COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Stanley]

Orange want me to contact their customer service department...... Fat chance!

[Stanley]

A seasonal reminder for you. I've just archived all last year's data to the external drive and made a new My Docs file for 2013. So I have the complete 2012 archive both on the FM2 internal drive and on the external drive as well. Best I can do and I feel reasonably safe. Remember what a bummer it is when you lose data and think about doing something about it. One less thing to worry about! By the way, I do back-ups to the external drive at reasonable intervals during the year as well. I can remember the Amstrad days when nothing was safe!
PS. Orange speed still at 10mps. Roll on January the 8th when I change over.

[Stanley]

Curioser and curioser.... Any opinions gratefully accepted.
I was sat here quite happily playing on the FM2 when suddenly everything went down, the trip on the main distribution board had switched off. The TV recorder wasn't online and there were no other appliances switched on. I put the trip back in and started the computer again and immediately noticed that the noisy fan on the power unit was silent. I couldn't even hear it using Doc Pickard's stethoscope so I did a smoke test, blew some pipe smoke towards the back of the case and it dispersed, the fan is running but dead quiet. Normally I never switch the power to the computer off at the mains, just switch the OS off and the screen. I've double checked and there is definitly a powered flow of air coming out of the grill, quieter than it has ever been. I don't understand it, anyone got any clues?

[Tizer]

It's almost as if something had been obstructing the fan and causing the noise but then cleared when the trip went...but did the trip switch off due to the clearing or was the clearing due to the trip? Or are there two separate things going on here? (Have you got mice chewing your wiring somewhere in the house? Or water leaking in and reaching the electrics?)

[Stanley]

No answers to all of the above Tiz. However, the old Flying Machine had a fault that Doc and I couldn't cure, if you turned off the power the BIOS lost it's format and reverted to default. You needed to open it up and reset the parameters. This was such a bugger that I got into the habit of never turning the power off and as the peripherals (printer, speakers etc) were all connected to the same power source they stayed on on standby 24x7, a bad habit I got into.That's how things stood up to today. I have re-jigged all my connections so that I can have the router on 24x7 but when I throw the master switch on the panel that handles the power to the FM2 and peripherals everything is off now. Fan is still quiet! I shall go forward in hope......

[Pluggy]

The old FM wasn't just the BIOS battery ?. I hard turn off the power to mine each night, have done for a long time. It was the 4 or 5 watts of power it ate whilst it was supposedly switched off.....

It can't eat power when there isn't a circuit.

[PanBiker]

BIOS battery favourite for the symptoms Stanley or the associated circuitry on the motherboard. My Gigabyte board in the main machine I built has a dual BIOS that auto switches in the event of a fault in the primary.

[Stanley]

Not the battery, Doc and I never found it so I lived with it. This was the start of the bad habit of leaving the machine on the mains all the time. I've cured that now by re-arranging the connections so that the master switch turns all the computer section bar the router off each time I finish with it.
As for the the problem with the trip.... It tripped out twice during the night. Caught one episode when it happened but by the time I rose at 04:30 it was out again. Back in now and all is well. I think I'm narrowing the cause down. Assuming that the trip itself isn't at fault and too sensitive. The only electrical equipment on demand during the night was the CH and the fridge freezer apart from the Freesat box which was still plugged in but is so small a demand on stand-by that I doubt it could trigger a trip. The fridge freezer has the biggest motor and so I'm favouring it as the culprit. It's running now of course because it's catching up on being switched off for perhaps 4 hours. Puzzling thing is that it's not running continuously of course but cycling on the internal thermostat to cool the panels which are working fine and dropping the temperature in both compartments. I shan't be out of the house for long today and will know as soon as it trips because my reading lamp will go out.
Some might wonder why I haven't called a sparks in to 'solve' the problem. You lot are savvy enough to know that there would be no point because all that would happen is that he/she would be charging me for the thinking time I can do just as well myself, perhaps even better with my experience. Intermittent faults are a bugger and as you all know, often have to be endured until the problem, wherever it is, becomes terminal. The good thing is it has forced me to review my standby options and cut down on leccy costs. I have also decided to address the tangle of wires behind the FM2 which has built up over twelve years! I am certain I don't need all those plugs and adaptors!
Good thing is that the stove maintains house temperature if the trip operates and I feel safe because the trip is obviously working.

Now, a question... What trips the safety device on the distribution board. Is it simply earth leakage into live circuits or is it also triggered by overload like a short circuit?
One thing is certain, it's keeping me on my toes! (PS. The good aspect is that the power unit fan is still on relatively silent running!)

Later at 10:00. I have had an hour of honest endeavour, the jumble of wires cleared up and cleaned, all the computer stuff on one block which is controlled by the main switch and the elements that need to be permanently connected like the reading lamp, the leccy monitor and the router on a separate block which has power 24x7. This will have no effect on the tripping because I know it happens when all this is disconnected but it looks a lot cleaner and more ordered. I shall rest from my labours now, it is a serious matter getting on my hands and knees these days!

[PanBiker]

An RCCD will trip under either condition Stanley, also if there is a detected imbalance in current flow between live and neutral. Common problems can be something like a high resistance in any of your outlets or light fittings, switches or other circuitry, (wiring, unless damaged is very resilient unless very old). As mentioned in another thread, circuit breakers do go faulty or out of tolerance, easily checked with a replacement. One advantage of a decent electrician is that they come with all the test equipment to sort your problem.

[Tizer]

Can the trip be activated by fluctuations in the mains power supply? I'm sure we've had the trip go when the mains went of for a moment...but can a surge or a fall in the supply cause it?

[Stanley]

That's been my experience Tiz. I don't think they like a spike in the supply.

[Sue]

I am awaiting the delivery of my new laptop. I decided to go for a windows 7 version with a goo level of memory , rather than a Mac, so that I can still use my various craft based program's. one of which cost me quite a bit of money when I bought my embroidery machine.

[Sue]

Well its arrived and I am busy setting it all up

[Stanley]

Hope it is OK Sue. I am a big believer in plenty of memory, it's the cheapest way of increasing the performance of a computer.
Fingers crossed, no unwanted trips at the moment. (I'll bet that's buggered it!)

[Pluggy]

The cheapest way of improving the performance of a new Windows computer is uninstalling all the c**p the manufacturers put on 'em. They put as much on as they think they can get away with (because the c**p software companies pay 'em to put it there), so in practice the better the computer, the more c**p it has on it, because a good computer will stand more of it before it is brought to it's knees. The harsh realities of the computer industry, it sucks. Everybody is interested it what it cost to buy, nobody looks at what it took to get it to that price.

Dell are probably the best in this respect because, more often than not the recovery disks supplied are just the raw operating system, so you wipe it and start again when you open it. Most manufacturers don't give you recovery disks, they expect you to make your own from the images they put on the hard drive. They almost always contain all the c**p, the better ones take 2 DVDs to make a recovery set, the worst one I've seen takes 5. Since Windows 7 fits on 1 DVD, 80% of the recovery set is c**p.

Here endeth my rant.

[Tizer]

I'm sure you're right Pluggy. When they stopped giving recovery disks, that was one of the reasons I switched to Linux. After I'd switched I removed all the applications from the old windows PC except for the few essentials and it went like a rocket!

[Pluggy]

Lets look on the bright side, Windows is getting to be less dominant as days go by. Windows 8 is regarded as something Microsoft has had to do to try and stem the tide of tablets running IOS and Android, and by all accounts it isn't working. Or on the other hand, since a large proportion of my income is delousing Infected Windoze boxes, maybe its not so good.....

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1086671 ... -s-worries

[Sue]

My embroidery program loaded ok, but my dress pattern drafting and knit ware are incompatible. I have been on their websites and there is a conversion program for the knit ware discs. I have yet to hear from the dress pattern drafting website, but then it is New Years Day! Everything else is loading fine

[Stanley]

Pluggy, your post not clear to me. Are you saying that W8 could be more efficient and so generate less work for you?
I know that people get fed up of us Linux users going on about it but I reckon I never got the full benefit of reliable;e computing till you switched me to Ubuntu. I have never regretted it.
PS. No trip problems. Perhaps the rapid cycling did some good....

[Pluggy]

Its not Windows 8 that might reduce my income, but the general demise of the Windows computer. Apple and Android both have App stores which control software and malware won't be as prevalent on the new platforms. We'll see.........

[Stanley]

I shouldn't worry too much Pluggy. Old Windows programmes will hang about for a long time....
Orange speed has gone up to almost 12mps! Bit late of course, midnight next Tuesday is the changeover..... Roll on!

[Stanley]

Isn't it amazing how providers suddenly decide you are a favourite customer when you institute change. BT sent me an offer yesterday but they are too late. Besides, their price for broadband is twice what Talk Talk is after the introductory period. January 8th looms.....

[Pluggy]

Especially if you use a price comparison site and give 'em your email address........

[Stanley]

Didn't do that, just used my head. The thing that's triggered BT is the fact that my line rental and call plan finish on January 8th.....

[Sue]

All is good with my new laptop, except the pattern making program's.