It's Dai Time

Katie & Scott & Simon & Cecily.

Tag: microsoft (Page 1 of 2)

Day 254: windows 7

October 23, 2009 / / 0 Comments

I’m currently downloading a version of Windows 7 I just purchased.

I’ll certainly upgrade the DVR to Windows 7 (from Vista) for the Media Center improvements and the additional stability, but what about my main desktop?

Is it worth losing the relatively rock-solid Windows XP that I’ve had on here for a while now, along with the installed programs and settings that I’ve gotten just the way I like them?

Is it worth the hassle of having to make sure that all my important files are on my backup hard drive while I wipe my primary one to install the new OS?  The chances of losing something are pretty slim, but it would take a few hours just to get everything ready and then, I’m sure, at least an hour to set up Windows 7 in a way that I’d be satisfied with.

It’s hard parting ways with XP on this machine.  I’ve gotten used to where things are, the shortcuts to my favorite applications and such.  More so, applications gains memory as it runs.  It’s not something obvious, but what additional work will reinstalling iTunes require?  What about Picasa?  Quicken?

I’m sure I’ll get around to it eventually.  If Windows 7 is everything that people seem to say it is, it’ll be a definite upgrade.  It having a XP compatibility mode is a nice fallback.

Still, I’ll be sure to test drive it on the DVR for a bit before unleashing on my “real” computer.

Day 178: sadbox downdate

August 8, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Well, that was a fun 12 hours.

After playing several hours of games, including a good session of Mass Effect, my Xbox decided to bring out its old friend: E73.

Sigh. I’ll tackle it again tomorrow, although I’m still holding out hope that American Express comes through with their extended warranty. It looks like the options now are to do greater surgery/research or just bite the bullet and send it in to Microsoft and cough up the $100 repair fee.

It’s been a somewhat exhilarating and severely disappointing day, a roller coaster of Microsoft hardware emotion.

I also mowed the lawn, so it wasn’t a complete loss of a day.

Day 177: sadbox update

August 7, 2009 / / 0 Comments

I might have (finally) gotten a bit of good luck with the broken Xbox.  I managed to squeeze some pennies under the motherboard in the electric tape/12 penny trick that’s spread across some forums and Youtube videos.

This caused my completely dead box (E73) to switch errors to E74.  After a short intentional overheating, the machine started up again!  But…it would overheat nigh immediately (after less than a minute).  I would see the startup screen, the menu would load, then I’d get two blinking lights and a blank screen.

So now, my machine is running topless – everything is as attached as it can be when half of the cover is completely missing.  This solved the overheating problem.

That wasn’t all, though.  My DVD drive wasn’t functioning well – it would say “Open Tray” as the only option when a perfectly good game was in the drive.  I was able to open the drive up, adjust the laser’s position slightly and wipe a bit of the gunk that had somehow accumulated on the laser track.  After putting the drive back together and into the system, it seems to be working now.

So, my Xbox has no top cover, an extra 12 pennies wrapped in electrical tape iin the bottom, and a (temporarily) working but finicky DVD drive.  But I was able to get it all functioning (at once!) tonight and played several (disc-based) games successfully as well as watch a movie on Netflix Watch Instantly.

So, I’d call this a possibly temporary but definite victory.  Maybe all the havoc I put the internals of the system through will actually hold up.  Maybe.

In the meantime, I guess my gamertag is back online and I can finally participate in my co-worker’s Battlefield Wednesdays.

Day 156: sadbox

July 17, 2009 / / 0 Comments

My Xbox 360 is flashing one red light and giving me an E73 error.

I got this once before (about a week ago) and again tonight.  Both times, if I overheat the console using the toothpick trick, it has started working again.

But I’m sad.  I think something in the internals has gone bad and my guess is that it has to do with the solder that holds some important connection together.

I want to have a more permanent fix (as the toothpick hack only seemed to last a week or so), but my 360 is out of warranty.  I may open it up myself and see if I can find some cracked solder or loose connections and fix them.  After all, there’s no warranty left to void, right?  And sending it back to Microsoft to fix for $99 is pretty ludicrous.

I know it’s old hat when it comes to 360s now, but what shoddy construction.  I don’t feel like I did anything wrong in terms of caring for it, and it’s only a little over 2 years old.

I guess I’ll just be playing my Wii in the meantime.  And teaching myself basic soldering.

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