Journal ryanr's Journal: People have to die 13
I probably haven't explained this before...
Over my many years of doing IT (Information Technology) and IT-like things... I have collected a rather large list of people who have to die.
Now, I don't know most of the specific individuals by name, they are classified by job function. For example, most of the Solaris x86 team has to die. There are a number of people on the Sparc Solaris who have to die here and there. For example, the guy who wrote the installer that allows you to make a >2GB boot partition on hardware that can't boot from partitions greater than 2GB.
The list goes on and on... there are people from Novell, Microsoft, etc..
Tonight, I had to add a few people related to the Shuttle MK35S motherboard. See, some time ago I put together a new machine for my mother. It has been some time since it's been worth my time to assemble the components myself, so I used one of the local clone shops I like. I loaded up the OS. No problems, it was running Windows ME just fine.
So, a bit later, I got her a set of speakers, since she never picked up any for herself. I told her, sure, she could plug them in, that's pretty easy. Well, she's not getting any sound. So I make time to go over. Sure enough, no sound, and the speakers appear to be attached properly. I fought it for several hours at the time, and decided that either the MB was a dud, or something was wrong with the OS or drivers.
I decided that the quickest sledgehammer would be to put XP on. I bought an OEM copy of XP Home, and tried to find time to go over and put it on. So, months go by, and Mom would still like some sound. I go over tonight, and put on XP. For whatever idiotic reason, there's no ME->XP Home upgrade path. (Hey! Whoever didn't write that upgrade path, you can die too!)
So, it's a one-way upgrade, w/bonus trashing of settings. Fine. I take the hit... and I expect to hear sound. No sound. Ah.. device manager says no driver. Apply driver, no sound. Crap!
At least the Internet connection survived, and she has DSL. Nothing worse than sucking drivers and progs over dialup.
OK, I'm figuring the MB was a dud. Seems wierd though, since it's otherwise working just fine. Drivers aren't flakey, just... no output.
I finaly get the brilliant idea to do a google search on "shuttle mk35 no sound windows xp". I get a link to a FAQ... that says "No Sound? Check the jumpers on Page 35."
Hmm... Mom has lost the manual of course. So I grab a PDF version of it. Oh, and I need to download Acrobat Reader again. Sure, I'd love to wait.
So... page 35. It says if you don't have a case with a front audio panel, you have to jumper 5-6 and 9-10.
??
Turns out that the MB is designed for cases with a headphone jack on the front. If you have a set of phone in, it routes sound through the front, else it routes it out the back.
The motherboard was trying to route sound out of the non-existant front jack. The jumpers are to shunt it out the back.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
Bastard 60-second fix if I had known about it... stupid SHuttle, why-tf would you make it default to that? Why weren't there jumpers there to begin with? Why didn't the system buid try it with a set of speakers?
Die! diediediediediediediediedie
So, rather than having the problem fixed in 60 seconds the first time I went out.... I wasted multiple hours that time... put it off for months... wasted a couple more hours tonight, AND trasher her settings to boot. I.e. have to reinstall office, resetup her mail settings, favorites, home page, teach her all the XP differeces....
So I've brought the machine home. Machines that won't behave must be punished. As an example to the others. It will be returned functioning, and perfectly well behaved. With sound. I promise.
It's not all a loss. She needed to go to XP at some point anyway, it's just a lot more supportable. I just hate HATE when I make a mistake, and create extra problems.
So, how are all of you this evening?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Wait....what? (Score:2)
There are some people who have to die at Apple.
Don't punish it! (Score:1)
Chess teaches the adroit student that the threat can be as effective as the execution.
Take a clock radio, tune it slightly off-station, then put it next to the recalcitrant comp. Power it up, and weild a rubber mallet as you tune the radio further away. Tap the radio gently, but meaningfully, with the mallet.
Gah, it must be late. If it's any good, the previous idea is hereby placed out of public domain.
I seem to be on a roll [slashdot.org] recently.
"Some people should die - that's just uncon
Re:Don't punish it! (Score:2)
Re:Don't punish it! (Score:2)
Re:Don't punish it! (Score:2)
Re:Don't punish it! (Score:1)
Sun (Score:1)
What did the x86 team do to you? Though I can see about the boot installer. (I'm a Sun employee, if I agree with you mayb
Re:Sun (Score:2)
For whatever reason (no one could really tell me) SecurityFocus' public servers mostly ran Sola
Re:Sun (Score:2)
That's security through pain ... Ie. even if you hack in, Solaris x86 is so painful you'd just log out again to go find a nice FreeBSD/Linux box >:)
Re:Sun (Score:2)
Yeah baby... (Score:2)
In the meantime, can you check and see if the guy at Sun who decided to force all installations of directory server, messaging server, etc to follow pkgadd format, even though they worked perfectly well in their own self-contained installation format is on your list? Because he should die. As soon as possible. As messily as possible...
(-:
Pixie
Re:Yeah baby... (Score:2)
I'm afraid there will be very little Sun left when I'm done.