Re: Help Getting Connected to Internet
On Sunday 21 October 2007 22:36, Ed wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:40:12 +0200, Jude DaShiell wrote:
> > What kind of n.i.c. card in the old computer? You could need a new
> > n.i.c. card in the old computer or the card may need to be reseated.
> > Did that old computer fall off of anything or get hit really hard
> > between when it was last working and now? If so, that's a reseat or
> > replacement. To reseat you need to open the computer and remove the
> > n.i.c. card and check the connector that goes into the computer along
> > the bottom edge of the card for corosion. Any corosion needs to be
> > cleaned off before it returns to the computer. Before you return the
> > card to the computer though, you need to make sure you got clear sinuses
> > and smell that card all over. Any odor of smoke, and it's time to
> > replace the card since that puppy has been fried. Fortunately those
> > don't cost as much as they once did if that's what's needed. Good luck,
> > networks aren't always the fastest things to sort out.
>
> Hi Jude,
>
> You might be on to something here. I took the old computer out of its
> cubby hole and opened it up and just 'looked' inside. I didn't re-seat
> anything, just looked. I put it back, reconnected all cables, and went
> to lunch. When I returned, I logged onto one of my other computers, and
> used the broswer to look at the log for the router. To my surprise, it
> showed some entries from the old computer, so I went over to the old
> computer and tried to ping Berkeley and to my further surprise, Burkeley
> answered. So I fired up Firefox on the old computer and it connected to
> www.debian.org. It has been working now with no problems for about three
> hours. I really didn't fix it, but it is working. Of course, if there
> is something that is loose, or intermittent, or damaged, it is going to
> fail again soon, but at the moment, it is working.
>
> As you can tell, I am not experienced with Debian. My next goal is to
> get gcc and all its support (emacs, make, various compilers and
> assemblers) loaded onto this old machine. I imagine I can read and
> figure out where and how to do this, but if this is a no brainer for you,
> and you care to give me a receipe (step by step procedure) for doing it,
> that would be great. If not, no problem, I'll figure it out.
>
> Anyway, THANKS to all who helped. I may be back since, as I said, I
> didn't fix it, it just started working. (This is probably the worst kind
> of problem to have - or have fixed.)
>
> Ed
Hi Ed. I had a similar problem with my Smoothwall Express2 firewall lastnight.
I saw that my dialup connection had been dropped, brought up the web
interface for the Smoothwall, and tried to connect with no joy. Walked over
too the Smoothwall machine, and heard the harddrive spinning up and down.
That doesn't sound so good I thought. Tried a few reboots with the
Smoothwall, but the harddrive is still doing the Tango.
Ahaa! Now my eyes fall on another old machine (P1 133MHz) which has Win 2000
pro on it. Right, that will do, as I don't use Windows, so I'll put another
Smoothwall on that. 2hrs later, and the Smoothwall is installing ok, but the
darned thing won't boot up after the install. BIOS does the memory check, and
then I get a long string of 40's, or perhaps 48's on the screen. So I think
that perhaps the Smoothwall install couldn't clean the drive of the Win 2000
stuff, so I even tried a Win boot floppy with delpart.exe on it. Now that
should clean the drive thinks I. You must be joking. Now I'm not knocking
delpart, but it showed 4 entries on the drive, and I deleted all of them,
then reinstalled the Smoothwall, rebooted, only to be greeted by, and yes
you've guessed it, a string of 40's/48's on the screen, and the Smoothwall
won't boot.
Now, there's been no swearing, or cursing during this time, and only a few
swigs of beer, and a few puffs on the fag, but enoughs enough, so I put the
monitor, and keyboard back on the Smoothwall machine that had the harddrive
spinning up and down, take the cover off the machine, having booted it up,
and the harddrive still is doing a fandango.
Now I'm still not swearing, although a bit annoyed, so fiddle with the the
molex power connector on the harddrive. Now that must have been like telling
my dog that we were going walkies, because the harddrive instantly behaved
itself. I had to reboot a few times, as some errors were showing, no doubt to
this constant spinning up and down of the drive, but eventually the
Smoothwall booted up ok.
I leave the firewall machine running continuously, and coming down for a whizz
this morning, I heard that damn drive spinning up and down again, but then it
settled down. it's been behaving itself today, but I do think that either the
machine , or drive has just about thrown in the towel.
These are only my experiences over the last couple of days. It's only light
hearted stuff, and no big deal, but I do like to keep a firewall up and
running.
Nigel.
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