h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just watched BBC1 continuity start the Jonathan Woss show in the middle, pause it, then give ten seconds of frantic typing noises before a "We are sorry for the break in this programme and are trying to correct the fault." caption appeared. That pretty much sums up the whole day.

Let's face it, I was depressed today. I'm *still* waiting for this machine to restart, and my Linux box was still locking up. Having tried everything I could think of, including several trips back to bed to bury myself under the duvet for a quiet sob, I gave Andy a call and got him to bring round another CPU to try out.

He came round with an Athlon 950 just after The Archers. It got swapped in, and the machine was working fine, if a little slowly. Then Andy started looking a little puzzled and asked for a magnifying glass...

What he had discovered that the chip he removed *wasn't* an Athlon 2400, but rather an Athlon 2800! Somewhere down the line I had got my 2400 and 2800 CPUs mixed up. We dismantled my other long-term-dead machine and yup, it was a 2400 set to 2800. We put the 2400 into the Linux box where it was *supposed* to be and it fired up perfectly!

It was an easy mistake to make - the writing on the chips is tiny, and smeared with white heatsink compound, and both the chips have similar clock multipliers; the 2400 uses a 133MHz FSB, the 2800 uses a 166MHz.

So, now the Linux box is running perfectly, and I have every expectation that my spare machine will run fine as a 2800+ as soon as I can afford to buy some memory to put into it.

11:25pm; still waiting for the restart.

Two heads are better than one, Zaphodista!

Richard

Peet, after two days don't you think pulling the plug would be justified?

Or don't you want to risk it?

Bex, it is doing something - honest! There was about eight hours of asterisks, then it said "Completed preparing Drive C:, starting on Drive D:"... The asterisks are still coming.

Full points for determination. I feel as if I know hte machine now. Purely in ht einterests of research, what expletives have been used at moments of unendurable stress?
My soft heart melted at the idea of Peet sobbing under the duvet.

Eight hours of asterisks - is that like Jed's exclamation marks, only more?

Ah well, if it's doing something then that's encouraging. Not sure I'd have the patience.

The expletives are short, and loud enough to shake the room.

I'm watching the "Buffy" movie now; feeling a lot more cheerful.

Buffy is all well and good, but Conanwas KOing camels with a single punch on 4

I preferred Kristy Swanson in the cheerleader outfit.

Oh, and despite it being the third time I've seen the movie, I only just recognised Pee Wee Herman!

Heh, that's fair enough then