Success!!!!

I did some more reading online and some more poking around with my Dell desktop. I ended up unplugging everything from the computer; all the USB devices, etc with exception of the keyboard. I was able to get it to get past the BIOS boot and up to the log in page but still no keyboard function.
Another restart and I had it all, keyboard once again works (I'm typing this on what I thought was my dead desktop) and I was able to plug in all the USB devices and have them work.
I did go back into the BIOS settings and change a few things as this crazy thing was thinking it needed to boot from a floppy drive....LOL

Anyway, I saved myself $100......maybe I should order some truck parts...LOL
Bobby

Now I'm going to go to bed before I break something

 

My Dell is fine, however it seems as if every time I finaly get used to a version of Windows, its time for a new computer, and hence a new operating system. I had to keep up with techknolagy for 34 years as a systems Tech. ( PBX, and 911 installer/ programmer) for the Phone co., and my mind just cant hold anymore. I HATE PROGRAMING.

 

Joe, Joe, Joe (and all others with computer problems)

Your missing the trees for the forest. This isn't a Dell or Compaq or HP or even a Tandy problem (that'll show my age) It's a secret conspiracy that gets little publicity except for the occasional rant on pc quality you see on the forums that travel on the information cul-de-sac. It all started when the trees were just saplings ...when we were just kids...

waaay before personal computers and Atari pong games...back in the days when IBM selectric typewriters were the bleeding edge of technology and Pulsar presented us with the first digital watch (BTW the guy that invented it originally worked with Wernher Von Braun
... bio here...good story... (USATODAY.com - Dramatic search for tolerance led great scientist to USA)

but I digress....anyway.. think about high school ...or grammar school for some of you.. and day care for others... remember the guys that wore the thick black framed glasses and carried a briefcase ?? they had slide rules in leather cases on their belts ??? took Calculus in the 9th grade and aced it. They are the root of your problem Joe ! THOSE GUYS !!!

They zipped through college and sometimes dropped out cause it wasn't challanging. THOSE DUFFUS'S are the ones who thought that you could send information from one place to another without wires... and thought computers that filled entire floors of office buildings could fit in your pocket or at least their simulated leather briefcases. They told jokes to each other in binary. Gates and Jobs and Ellison.... Steve Wozniak, Ed Roberts, Ted Nelson are all there and more.

While we were walking past them and nudging them off the sidewalk so they would drop those 15 text books they carried... and laughing at them... they were plotting... they were organizing.. they were planning on their retribution... they were buying land in the Silicon Valley !

Moving with more stealth than the Templar Knights, over the decades they have created a system of these tiny machines that now control our very existance.. they run your companies... they even tell you to fasten your seatbelt. Their marketing tells us how much easier our lives will be with computers... all the while they're are rubbing their hands together and snickering like "Snidley Whiplash" as he plotted against Dudley Do-right.

They won ! They're rich (well, except for Jobs) and they wake up every morning and have the satisfying knowledge that all of us poor slobs have to accept their rule and live by computers. They know what percentage of us are going to spill our coffee on our keyboard and ruin our day ... and while we're ranting and cursing and throwing things off cliffs... they are smiling quietly, pushing their glasses up on their noses and high-fiving each other at their conventions and secret conclaves... give up Joe... resistance is futile ! unplug the monster and lets go get a beer

later
John

 

LOL!!

John, once again your insights and views of the big picture have brought a smile to my face.

Thank you and have a great Thanksgiving!

Bobby

 

Praise be unto you who speaks the truth about the rule by computer

 

Heya gents. I cruise through here every so often to see whats going. I post primarily in the 61-66 forums, as I own a '65. But I seen this so I thought Id put in my $.02 as I work on computers everyday as an IT guy.

(clipped some quotes slightly for easier reading)

To be fair, and I work on ALOT of computers, Lenovo seems to make the best laptops. Tough, dependable and well built. At work we run Dell and Lenovo desktops, and Lenovo laptops. I would avoid Acer like the plague myself. Ive seen their manufacturing process, and they short cut everything do death. Thats why they are so cheap. As far as WinXP vs. Win7 goes, get used to it. As you stated, WinXP is pretty much unsupported anymore for new computers. The scheduled end of life for XP is spring of 2014 which means at that point you will get no more support for XP from Microsoft. Win7 is far more stable and safe than WinXP ever was or will be. Trust me, I try my best to stress my Win7 machines into crashing every day.

As far as your Dell goes, you need to talk to someone stateside. Fortunately with our corporate account, I get US based tech support, but for consumers, they get the short end of the stick. You will have to stay on them to ensure that your issues get fixed both timely and properly. Make a list of every little thing that pisses you off or is not working correctly, and then complain. Start out nice but insistent, and if they give you the run around, ask to speak with their supervisor.

If you still have the old PC you can recover the files from the hard drive pretty easily. You just need to get an external hard drive case that you can plugin via USB into you new laptop. They are pretty cheap at about $20.

Compaq is basically Hewlett Packard as this point as they were bought out awhile back. HP makes good computers. However, Norton and McAfee are the 2 biggest pieces of crap ever. Compare it to this, its like putting a little 4 cylinder motor in your brand new classic truck. It works, but all it does is slow you down. Not to mention, you have to pay for it! I do run McAfee on my work computers, but I have trimmed and customized the install to death, which you can do with a corporate version, but cannot with a consumer copy. A far better option for anti virus software is to run a free copy of Avast! antivirus. Ive used it for years, and can count the amount of viruses Ive gotten on my 5 computers at home on one hand. This is in combination with another free program call Malwarebytes will generally take care of you. Keep in mind however, there is no substitute for just good browsing habits on the internet and being smart about opening email attachments to keep your computer clean of viruses.

Another thing to consider is the web browser you use. Personally I hate Internet Explorer and by itself, Internet Explorer has probably allowed more viruses and malware to be installed on peoples computers than any one thing. This is because it uses very unsafe pieces of code like Active X which are easily exploited. Do yourself a favor and get a current version of Firefox or Chrome as these browsers are much less exploitable and more customizable to your liking.

On a side note, if you dont like the computers that company's are selling, you can do this: Build your own! I know that sounds crazy but most of you guys can fix a truck, you can fix or build a computer as well. Its just like anything, you buy parts from good suppliers/manufacturers, and put it together. It may cost you a extra $100, but you know what your getting into, and will understand what to do when something breaks.

Another mistake that is commonly made when people buy a new PC is they don't fully understand what they are getting into. The number one thing that will influence your user experience with any computer is how much memory or RAM it has. 4 gigabytes should be your lower limit, and will cover 95% of people out there. If you have that, unless you like to play 3d games, all the rest will fall into place. Honestly, the actual CPU speed has very little to do with how fast your computer feels, its the subsystems like not having enough RAM or a very slow hard drive, that will screw up your experiences with that machine.

Hope that helps, and if you have any questions, dont be afraid to ask

 

WOW
I was just crusin the web when suddenly my 'puter froze up, the the screen turned orange and this appeared

 

John, thank you for that Dennis Miller rendition of the flight and plight of computer technology into our daily lives. Or should I say, well done Grace Hopper! I’d like to mention one other formidable scientific contributor, Al Gore, who single-handedly invented the Internet; or so says he.

However, I can not cast dispersions on the Nerds, for you see, I resemble that remark. Yes, I wore the glasses, carried the slide rule, and began my career when bit buckets were as common as spittoons.

But you can not blame computer frustrations largely on its creator. When you go looking to kill vampires, you have to have some stake in the game; there is no silver bullet.

Back in my day, bits and bytes ruled; you talked to a computer in machine language and if you were not careful, it would take a dump on you. Today, the end user has move layers between him and the operating system than my great grandmother’s lasagna.

One thing you learn in this field is the fact that change is constant; it does take its toll on you. You either keep up or get out of the way. As others have said, it’s not that hard but you must have an interest and perseverance.

We have quit an eclectic, albeit eccentric, group of members with skills and powers far beyond mine (and those of other mortal men). Each brings to the table, i.e., forum, their unique perspectives and contributions for others to enjoy and learn.

So, as we enter the holiday season, one should not fear Geeks bearing gifts. They may make your life more enjoyable.

 

Hey Corey,
That was a nice well thought out message - you can hang over here with us anytime.

Ben in Austin

 

Ed... my epistle was strictly tongue in cheek... and poking a little fun at Rage.. I've been in his shoes... used to have responsibility for a corporate computer system with several hundred users trying to out-think and out-maneuver me daily... they were ALL computer legends in their own mind. Far and away our biggest problem was the loose nut behind the keyboard.

The machine is really dumb until YOU teach it all YOU know... then it's a problem I miss big ole honkin mainframes... I could talk to them... in binary and hex and machine language... and they listened and you didn't have to go through Botswanna or Mili-lam-poku for support. (I don't remember if that was the tech's name or his country ?)

and Ed, geeks are cool with me... Al Gore ? now that's someone we need to watch !!

Corey... thanks for the info... I'm off to research Avast... my AVG seems to take up too much of my memory/processor/time lately..maybe time for a flush !


et all..... don't forget to think/say what you are thankful for at tomorrows gathering.... despite all our problems and complaints..we are truly truly blessed... wonder what God thinks when he looks at "our" software level... probably thinks we need a good CTRL-ALT-DEL and a cold start

john

 

This is my 2 cents. I've been to both ends of the spectrum with computers over the years. I used to sit and read and study which particular brand, how much memory, which operating system, customer service, how much to spend, yada yada until my eyes would cross. Then after that decision was made, I'd watch the sale papers for the next month it seemed looking for the deal of the century. After that, I'd break down and buy one of these wretched things and get all happy. Then, it never failed, the next week's sale papers had even bigger and better and cheaper machines. A few years went by, and yet another machine crapped itself or became an "antique". So, instead of going through the headache again, I walked into a store, spotted a CHEAP laptop and said (on purpose just to see the geeks' facial expressions), "I'll take this Sony one right here because I like its silver color." I thought they were gonna fall over. And it ended up being the best computer I ever had.

Everybody has a horror story about EVERY brand of "box" out there for these things. But as long as Bill Gates keeps changing operating systems as often as he does underwear, we're always gonna have problems. Do you realize that if Microsoft sold cars, they'd probably tell you that you're out of luck if you brought your 2008 model in for repair? What's the usual statement?--"That is no longer supported."

 

Avast has pretty low memory usage, less than 10 meg of RAM in use. I think it may jump up to around 100 meg if actively scanning. Ive used AVG in the past and there was always some gotcha with it that turned me off.

In contrast, the corporate copy of McAfee I have running on my desktop at work will use anywhere from 250meg to 500meg depending on what its doing.

 

Doc,

Whenever I start talking computers with someone asking my advice if they should wait for the newest greatest machine I always tell them it will come along "Tomorrow", because no matter what the one bought today is old before you get it home. I tell people to just jump in and buy one now, don't worry about getting the latest.

The biggest con game I found while looking for a computer for my youngest son was when we went to a McComputer store. We thought we'd get him a lower priced laptop from the chain store than from the locally owned place I usually go to. We found a nice machine for a few bucks less than the other guy. As we're working out the pricing the sales boy adds in a $80 fee to remove all advertising software from the machine. I got really ticked off. I asked what happened if we didn't pay the $80 and was told there would be pop ups and reminders to update and buy other products. We were at the register ready to buy it and told the guy there's no way I'd pay to have junk removed from a brand new computer. I told him to forget it and went with my normal place. We ended up paying a little more but we got all the disks and documentation that the McComputer store wouldn't have given us. Also, I know if my kid has a problem with his computer the store has a location near his apartment while away at school and they'll help him out.

 

I've been using Avast for a couple of years and it seems to work pretty good. I had McAfee and all it did was slow my machine, I hated it. Some one recommended Avast and I've been using ever since. The price was right too, I used the free version for a while but upgraded for the paid version. I don't remember what I paid but it wasn't very much. I have it on all my computers.

 

Before anyone gets married to a specific brand of antivirus software, I am gonna throw my $0.02 in. I am a programmer, and have been in computers since I was 11 years old (on a commodore)....

Avast, Mcaffee, Norton, Symantec, Kapersky, etc - all of them have had their moment in the sun and have all had days they should have been in the dumpster. Virus writing is very aggressive and it is very very hard to be faster than the virus kids are. The advice regarding antivirus software above is probably sound "today", but next month it will/might be outdated (Symantec corporate edition was the reigning king for years and years, but now it is bottom of the barrel). In short, you have to research the best AV for the current day, and if you ever get a virus the first thing I would do is investigate if the virus software you are using is still worth anything anymore.