10/6

Got my laptop back from repairs finally about a week and a half ago. finally it’s actually working perfectly. USB, memory, the works. At this point they’ve pretty much replaced everything but the LCD and the case on this laptop. hurrah for warrantees.

Got a new prism54 based MiniPCI card that i’d bought on eBay finally. Works wonderfully. Was getting access to my work’s wireless from WSP (wash. sq. park for those not in the know). Was doing gentoo stuff from there last night. amazing.

The development version of mono, version 1.1.1 is out. I’ve got ebuilds for it and muine, blam (and sort-of monodevelop, it has issues) up in my overlay available here for those who are feeling brave. For the most part it looks pretty good. In other mono news, it looks like we’re getting closer to fixing the NPTL GC bug. Here’s hoping.

Note: Exact dates for these events elude me, and these dates are guess-timates. I’m irate, not anal.

Chapter One:
~ 2 years ago:

While compiling some large package on my laptop, I think to myself “things seem a bit slow in Gnome, like things are getting pulled out of swap”. CHecking “free -m” reveals, lo and behold, only 512MB of my 1024MB of RAM shows! Argh! One reboot later the RAM is there, and another it’s gone. Something is affoot. Eventually, it’s always only finding 512MB of RAM (this is apparent directly in the BIOS, so it’s not my OS).

Doing some basic analytic hardware debugging, i try booting the laptop with only one of my RAM sticks in one of the RAM slots, in the four possible configurations for this setup. With either piece of RAM in the “good” slot, there are no problems. With either piece of RAM in the “bad” slot, the laptop refuses to boot and just beeps at me.

It is glaringly obvious that the problem is a dead slot. I write up a concise but clear description of my test proces and the conclussion. Basically, i spelled out exactly what was wrong, and proof why this was the case. I think brought my laptop to the NYU Computter store to get this fixed.

~ 2 years ago minus 1 week:

Laptop returns from IBM. BIOS has been upgraded. Nothing else has been done. I bring the laptop back to the NYU Computer store, and voice my “frustration” at nothing having been fixed, and explain that i even gave them clear info on how i knew the problem existed. Response from Alice (names changed to protect the inept) that I “gave them a shopping list” and that this was a bad thing to do, as then they don’t fix things.

Laptop is sent in again, with no helpful letter.

~ 2 years ago minus 2 weeks:

Laptop is return with memory slot fixed.

Chapter One and a Half
~ 6 months ago:

USB ports start to corrupt any data passed through them. Files sent to a USB key are consistently corrupted, in the exact same manner each time the files are moved. (The same bits in the text file at seemingly even intervals where flipped). Packets sent via IP over USB to my iPAQ exhibit the same behavior. Laptop is not brought in for repairs, as downtime is just not possible for a non-critical problem.

Chapter 2
~ 1 month, 1 week ago:

Lo, yon slot of memory hath failed again.

~ 3 weeks ago:

Start experiencing harddrive funkiness, where Muine locks, and harddrive light sits with access light solidly lit, for 10 - 15 seconds before returning. Punctuated by occasionaly complete hard locks with harddrive at full spin. Bad Things ™.

I frantically back up data to CD and network, as i smell something going rotten, and fast. After hard locks, laptop reboots into BIOS message “Operating system not found.” Second reboot works fine. Not Good.

Drop laptop off, and give them laundry list of problems. I do this verbally, recalling last problem’s nightmares. Explain memory slot, harddrive, and USB corruption. (The memory slot thing is apparently a T30 curse for lots of people).

~ 1 week, 1 day ago:

Laptop returned. Alice explains that the slot was fixed, the harddrive was replaced (she had to convince them it needed it) and that she tested the USB ports and found no problem. “These things some times happen. It must have been an OS problem.” (IMHO, she was insinuating Linux was to blame). Take the laptop back to work. Boot XP (*cringe* This machine had *never* booted XP or any other MS Windows in my presence, and doing this made me feel dirty). Instantly am able to reproduce the data corruption with my new USB drive.

Furious, i drop my laptop off at the NYU comp. store, and explain in great deal exactly how i was able to reproduce the problem, and try hardest not to insinuiate that i think the store is full of apes who realized it was trendier not to drag their knuckles (and that Macs are hipper than PCs). They take the laptop and note something about data corruption in their computer

~ 1 week ago:

Alice calls me, saying she was unable to reproduce the problem. I walk her through simple two step process to reproduce it. Her response: “Huh, now it’s there.” Later in the day, she tells me she spent the rest of the day on the phone with IBM, try ing to talk to someone who didn’t just want to tell her to reimage the harddrive. Finally gets someone high up, who tells her exactly how to write up the details of reproducing the problem so they fix things.

Today:

Calling about status of laptop, Alice informs me that she got a message from IBM last Friday after she’d left work, telling her that they were unable to reproduce the problem. She called them today and finally managed to get them to see the problem.

Tonight:

I b*tch and moan about it in a far too lengthy blog post, all the while praying my laptop is back tomorrow, so I can catch up on the oodles and oodles of Gentoo things i’ve been missing.

Question: Is there a quota on ineptitude for tech support? Is it like cops who have to hand out so many tickets every month? “Hey Alice, I noticed you haven’t been meeting your monthly quota of 4 completely unhappy customers this month, you wanna get on that?” ARRGGHH.

This concludes this installment of Pete’s Rants ™

NP: Garden State soundtrack

so, for those who don’t know, my laptop (a thinkpad T30) is in the shop, for the second time in one conntinuous “let’s kill pete’s productivity” saga that’s lasted about 2 1/2 weeks now. i would have had it back last thursday, if not for the NYU Computer Store’s complete lack of intelligence/trouble shooting skills. grr.

As a result, yours truly found time this evening to break out the soldering iron and work on a few things needed before i can boot my PCM-5820, which is this neat little embedded board with built on sound, ethernet, video, IDE, CF (for booting), LCD connection, etc. Neat board, but i need to get an RJ45 and video connector on it before trying to get things going (the video i can actually do later).

Anyway, i i managed to get the RJ45 connection off an old NIC i had lying around, after some fancy solder work and prying. Next came removing the placeholder pins that were in the RJ45 holes in the board. This involved hold solder on solder by pin til solder melts, quickly put down solder and start yanking on pin with needle nose pliers, lather, rinse, repeat…. well, on the second pin, just as i managed to yank it out, my soldering iron exploded in sparks, coming frighteningly close to my precious beard, eyebrows, and hair! In quickly putting the iron down, i’d managed to place the medal neck of it against its own live power cable, which it promptly melted through, and then shorted against one of the wires inside, causing a shower of sparks. it managed to slice through the one wire forutnately, which stopped the sparks, and kept me from flipping any circuit breakers (or setting myself or my apartment on fire).

One soldering iron with a large chunk carved out of the neck (photos to come!), and quite a few skipped heartbeats later, my PCM-5820 project has yet again stalled. sigh.

In other news, work on lago has also stalled, thanks to me not having a laptop. Stuart (another gentoo dev) has expressed interest in working on it, which is cool. hopefully once i’m back in action, i can setup SVN somewhere for us both to use.

i’m going to pass out from fright now.