I remember when my tool box had a nice shiny finish.
This place is rough on everything.

 

Finally Automation that replaces the most banal job in history: the flag man.

 

 

Is it capable of smoking and complaining about working conditions?


In other news, very few things surprise me at work. Seeing three large tanks of liquid nitrogen in the mail room is one of them.

 

Lightning hit my parents house and blew up a lot of stuff. Verizon FiOS Frontier people are out there and got all of the components replaced for phone and internet and television. The tech said my fathers computer was going to need another network card because it was fried. This is what his motherboard looks like. Somebody please tell me what I need to order from Amazon to fit this thing.



Dell XPS8100
Motherboard model number DH57M01

We already replaced the swimming pool pump, the air conditioning unit, one of the televisions, two telephones, security system, irrigation system, and I had to put a new power supply in the computer case just trying to solve this little problem.

 

Some folks may say "Eeeew, USB?"

But I buy these things by the ten-pack at work, and they're awesome. Never had one fail to function perfectly on any machine.

 

^2nd that.

Most people dont have very fast WiFi or very fast computers, so a USB 2.0 WiFi adapter is not really a bottleneck.

 

The one I posted isn't WiFi, it's just a USB 3 wired adapter.

I agree that WiFi is plenty fast, but for stationary machines, I prefer the simplicity of wired networking. Especially since Papa Six already has the cable in place.

 

I hope that works well with what is left. It blew a few of the USB ports out on the motherboard, too. I bought a powered USB 7 port data hub to make the best of the two USB ports that were still functional but it has't arrived. I'll keep trying to bandage this arrangement because dad only looks at email, a few news sites, and youtube videos on the computer since his stroke. I contemplated buying another motherboard for it for $140 but this one seems to boot up and work mostly. We'll see.

Sincere thanks for the help.

Maybe I should buy a card that has a few of additional USB 3.0 ports on the back of the case instead of trying to work with the remaining two on the top front. Any suggestions there. I haven't bought computer components in 10 years and don't remember what the different slot configurations are called, lol. It's out of my wheelhouse.

 

The white slot on the left is a standard PCI slot; the old school kind for which cards are hard to find.

The three black slots are PCIe (PCI express). The one at the far-right is a PCIe x16 (16 data channels) and is generally used only for video cards, RAID controllers, etc. The middle two are single-channel PCIe slots, which is most common expansion cards (network, USB, etc) work with.

 

Thank you sir!

Here's a sewer jet vac truck I sold with a pirate on it for you.

 

I'm not sure I want to know what the treasure is.

 

It pains me to hear standard PCI referred to as "old school". VLB, ISA, or S-100 sure, but...

--Ian

 

Haha. I know what you mean, man. VLB seemed like the coolest **** when it came out, and then it died quickly.

My problem is that I have a pretty large number of machines at the station which rely on a some sort of PCI card (IEEE 488, GPIO, etc) and when said motherboard dies, you're hitting eBay to find a replacement.

 

 

Well, I was already afraid of heights, but this is beyond terrifying. Happened this morning here in OKC:

https://www.news9.com/clip/14824370/...at-devon-tower

 

I think fear of heights is reasonable:

 

 

Interesting observation:

I also have kind of a fear of heights. And yet I love working up on the roof:

 

Did my first TNIA event in the Miata. I'm glad the shot caught my sweet intercooler stencil. Mr Meseeks for the win.