From: li zeng zeng@uiuc.edu
Date: Thursday, February 28, 2002 12:51 PM
My best trouble shooting story actually is my worst memory, or my nightmare of computer.
At the end of the last semester, when doing a take home exam, I browsed frequently on web. I had downloaded a PowerPoint file from web and had saved it in my hard drive 24 hour before the exam was due. After I logged off, I found that my computer kept on reminding me that there was something wrong with PowerPoint. I couldn't open the file I downloaded, not even could I open PowerPoint at all. I decided to restart the computer - the effective strategy I often use. But after I restart it, all I got was the message "unable to get into windows". I had to call Toshiba technical service. I was instructed to use one of the recovery discs - and I was promised that I wouldn't lose the data, because this disc only recovered a part of the programs. After I did it, I finally could get into windows. But the background picture was ugly (16 color instead of true color), and the font size was unusually large. I thought it's just because the computer restarted in safe mode. I tried to use the external mouse, and I found it almost didn't move at all. I had to use the mouse on the laptop keyboard. It moved extremely slowly and whenever I wanted to point it to a certain target, it just went away - I could never focus it on the targeted selection or icon. My network connection didn't work either. I had already written 20 pages for the exam and I didn't back up it, but the exam would due 24 hours later. I called Toshiba technicians again. I was instructed to check many settings which all had question mark. They gave up and told me that the only way I could do was to use recovery disc and re-install everything. Of course, I would loose every file I had. It was 2:30 am in the morning, I thought I would go to Best Buy after they open and see if they could do something to help me at lease save my exam file.
The next day I went up early and tried my computer again. This time, magic happened. I could move my mouse a bit better now - although still extremely difficult to point it to my target file. I struggled for about 30 minutes and finally point the mouse to the file and copied it to my floppy disc. I ran to school and continued my exam, saving it at hard drive and floppy disc almost every 5 minutes.
After I turned in my exam and went back home, I found my computer worked even a little better than it did in the morning. I only needed to spend several minutes to point the mouse to the target file. I saved all the files in floppy discs and then used the recovery discs to re-install everything.
The lesson I learned from the experience: always back up your files.
From: Kwangsoo Han khan3@uiuc.edu
Date: Tuesday, March 05, 2002 02:44 PM
My trouble shooting story took place back in Korea about 4 years ago. I was an English teacher at a middle school. My secondary position was to maintain the computerized student profiles. All the information of over one thousand students were stored in one computer in the school. One day, when I turned on the computer, it failed to boot. I could not get into Windows 98 operating system. It turned out that the famous CIH virus corrupted the main boot sector and the hard drive on the computer. Imagine!! The information of over one thousand students was lost. I was almost terrified. But, I said, "almost". That means, fortunately, a couple of days back, I had made a backup copy of the data file in a CD. It saved lots lots lots of work even though I spent much time re-establishing the computer system as it was. (It could have made over 70 teachers input students information again.)
Keep in mind, if you have something really important in your computer, make a backup copy periodically.
Kwangsoo.
From: Xiao Wang xiaowang@uiuc.edu
Date: Tuesday, March 05, 2002 09:22 PM
Hi, there:
My trouble shooting stories happened in Beijing years ago. Two things made me most unforgettable.
The first one is similar to Kwangsoo Han's experience, CIH virus once infected my computer; similar time to Zeng Li, that happened near some deadline of my paper. You see, usually the most terrible thing comes with biggest thing. I remembered that's a certain 26th in summer. I can't make sure why my computer got infected (by online download files or some softwares from friends). At that time, I almost lost all my files in a sudden. Then the hard disk has to be repaired . Except the C disk, other disks were recovered. So, this experience made me clearly realized that to make partition of hard disk is very important. Also, do not put all the files on one disk; usually when some virus infect the computer, only C disk will be hard to recovered. To backup your important files is the most common recommendation from friends too.
In addition, do NOT open email from strangers (especially .exe files) or some .exe files is also important. Since I once got the same emails (with attachment unknown.exe) in several accounts from the same people on one day. Actually, her computer was infected by a norm virus by open one .exe file. Then, it automatically sent mails to the addresses in her maillist. So, we'd better install some anti-virus software and be extremely careful if you use outlook express to check your emails. So, I deleted them without open. This saved my computer from the potential tragedy.
Best of luck with your computers!
From: Chun Lai chunlai@uiuc.edu
Date: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 01:49 PM
My story happened in the computer lab where the statistics class I am TA for was held. In the CCSO computer lab, students in that class often find problems of getting the "Application Folder" which contains all the application programs. I was told by the lab assistant that every time you find this problem, just run "naldesk" then it'll work fine. Sometimes it does work, but sometimes it doesn't. Then we told students to logoff and log in again and hopefully it will work. Once,with the amazing patience of the student, we did succeed in the fifth time we log in. But sometimes when we tried the first two ways and nothing works, we invite the lab assistant over and get the answer "reboot the computer", and if that still doesn't work, the computer would be labelled "this computer doesn't work" and the student is suggested to move to another computer and hopefully he/she may find one that works. It is quite frustrating to students since they may spend 10 or 20 minutes finding a workable computer and miss the lecture. One student remarks "I want to sit close to my team, but the computer won't let me"...
From those experience, I realize the importance of technical support in the application of computer in education. If only the computer lab assistant could check the computers to make sure everyone in that works; if the lab could spend several minutes explaining to the students and TAs on what goes on with this "application folders" at the beginning of course, there wouldn't be so many frustrating stories. The supportive effort is really crucial to the application and expansion of computer in education.
From: Stephanie Mahfood sebsteph@earthlink.net
Date: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 06:43 PM
My most nightmarish troubleshooting story happened this summer and similar to other postings, involved a virus. My husband and I are both doctoral students. If that does not produce enough word processing work, I also am an educational consultant and continually write instructional programs, reports, etc. for the children with whom I work. Needless to say, we have a huge amount of work stored on our computer. One morning, I was checking my e-mail and opened an attachment from my brother-in-law. The attachment never opened, but after I did this, I was not able to access any other programs on the computer. Luckily, my husband was home that day (I'm such a whimp) and after much calling around to tech support, discovered that I had accidently downloaded a virus which would totally delete everything we had on the computer once the computer was shut down. After going out and buying what seemed like a zillion disks, we spent the rest of the day systematically saving every one of our files on them before turning the computer off. (We filled every single one of those zillion disks!) The next day my husband had to reinstall everything from scratch. The moral of the story: never open attachments from your brother-in-law. Stephanie
From: Zhi Li zhili1@uiuc.edu
Date: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 08:29 PM
I tried to upgrade my Win98 to Win2000 last semester at a weekend. I thought it would be not a big deal but actually I ended up with spending almost four hours on it. I formatted drive C first and then restarted my computer with windows2000 setup CD. I thought it should be all about it, but actually I found that my computer could not start and I could not enter the setup program. I was completely confused about where the problem was and found that I had no way out but to try it again. So I recovered Win98 with the recover CD, made a system disk, formatted drive C and restarted my computer again with the system disk. Everything seems ok until I inserted the windows2000 setup CD. It did not run. I repeated the process several times but all failed. According to my poor knowledge of troubleshooting, I did not know a whole lot about what I should do. So I went to my husband who is supposed to be technically better than me. He tried several times and finally got it done by inserting the system disk and windows2000 setup CD at the same time. The setup procedure run automatically! I asked him why we need to start disk and setup CD at the same time, He said it was magic. I knew whenever he says that, it means that he does not really know the answer. He just tried every possible ways he can figure out and sometimes it works.
From: Yih-lin Jiang yjiang2@uiuc.edu
Date: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 10:44 PM
I found out that many of us had similar problems. Luckily, I didn't have very serious problems that are unforgettable. Knock on wood! I'll just tell you what recently happened to a friend of mine, Jane.
When Jane was down loading a file from a website, her lap top was infected by virus. The virus destoried interface, including tool box, file names, dialogue box, message box, etc. All of the file names were "transformed" to very strange and unreadable fonts. However, the content of her files and fonts on the web sites were normal. She asked my husband,Roy, for help. He taught her how to recover from the virus attack. She didn't have large storage device, so she couldn't save her files to local storage. First Roy told her to save all her files by e-mailing them to herself as backup. The second step was to use recovery disk. The recovery disk deleted all original files and reformatted the hard disk, and reinstalled default environment, including the operating system, hardware driver, and setting for hardware. She had Norton anti-virus software in her lap top, but it didn't find any virus. So, she used on-line anti-virus software to scan her files. Again, no virus was found. After she sent these files to her e-mail account, the font of her file names went back to normal. Therefore, Roy suggested that for security reason she can download her files after she updates the virus definition on-line or should wait a while and let anti-virus software company updates the virus definition. After that, she can retrieve her files from her e-mail account and save them to the desktop.
I learned a lesson that don't download files from web sites, especially when midterm or final is coming. And e-mail important files such as take-home exams or papers to yourself as backup just in case.
From: Doe-Hyung Kim dkim12@uiuc.edu
Date: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 10:53 PM
1. This could have been my last troubleshooting story, but I survivedÉ
This happened three years ago when I used compressed air to dust my computer's power supply. I had purchased a new power surge for my computer, and before using it, I thought I'd do a cleanup on my computer. After dusting all the components and the power supply, I plugged in the computer. When I switched my computer on, nothing happened. When I dusted my power supply, I had accidentally placed the extension tube inside the power supply, and thought that this may have contributed to the problem. I would have been better off if I had immediately went out to purchase a new power supply and replaced it, but instead, I was curious (or rather foolish) enough to open the power supply and see if there was anything loose. Of course, the power was off, and I had disconnected the plug, but as soon as I placed my hand on a piece inside the power box, I felt a tremendous shock (possibly due to the remaining current). I learned two things from this lesson. First, don't spray directly inside the power supply. Some parts may become damaged by the strong gust of air from the can. (I later learned that dusting the monitor could have the same adverse effects as well). Secondly, some components are better off when left untouched. Some of you may think why bother to open up that kind of device. Since I purchased the power supply in Korea, I didn't bother to return it for service, and I didn't have a spare one at that time. (I did actually salvage the fans from the power supply to use it for a case). After I purchased a new power supply, my computer's power came back on and worked well. But my point is that make sure that the electricity is completely drained before you touch something like this.
2. Reinstall Windows 95 because of a font problem? No way!
Windows 95 is notorious for its instability. It can produce the most "blue screens" (a state of lock-ups), and even ruin your fonts. Well, for some people perhaps. About three years ago, when I subscribed to a mailing list, a guy had written that he was having problems with his fonts in Windows 95. The guy had installed some new fonts from some kind of software, and after that he couldn't read anything off of his operating system because his fonts were messed up. A few people suggested that he reinstall Windows 95. Now if you have lots of applications and hardware installed on your computer, reinstalling Windows could take nearly all day long even if you know what you're doing. I suggested that he reboot in the "safe mode", and then after the booting was complete, to reboot in the normal mode. The guy replied to me and told me that it solved the problem, and that he didn't have to waste his precious time reinstalling Windows. My suggestion actually came from previous experiences with Windows device driver installation FAQs. I remember reading that if you boot in the safe mode and then reboot again, Windows would automatically restore faulty components or drivers that are linked to Windows' registry. I didn't know how exactly the fonts got messed up, but I was glad to know that booting in the safe mode solved the problem.
3. Monitor suddenly becomes shaky? Try optimizing the refresh rate.
My wife sometimes uses software that is not supported in Windows 2000. In most cases, unsupported software will not install, but this one, Fisher Price's Baby Smartronics, did. During its use and after closing it, the screen would seem to be slightly shaking. I would then go into the control panel Ð display Ð advanced, and then check the refresh rate box for "optimal". This would straighten out the shaky screen and make it look clear. I think this is a useful troubleshooting tip for computer lab users too, because there are so many monitors in our school's computer labs that have shaky screens. This means that the video card's refresh rate is not set at optimal, and if your eyes have prolonged exposure to this kind of screen, it will start hurting.
From: Sunmi Jae sunjae@uiuc.edu
Date: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 10:56 PM
While I was surfing the web with the computer at work, I could not type website addresses with the keyboard. I assumed that the keyboard would work after a few minutes, but it did not work either, so I could not use the computer anymore on that day. Next time, the same problem took place again while I was doing my homework with MS-WORD. At this time, I was so embarrassed since I did not save the work. Fortunately, the mouse worked, so I could save it with the mouse. After I keep facing this kind of problems, I had to ask one of my friends the problem.
He recommended restarting Windows, which I did. However, it did not work. Then, he suggested me to first shut down and reboot it, which worked. The problem was the computer is not shut down often, but according to him, Windows needs to be shut down at least once a week to work properly.
Even though shutdown and reboot might be the most primitive way to fix some kinds of problems concerning computer software and hardware, it can sometimes be the best way to fist it.
sunmi
From: Soo Joung Choi soochoi@uiuc.edu
Date: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 11:59 PM
My story is not as dramatic as others, but it was quite breathtaking when it first happened this winter. I was visiting Korea and used emails for communicating with my friends in the States. One day I received an email from one of my best friends and she said that her computer had been infected by some type of a virus. She warned that the virus would automatically be transmitted to computers of everyone in her mailbox. She then provided me with an instruction on how to solve the problem by asking me to find a file called "sulfnbk.exe" and to delete it right away. It was my first time that I ever had to deal with a computer virus and I was pretty shocked! So, I immediately followed her step-by-step instruction to delete the file and successfully deleted it. The next day, as I casually opened my inbox to check emails, I was even more shocked to read her second email. She apologized for all the troubles that I had gone through due to this virus problem and told me that she had just found out that the whole thing was an email virus hoax!! She was very embarrassed as well and tried to figure out what she could do regarding the matter. Luckily, the "sulfnbk.exe" file was not a crucial one that affects the entire computer operating system. Couple of days later, she replied and asked me to visit www.about.com and to follow the instruction to restore the file "sulfnbk.exe". I visited the site and read the instruction. However, I didn't really fix the problem yet since, to restore the file, I needed a window 98 operating system CD, but I don't have it. I intend to fix the problem as soon as I get the window 98 CD.
From: Eun-Jung Kim eunkim4@uiuc.edu
Date: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 11:59 PM
When I was in Korea, about a year ago, I just got desk top. One day, one of my coworker asked me to edit what he filmed some scene of students in his class. Actually he wanted to design CD ROM as a present for his students who were supposed to graduate from elementary school in a several weeks and he was in the process of doing it. It took longer time than what he expected so he asked me to help it by cutting and editing some extra scene that he filmed. For that, I needed to insert sound card into my hard disk instead of LAN card. So I opened and separated my blend new desk top. It was quite successful, even though it was my first experience to take it to pieces. After then I frequently had to open it to switch LAN card and sound card because I needed to use Internet in the middle of the work. However the problem happened in several days. Whenever I try booting the screen started shaking and finally power was gone. To make it worse, strange noise came out from the blend new computer. My sister and me thought it must have been level 0 understanding such as connection problem. So we tried plugging in rightly, it will work better but it didn't. We couldn't help asking expert to fix it but he fixed it so simply. The problem was that the delicate metal part of LAN card got dirty because I took it to pieces too often. So he said I needed to clean it up. Diagnosis and treatment he suggested I would dust myself down by scrubbing it with eraser. Actually the problem was gotten rid of simply.
From: Katy Grans mish524@hotmail.com
Date: Thursday, March 07, 2002 02:08 AM
Last year around finals time I was working at my computer on a paper and decided to save the file to disk. Well, lo and behold, my computer could not "find" drive a: or any of its "components", whatever that means! Mystified but unfazed, I simply sent my file to a friend's computer and saved it to disk there. The next day I attempted to play a CD on my computer, and, just my luck, the computer couldn't "find" the d: drive either! I first tried rebooting a couple of times, then attempted to re-install the drives. No luck. I then proceeded to take apart the entire computer, physically, and unplug and replug the ribbon wires connecting the drives, but that didn't work either. I then called Gateway, and spent 3 hours on the phone with a tech just to discover I would need entirely new disk and CD drives. Neither he nor I could explain why both of my drives would just "stop working" one day. Well, the disk and CD drives came a couple of weeks later and I installed them myself, and they thankfully worked. I was later told by a friend never to buy a Gateway, because they were very "fickle" machines... I guess I learned my lesson.