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January 12, 2005
Disabling Autorun
I think that one of the key problems I am having with my CD/DVD drives on the new PC is AutoRun, which I absolutely despise. As such, today I Googled "disable autorun xp" and found a beautiful little article on the marvels of disabling this wretched option, along with a simple step-by-step illustrated walk-through.
How-To Tuesday: Disable AutoRun on Windows!
Posted by Coyote at 6:07 PM
January 11, 2005
Sick and Tired
I hate catching colds. They always seem to drain the most energy out of me. Admittedly, when I'm sick I should try and get to bed early, but I stay up my normal hours and it drains me. This morning I almost did not get up at all.
Aside from the cold, everything else is going fairly well. That is, until Mike did something to his computer. The last few days, we've been startled by the sudden wailing of the alarm on his computer, noting that tempatures had risen too high on the processor. We've had a problem with Mike's fans for awhile. The initial set-up was strange, because he wanted the whole "sound-activated lights" which had wires going all over the place--leaving the case, plugging into the soundcard; yada yada yada. However, we couldn't get his speakers to work properly (7.1 sound) with that set-up. The lights were unplugged and we realized later that the fans weren't running (the two rear ones). The top fan and the side fan were working, but that's half of his fans (not counting the HSF). This bothered him considerably, and a few months ago he bought a new fan, thinking that perhaps it was a problem with the actual fan. This remedied it, giving him three out of four.
Back to the matter at hand. Mike opens up the case and removed the HSF to give it a good cleaning. He also decided to play around with the other fan wires, to make sure everything was properly plugged in. When he turns it back on, the alarm sounds again. The HSF was barely moving, which I thought it was sticking because I had looked at it while it was separated and it felt catchy. Again, it all comes apart. I don't know what he did, but he got that fan working again, running back up at 4000 RPMs, rather than the 1300 it had been sluggishly moving at previously.
He boots up again, and suddenly the screen dies. And then the computer powers down. Monitor sits there with "no signal" on the screen. Sigh. We try again. BIOS screen, Windows loading ... and then "no signal." About five minutes later, no power.
I tried calling the help desk. CyberPower uses PC Helpdesk for their tech support, but the standard service length with them is a year--with two more years with CyberPower. Mike's service agreement with PC Helpdesk ended in October, so we have to call CyberPower tomorrow. By the time we were ready to call someone, they would have been closed, even with them in Cali.
At least Mike has Budokai 3 to play.
And speaking of games... I started playing on Windrunner, the server that Rick and his friends are on. I now have a level 11 Undead mage. I cannot believe how frequently raids are occurring by the Alliance on this server! My other two servers have frequent raids by the Horde, but rarely by the Alliance. Mage is a fun class though, and I have her as a tailor and enchanter. I'm up to making red robes, which are kind of hot (and 'green' so I can disenchant them!).
Anywho, back is hurting and its almost time for bed, so I'm hitting the road.
Posted by Coyote at 9:56 PM