Thursday, April 3, 2003
Worked on the Sautter application. Lunch with Joel at Pasta Pomodoro. Fixed networking for Chris's laptop. Here's my work log: upon boot: an error message something like "your xircom network card is not working properly. you may need to install it again." appears. in device manager, i removed the Xircom Cardbus Ethernet 10/100 + Modem 56 device, which had an exclamation point next to it. restarted. in device manager, i removed Iomega Parallel Port Interface (Device), which had an exclamation point next to it as well as 2 floppy devices with red X's on them. restarted. windows found new hardware and installed it. i checked device manager, and it had added back the floppy components. when i looked in the network control panel, there were no network components listed at all. changed CMOS from minimal to thorough boot post tests. plugged in the xircom card. in device manager, got properties on the unknown PCI device, then clicked reinstall driver. chose manually, found the correct listing. it wants the Win 98 CDROM. i downloaded xircom drivers from the website, installed compactflash drivers to bring them over via USB port. installed xircom drivers, but they gave errors at the end of the installation. upon boot, device manager reports the xircom device with a red X. (still the 2 red-X floppy devices, too.) uninstalled xircom drivers, restarted. removed a bunch of registry keys referring to xircom, restarted. upon restart, windows asks me for NETCBE.CAT. i choose Cancel, windows loads, showing windows that say it has found the xircom card and is installing software for it. before it finishes loading, it asks to restart. i restart. windows restarts, now showing me a network login dialog, with inputlines for login, password, and domain. (!) I try to log in to the server, but I get "No domain server was available..."—not surprising since I still need to set up IP, DNS, etc. i choose okay, and windows finishes loading. we now have a network neighborhood icon that was missing from before. device manager now shows the xircom network card working properly (no red X). still have the two floppy disks with red Xs: GENERIC NEC FLOPPY DISK and Standard Floppy Disk Controller. in network control panel, i removed the client for netware networks. client for microsoft networks, xircom card, and ipx/spx protocol remain. i add microsoft tcp/ip, then configure it for the proper network settings, then restarted. network working properly—i can get to the internet, i can see network folders for the osaca server. updated xircom card firmware from 2.40 to 2.90. organized icons and program shortcuts. set up handy shortcuts on the links bar in Internet Explorer. xircom installation files are in "C:\My Documents\My Software Installers" if needed again in the future. modem seems to be functioning properly, tho I could not test without a proper telephone line out. if iomega zip drive is attached to this computer again, it might need drivers reinstalled. in device manager, i think the floppy drive red Xs are normal and they might go away when the floppy drive bay is inserted—not sure. installed a security update from windowsupdate.com, restarted. reinstalled zonealarm. laptop wouldn't shut down properly now—complains about having to close a sophos component before shutting down. reinstalled sophos and latest ides. problem is gone now. -- Adjusted guest account security for the office server. Dinner at home with Patrick: gemelli with shrimp in red sauce, dinner rolls. I received the most unintelligent response from Samsung support today about the SM-348B drive we have which is rated to write at 48X but only writes at 8X. I sent them this message: ===== Samsung SM-348B T505 -- 2 MB buffer -- DMA on -- AutoRun on -- slave on secondary IDE -- RPC-II -- firmware updated to T505 from T504 Easy CD Creator 5.3.4.21 -- upgraded from 5.2.1 Media: Imation CD-R 48X, 50-count, on spindle (UPC = 51122 15708) PROBLEM: I cannot write at the maximum speed. THINGS I HAVE TRIED: I found a web page (now defunct) which says the solution is: "Check the latest firmware of your model for an upgrade. Turn off the JustSpeed feature. (You can disactivate the feature in the Recording option window of Nero Burning ROM.) Caution: Turning off JustSpeed may increase the frequency of a buffer underrun error." -- I have already updated to the latest firmware, which did not fix my problem. -- It doesn't say what the JustSpeed feature is or *how* to turn it off. -- It doesn't say what Nero Burning ROM is or how to find it. -- In Easy CD Creator, if I uncheck the "buffer underrun protection" the drive writes at 1X. Please help! I am very happy with this drive except for this one problem. ===== Their response: "You cannot have two of the near same software by the same vendor on the same computer. PLease chose which burner software you want to use eother NERO or Easy CD Creator and remove one. If problem persist please call us directly at 1-800-SAMSUNG 9 am to 9 pm Eastern Time to discuss the situation with a technician." ===== Why their response is unintelligent: I never said I had Easy CD Creator *and* Nero. So I called Samsung support on the phone, got to a technician rather quickly. He listened to my story and then said the drive probably had a tracking problem and I needed to send it in at my expense or return it to the place I got it from.