Class A CDL is the highest level of commercial driver's license. You can drive anything with it, though some vehicles require special endorsements. For example, you can't drive a bus without a bus endorsement, but that endorsement only requires a class C CDL (I think). Someone correct me if I'm wrong. [By: DukeOfURL] Comment on Story Comments Class A CDL is required for a unit that has a separable power unit (tractor / trailer rig), Class B CDL is for straight frame truck (bus or farm truck type), Class C CDL is for small vehicle transport (taxi cab / delivery van type of transport), Class D is general license. States control licensing and have different requirements for class C and D. -srteach You didn't ask for one but I am sending a Keg-O-Karma™ anyway. Sounds like you and your dad could use the extra help. -ecoli That and weight limits. Then there's the endorsements: passenger, tandem, tanker, hazmat, airbrakes and motorcycle ... (though motorcycle isn't exactly a commercial endorsement. It's the only one I'm missing however :[) -daeglo No passport? Typical yank! -lineswine Now lineswine, a great many of us Yanks have never gotten a passport because the US is so large that we've never needed one. For example: Distance from New York to Los Angeles: 3961 kilometers or 2461 miles (1 country, 0 passport stamps). Distance from London to Jerusalem: 3612 kilometers or 2245 miles (10-12 countries, 9-11 passport stamps). That's just the east-west width. We've got some north-south height going on too: Distance from Chicago to Orlando (Disney World!): 1588 kilometers or 987 miles (1 country, 0 passport stamps) (I actually drove this with 3 kids in the car). Distance from Berlin to Barcelona: 1509 kilometers or 937 miles (3 countries, 2 passport stamps). It wasn't until the last couple of years that we needed a passport to travel into Canada or Mexico, either, or vice versa -- all of North America was available, without a passport, to all North Americans. Thus: Distance from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to Orlando, Florida, US: 3814 kilometers or 2370 miles. That would be Disney with the kids. For a more grown-up holiday, Distance from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to Acapulco, Mexico: 4239 kilometers or 2634 miles. -ManyHats measurements courtesy of a nerdy site I love: timeanddate.com http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/distance.html -ManyHats

10. just in time nt/ot We're currently storing a vehicle for a friend. This past Monday during a July 4th cookout I looked over at the trailer that the car was on, and noticed a dead branch still on the tree, hanging over the car in such a way as it would severely damage the vehicle if it were to fall. We were going to take the car off the trailer anyway, so we resolved to do that after the guests had gone home. Two days later, we finally got around to taking the car off the trailer. Yesterday, http://m70.photobucket.com/albums/i86/deadlykris/Mobile%20Uploads/?action=view¤t=trailer20branch.jpg [By: DukeOfURL] Comment on Story Comments "Yesterday" should read "today", I figure the branch fell last night. -DukeOfURL I don't see anything but an empty trailer. -ravensentinel Raven, look at the tree and the conspicuous LACK of an overhanging branch. -Calydor http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i86/deadlykris/Mobile%20Uploads/0707111029.jpg there's another pic of it. If you look close you can see three broken pieces of the branch. Two are on the trailer and one is on the tree side of the trailer. Also, the branch missed the riding lawnmower too. -DukeOfURL Ahh, that one I can see! Good timeing! -ravensentinel I see the problem. The image is 1600x1200 on my phone, but it was resized to tiny proportions when I uploaded it with my Blackberry. The other image was 640x480 originally and was not resized when I uploaded it with my other phone. -DukeOfURL Currently out the front of our place: 1x 21.5' half cabin cruiser, 1x Commodore ute, 1x Bedford J3, 1x 20' shipping container, none of which are mine. I have a running bet with the owner that the most expensive will be the first to get a stray fallen branch through it. 2 storm seasons thus far and no winner. -Bloke

11. job karma request I have an interview today for a job at a gas station. Wish me luck! [By: DukeOfURL] Comment on Story Comments KarmaKittens being delivered by KarmaMessenger to your location. Delivery expected shortly. -tech4alltrades sending Karma as requested! -geeklady Good Luck! -Grue Keg-O-Karma on its way!!! -ecoli If it pays enough to live on -'Ah! The mindless Bliss of people who need your product and try to pay attention.' Although, there are still gas station starfish! -jerrybear gas stations - where you get to watch in utter amazement (and sometimes fear) at the people that are allowed to drive. (pumps need power to dispense gas) -justcrazy

12. Alabama update - May 1 Power is coming back across Cullman and Morgan Counties. My stepmother's father lives just outside Eva, AL, in Morgan County and has power back already; a friend who lives a few blocks off the path of the tornado which ran through Cullman had power back last night or this morning, and parts of Cullman and Tuscaloosa had power back yesterday when I went through there with Grandpa. Here's hoping for power back to this part of the county today; that will mark the end of the emergency situation for me, though admittedly not for many others who still face cleanup and repair of storm damage. [By: DukeOfURL] Comment on Story Comments That's good news. -Grue Power has been restored almost exactly 96 hours after it went out. Other areas are still without power, but my street is lit up. -DukeOfURL

13. Alabama update Checking in from the middle of the hardest-hit region of the worst storm system in four decades, worst in my lifetime to be sure. Power is out in my county of Cullman as well as nearby Morgan County. This week's hot ticket items are batteries and generators. The gas stations have lines a quarter-mile or more as people get fuel for those generators as well as their vehicles. Wal-mart is either sold out of generators or never had any to begin with, but it's crowded here as people stock up on other supplies. Industrial generators have been getting trucked in on anything that can carry them, to run the water pumps for the municipal water supply as well as run the businesses which can afford the expense. I've seen a bit of the damage in the town of Cullman from the half-mile wide tornado that ripped through the center of town. It really shows the fury of nature. My thoughts are with those in the harder-hit cities of tuscaloosa and Birmingham. [By: DukeOfURL] Comment on Story Comments Thinking of all you guys in the deep south; I've got quite a few old friends from high school and family scattered across the deep south, in many of the affected areas, from KC & St. Louis to Dallas & all across AR, TN, AL, & GA. Stay safe, Everyone; and I mean EVERYONE! -MadJack Sending all the karma I can to the people affected in your area -skippytpodar I hate to say, but they should have those thing with being in a hurricane area. Or is that just here where they harp on that all summer -DarkRookie DR, I agree with you 100% and I'm honestly surprised that so many people needed supplies. But it might be because hurricane season isn't quite here, and it's rather rare for a hurricane to make it this far north with any significant amount of power. -DukeOfURL Hurricane season's more in the late summer-early fall, when the storms start blowing up from the Atlantic into the Gulf & East Coast. Tornado season's the Deep South's equivalent this timf of year. -MadJack Having been through several hurricanes along the Gulf Coast, I know what it's like when you don't have power, phone, gas, food or air conditioning. It's a situation where you just have to pull together and try to survive until things are back to normal (or as close to normal as possible.) -VoiceOfSanity

14. southeastern US techs check in A huge series of storm systems ripped through the South, spawning some rather large tornados. Power has been out here for at least 6 hours now, and cell days signal for my phone was down for 5 of those hours. A tornado passed within 5 miles on the way to the nearby town of Cullman, AL, where it ripped half the roof off the courthouse, tore a corner off of a church and destroyed that church's youth services building, among other damage. A friend who lives a few blocks outside the tornado's path described the sound as 40 freight trains. anyone else in the path of these storm systems please check in so we know you're ok [By: DukeOfURL] Comment on Story Comments That should be "cell data signal" -DukeOfURL Yeah, and there's no such thing as climate change... Yeesh. Hope everyone is safe. -Stryker One I'm alive. -Seamus SEVEN tornadoes in our area alone, somehow managed to miss the 'shan Household. Karma/prayer to the family of the ONE person who lost his life. -udoshan Luckily I am located in the southern portion of AL and did not get more than a good rain. Any of you that were in the thick of it, let me know if there is anything I can do for y'all. -HackerMagnet We missed most of it, just strong wind and some rain. -Gunpe Still without power this morning, cell data signal gone again, posting this on a laptop with an air card on a different cell provider (mine is T-Mobile roaming on Corr Wireless, the air card is Verizon which has service around here). Latest news puts the death toll at 193, with 128 or so of those in Alabama. -DukeOfURL Well out of the zone in Houston (where it remains dry and hot). Been monitoring the storms, this is going to be the worst outbreak in terms of storms and deaths (now touching 200) since the April 1974 outbreak. Mother Nature is clearly having a hissy fit this week (and this month). -VoiceOfSanity both of us here alive and well. -virusjtg Yet another bad storm slept through. Glad nothing happened. A bit of the yard is washed away, but that's about it. Lots of leaves and limbs around though. -ravensentinel On a side note, I went out for a lung dart this morning and had no shoes on and apparently the hail wanted to teach me a lesson. Somehow, a single 1 inch hail ball hit me on my bare foot standing well inside the porch. -ravensentinel Waiting on the fun we're suppose to have from them. Prolly just another normal thunderstorm -DarkRookie Was the church insured against Acts of God? -DrAardvarkian I'm on the after-hours phone for work this week, in case our outage management software hangs during live outages. I got calls at 11:30pm, 12:30am, 1:30am, 5:30am, and 7:25am. :( -Blankman Tornado sirens went off where I live around 4:15 this morning. No damage near where I live and no loss of power. The weather radio my wife and I got last night did wake us up several times, though. GA didn't make it through unscathed, however. Rome, GA got nailed badly and a co-worker told me her town was hit. -cecil36 One series of tornadoes passed to the south of us and some severe rain, hail, and lightning to the north. Normally my area of GA (near Athens) gets hit pretty rough, we were lucky this time. -CelticSkyhawk we've had a few twister warnings and possibly some touch downs up here in the great frozen north as well. - just whent out for a coffin nail and nearly blew away. -Harm Damn, some of you got it bad. In other news William & Kate got wed. -lineswine

15. Change of Name nt/ot I asked Hawk about changing my username from OgdenTechGuy to this one, and apparently the way the software is set up, it's practically impossible to do so. So, I've gone ahead and made a new one. I can't really continue to call myself "OgdenTechGuy" when I'm a couple thousand miles from Ogden, now can I? :D Next steps: 1) Get a job, 2) Get a local bank account, 3) Get a star for this new username (the star expired a few weeks ago on my old username). And then go from there. [By: DukeOfURL] Comment on Story Comments It's all true! -OgdenTechGuy Job karma viruses now entering your water supply. Please don't boil the drinking water. -virusjtg Or you could always change your first name IRL to "Ogden", then you could go as "Ogden 'the' Tech Guy"! -Voz God damn that hawk! -Hawk Yeah! That guy sucks! :P -DarkRookie What's software? What is this tech you speak of? -ravensentinel IKBMs (Intercontinental Karma Ballistic Missiles) armed. Your coordinates locked into targeting system. FIRE! -tech4alltrades Good luck, dude! It also looks like someone already took care of your ass visibility issue.... -Grue Duke Of Url... LOL -Spyder19 Yes, the Duke of URL pun fits me better :) If I was an electrician I'd go by 110 Soldier :P -DukeOfURL Wouldn't Duke of IRL fit better? -ecoli Sending a job karma karma karma karma karma chameleon! -Fortytwo I know your pain.. -HappyCrappy Me too.. -PTSTech congrats on getting out of O-town -My Cat Athena

Customer Misconceptions

2. NT/OT When you buy a vehicle from a used car dealership with several locations in nine states, with the specific intention to drive it halfway across the country and back, that you won't get a deathtrap that could have caught fire or blown any of the 5! (including the spare) tires along the way. My Dad and stepmother have been planning a trip to Utah for Christmas for about six months now. During the pre-trip inspection of her '95 Ford Explorer, the mechanic discovered issues with the transfer case that could leave them stranded. So she decided to trade it in for a '99 Dodge Durango at the Car-Mart in Decatur, AL, which had a better selection than the closer one in Cullman, AL. When she got to Utah, her son Tony took a look at it and, when he saw the condition of the vehicle, he was fighting mad. In my stepmother's words, here is what he found: "Burnt plugs, wires so brittle they came off in pieces not bigger than 3", arcing in the #1 wire, corroded and burnt cap and rotor, bald and separating spare, all tires below wear bars, bad idler pully, bad ball joints with nearly 2" of play." She went on to add: "All fixed now. $800 out of pocket for tune up and tires. All else paid under service contract but 2 1/2 days of dealing with these people and their 'I don't give a hoot' attitude toward their customers was appalling. They wanted us to allow them to tow the vehicle 1120 miles at (at the cheapest) $1 a mile, then have things fixed for $600-800, and leave us stranded in Utah, and our responsibility to get to the car. Refused to pay the shop of our choosing, etc. Several calls to the CEO's office is what it took to resolve. [The] dealer assured the safety of the vehicle when I specifically asked and said we were leaving on a long trip the next day. The way the man talked to me was unacceptable. Apparently all women are stupid and know NOTHING about cars or business or customer service, because the technician at the shop (my son Tony) was trying to scare me into paying money for unneeded repairs and there is NO WAY the vehicle was in that bad a shape." As a side note, my stepmother grew up around cars, her Dad taught her a lot and made sure she knew a certain amount about fixing cars before he'd let her get a license. So for them to talk down to her is akin to a computer tech talking down to a power user as if they were a 12:00 flasher. [2011-12-31]

Tech Rules

Customer Types