Jun
9th
2014
Update on the paradise delay (and a request for help) · 3:30am Jun 9th, 2014
No pictures today. That'd take too long to figure out on this hand-me-down iPhone. Anyways, it was very hard for me to put that phrase in my the title but I thought some people might read the title and skip the post, missing what I say in here.
I put more details in this post: http://slywit.tumblr.com
My computer is basically unusable now with its crashing. I had my local relation tech expert guy help me out with trouble shooting and he's sure it's a hardware issue. Well, I won't repeat everything already said in the tumblr. This affects all of you hoping to see more paradise so I thought it'd be important to share.
I'm more sorry than you'd believe to do this to you guys. I'll answer any questions you have to the best of my ability.
God damn, if I had money to give, I would. Hell, I'm writing this on a borrowed laptop, since mine crashed.
As for Paradise, don't worry about it. We waited over a year for Chapter 18, we can wait a few weeks for 21
If there's any non-monetary way any of us can help, say the word.
In order :v
Does the machine turn on?
If there are fans, can you hear them running?
Is the indication light for the hard drive on? (Looks like a stack of discs, usually near the power indication light)
Does it display a manufacturer's logo? (Dell, HP, Apple, MSI, ASUS, etc)
Does it display an operating system logo? (Windows, Apple, Penguin, Imp, Bunny)
If there were fans, can you still hear them running?
Does black smoke rise from under the keyboard and suffocate you?
Consider getting a chromebook on the cheap (mine was $140 and has served me brilliantly*) if you don't absolutely need to run certain Windows apps.
*though I do spend most of my time in an ubuntu lxde chroot since I haven't quite drunk the google apps kool-aid just yet
2189377
The sentiment alone is a great help. I was awake all night with fear that making this post would cause people to get upset with me. It might seem really silly (probably is), but my mind came up with reasons.
As for realistic ways, reblogging if you have tumblr. If you spot a sale or deal, drop me a line. That's all I can think of for now.
2189964
>In order :v
>Does the machine turn on?
Yes
If there are fans, can you hear them running?
Yes
Is the indication light for the hard drive on? (Looks like a stack of discs, usually near the power indication light)
Yes
Does it display a manufacturer's logo? (Dell, HP, Apple, MSI, ASUS, etc)
Yep
Does it display an operating system logo? (Windows, Apple, Penguin, Imp, Bunny)
Yep. Loads entirely, in fact ... For about five minutes. Then the computer will start writing memory into the visual display, turning anything into digital snow or incoherent numbers before crashing the compute. Then, the computer will be unable to restart and cycle through trying to power on for 3-4 cycles. It's random whether that will work or not. Sometimes it'll start fine (and crash 5 minutes later), other times, it'll half work, and yet other times it'll launch a start up recovery mode. I've used restore points (no change), cleaned out all my drivers and updated them (no effect), updated all my programs (nada), tried a external monitor (which then showed the same problems). I had made no changes to any software when the crashes began (baring some automatic update that might have snuck by on some random thing). My relative who is the tech guru guy said that this is all pointing to hardware issues. This model computer as always had some kind of issue with flash files doing weird things to my video card, and it seems that deteriorated into a computer that is for all practical purposes unusable. Thankfully, it'll be no loss in data.
If there were fans, can you still hear them running?
Does black smoke rise from under the keyboard and suffocate you?
Nope and nope.
2190570
Chrome books are something I'm definitely considering. I'll need a comfortable keyboard on it, and I'm unsure if I am fond of the idea of needing an internet connection, but perhaps that is a minor draw back for affordability. I'll be sad t switch to Google Docs over Word, though. I had word all set up and comfortable for writing. Black background, light brown words so I wasn't staring into a big white lightbulb for hours on end.
Honestly that sounds like what my desktop was doing a while back which turned out to be my power supply, but on a laptop that really doesn't matter... Never used a Google device other than the galaxy s3 so I don't know if they are good or not..
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Like I said, I don't use ChromeOS directly most of the time. I do most of my typing in gedit, a customizable and user-friendly lightweight text editor.
This is what my current setup on my chromebook looks like: (screenshot link, meep meep) -- that's lxde and gedit, not chromeOS and Google Docs
but, perhaps more helpful than my geeky ways, here's a black background with light brown words for Google Docs.
anywho, none of that's really the reason I got the (Samsung, ARM) chromebook. I mostly just liked that it had no moving parts. An effecient processor means no obnoxious whirring fan, and sdd means no drop-sensitive hdd (my computers tend to get dropped). Very lightweight and portable. The keyboard, touchpad, and screen are about as nice as you can get on an ultrabook-shaped device, too. Sometimes the touchpad glitches out a bit when I have it plugged into an unsteady power source, though.
It is somewhat annoying that not all linux apps can run on ARM (firefox! wacom tablet drivers!), but it would cost me upwards of $1000 for a non-ARM machine that I'd be just as happy with, and it would probably be branded with "ultrabook" (or, even more expensive, a Wacom Companion. I like to drawwwww).
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Ubuntu
Burn it, boot from it, and tell me how long it takes for shit to start snowing
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Yeah, was going to suggest the same thing. Electronics are surprisingly hard to get them to fail in a computer without the entire thing failing to boot (the Power On Self Test catches most significant issues and will audibly let you know what is wrong). If you still have the issue running an Ubuntu Live disk, and if you are running windows 7 or newer, Go into the advanced power plan options and turn down the maximum proccessor state to 50% and see if it helps (really helps if its a fan issue, which if it worked I would suggest cleaning out the fan, Old laptops constantly have dust issues requiring dismantling the thing for a deep cleaning every few years just to get airflow)
Going with Armassyll and Equestrian on this. Get your tech friend to make a Ubuntu Live USB or CD and boot from it. It is the best way to eliminate your software from list of what could be wrong.
broke here too, at least for the next week. Although, this sounds like a pure cpu / memory problem if it is possible to run a program such as memtest86 on it, i'd love to hear the results. otherwise if your computer has two sticks of ram (google if you don't know, they are usually located under the bottom cover or under the keyboard.) you can try removing each of them one at a time and starting it up to see if the ram is at fault. If it is the ram, I have some spares that could possibly be sent, but on occasion (aka, more likely that not) if you haven't already tried taking out the ram and other computer cards, wiping off the connector with a dry cloth, and putting it right back in. sometimes the connectors slowly decay and the computer has problems like this. reinstalling these "memory sticks" has fixed the problem 80% of the time in my experience. I your tech friend spent some time on it and is fairly competent he has probably already gone through these steps though.
Troubleshooting your computer through the internet of all things isn't exactly the best, but short of giving a bit of money when I get some it's the best I can do right now and you are eventually going to need an updated computer. better now than never. Just make sure you get one that you get one that will last. if you want to get a cheap laptop either buy secondhand, or get something like a Lenovo or hp laptop. I've had more cheap dell's and Toshiba's brought to me to fix and falling apart after a year or two of use than I care to count.
oh, and burning and running a ubuntu cd to weed out hardware problems is a double excellent idea (you can install it to a 2+gb flash drive as well if you want) as it (usually) has memtest bundled on the cd. Start memtest up, press enter to start it and see if you get any red errors indicating hardware faults and bad ram (memtest will also pick up cpu errors if they are severe enough, which they seem to be in your case) the computer at the public library should be more than enough to burn a ubuntu cd / flash drive if you follow the instructions you are linked to when downloading the .iso file for it.
Assuming that you use a desktop, and that the initial crash occurred right after you had som hardware replaced...
The solution is to remove your RAM cards from the mainframe, and then put them back, making sure you hear a click...
~ChocoLatte
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Unfortunately no. It's a laptop and nothing new was added.
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Trying Ubuntu right now. Prognosis is not good because my computer is failing to even start up now.
Also, the memory stick cleaning/reseating/exchanging had no effect.
Just take whatever time you need to get your laptop fixed/get a new laptop and don't worry about us not being able to wait a bit longer for it
2196256
Ouch, if the memory exchange had no effect and Ubuntu is having the same sort of problems, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that you have a bad CPU. At this point there is probably nothing short of extreme, fairly expensive/risky measures that can save your computer and I believe that the best course of action for you is to get a new one. - as much as that may cost.
Do you have any data that you need to get off the hard drive? If so, I recommend removing it and using a hard drive reader on it later to get that data off as continuing to try and run with a bad CPU could result in data corruption. If you need to test your system after trying to fix it again (if someone suggests yet another thing to try) you can use the Ubuntu disk.
You are fairly constrained on money, so a secondhand eBay computer may work for you, just make sure to clean out the dust. Otherwise, if the fundraiser goes particularly well and you get a brand new computer, read the reviews carefully, and get something with at least a 1 year manufacturing warranty, but don't get the extended warranty. The chances of something going wrong after that first year are so miniscule that I don't believe it's worth it. But that's all up to you though.
Best of luck,
Teslaponie.
2196256
Yeah, I figured that be the case...
It still sounds to me that something is wrong with your RAM, though...
I'd advice to have it replace by a specialist, unless you know that it's still working, that is...
(Well, it could also be the processor, I guess... And I don't really know much of repair costs...)
~ChocLatte
2196575
Thanks for all the help. I'll be taking that advice to mind as I begin to look. I'm browsing review sites now
2196858
Well, If you are having absolutely no luck with anything else to fix the computer the last thing I would suggest is opening it up and seeing if the CPU fan is clogged, as that is easily fixed and could cause your issues. In terms of Warranties, only 1 year and 4 year ones are really worthwhile, as most immediate issues they will fix pop up within the first few months, or parts will naturally start to fail after 3 years (thanks to Lax technicians my 4 year old Laptop is 90% parts less than 1 year old)
2205547
Yeah, I tried that. It was kept decently dusted. Finally opening it up showed that not much had collected.
If no luck just by a new computer
But its okay
I can wait
u need any help just ask me
that emoticon was a joke