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Sunday, December 23rd, 2012 07:21 pm
life with bluescreens
So after two massive system crashes and a complete breakdown and reassembly this afternoon, I'm tentatively going to say that my laptop may now be working again. All this because I bought bluetooth headphones for my phone and kind of wanted to use them with my laptop. Foolish me.
On the bright side, I got to use my new tiny toolset with bits so small you could lobotomize someone through their eyeball with very little bleeding, which I'm not saying this is for extempore lobotomies, I'm saying it's kind of awesome to have that many tiny, tiny bits.
On the not so bright side, I still have no idea what actually happened. I've shut down Microsoft update functions and restored back to this morning before the dark hell of computer breakdown began, and of course that bluetooth dongle is going back to the store like, tomorrow, but the crashes were weird even by my standards, and I mean, my mom and sisters have created new vistas of bluescreen death.
The first crash was out of nowhere and repair and restore wouldn't work, then suddenly restart with last successful configuration did. Okay, I said, that's weird, and went through my event log and settings and there wasn't much. I restore pointed and I reinstalled the first MS update, restarted, watched it work, then decided to try the bluetooth again as the second MS update began. And on restart, bluescreen, but this time, nothing worked at all except safe mode, which was depressingly unuseful as it wouldn't take my restore point seriously. Then for no particular reason at all, my graphics card overheated and crashed the system, at which time I assumed--as one does--that I had been cursed.
Or you know, maybe this was dust and overheating, right? So I went with that and okay, I've taken apart my computer before, but never under this kind of stress and never down to removing the goddamn system board to tenderly spray with compressed air. First reassembly I'd disconnected the audio array and the AC line, second time one USB port is offline which ask me how much I care right now? NOT MUCH. Sherlock is working and right now, that's all I care about.
Even using my brand new screwdriver set didn't make up for it, though it helped--which yeah, totally awesome, MaxTech Precision Multi-Driver Toolset, will fit screws that are invisible to the naked eye. If you take apart tiny things, you want this. Or perform really sketchy home lobotomies.
The third reboot, I set restore point and tested the dongle again--I KNOW OKAY BUT I JUST HAD TO BE SURE--and sure enough, something sketchy started happening when I downloaded the Microsoft drivers and not those that came with it. I uninstalled the hardware and cleaned the system before restarting, and it came on normally, so I'm leaning toward something is either wrong with the drivers or with the dongle. What worries me is my event log is wildly inconsistent leading up to the system failures; the same things didn't fail and that overheat during safe mode came out of nowhere, and both times I got it back up and running, I'm honestly not sure why it worked. I grabbed a temperature monitor online to watch, and while they're high, they're pretty much in the right range for my laptop since it always runs high.
It's really been that kind of a day.
On the bright side, I got to use my new tiny toolset with bits so small you could lobotomize someone through their eyeball with very little bleeding, which I'm not saying this is for extempore lobotomies, I'm saying it's kind of awesome to have that many tiny, tiny bits.
On the not so bright side, I still have no idea what actually happened. I've shut down Microsoft update functions and restored back to this morning before the dark hell of computer breakdown began, and of course that bluetooth dongle is going back to the store like, tomorrow, but the crashes were weird even by my standards, and I mean, my mom and sisters have created new vistas of bluescreen death.
The first crash was out of nowhere and repair and restore wouldn't work, then suddenly restart with last successful configuration did. Okay, I said, that's weird, and went through my event log and settings and there wasn't much. I restore pointed and I reinstalled the first MS update, restarted, watched it work, then decided to try the bluetooth again as the second MS update began. And on restart, bluescreen, but this time, nothing worked at all except safe mode, which was depressingly unuseful as it wouldn't take my restore point seriously. Then for no particular reason at all, my graphics card overheated and crashed the system, at which time I assumed--as one does--that I had been cursed.
Or you know, maybe this was dust and overheating, right? So I went with that and okay, I've taken apart my computer before, but never under this kind of stress and never down to removing the goddamn system board to tenderly spray with compressed air. First reassembly I'd disconnected the audio array and the AC line, second time one USB port is offline which ask me how much I care right now? NOT MUCH. Sherlock is working and right now, that's all I care about.
Even using my brand new screwdriver set didn't make up for it, though it helped--which yeah, totally awesome, MaxTech Precision Multi-Driver Toolset, will fit screws that are invisible to the naked eye. If you take apart tiny things, you want this. Or perform really sketchy home lobotomies.
The third reboot, I set restore point and tested the dongle again--I KNOW OKAY BUT I JUST HAD TO BE SURE--and sure enough, something sketchy started happening when I downloaded the Microsoft drivers and not those that came with it. I uninstalled the hardware and cleaned the system before restarting, and it came on normally, so I'm leaning toward something is either wrong with the drivers or with the dongle. What worries me is my event log is wildly inconsistent leading up to the system failures; the same things didn't fail and that overheat during safe mode came out of nowhere, and both times I got it back up and running, I'm honestly not sure why it worked. I grabbed a temperature monitor online to watch, and while they're high, they're pretty much in the right range for my laptop since it always runs high.
It's really been that kind of a day.
no subject
From:Sounds like both, maybe. But yeah, that overheat is weird. Your cooling fan working okay? Maybe you need a Saint Dogbert to drive out the Demons of Stupidity or something. Dang.
If you take apart tiny things, you want this. Curse you for constantly pointing me towards things I never knew I wanted!!
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