Project "Opie"

For now project Opie is setting in my closet. Being unemployed naturally supplies limitations, and for now Opie will have to wait.
Needs for "opie":
Keyboard
CPU Fan
Lid plastics
hard drive (40Gb would be acceptable for XP)
mouse pad (Basically the entire palm rest assembly)

My unemployment ended in early November, I am a "99er" I have sent out nearly 200 resume's since I graduated in August, with only 6 or 7 call backs. Things are tough here in Michigan, but I do see things getting better slowly.

The new UIA extension that congress passed was not for those of us who had exhausted our benefits, it only extended benefits for those who are currently receiving benefits (Limited to 99 weeks yet). Congress would need to add a new tier for me to receive any new benefits, and sad to say, I do not see that happening.

Michigan says that unemployment has gone down, what they are NOT telling you is that those of us who have exhausted our benefits are NOT included in the unemployment numbers. The real number is much higher, (seasonal jobs reduce this number as well) but they wont admit to there being a problem. We have just "fallen" out of the system and vanished, therefor we do not exist. Tell that to the bill collectors! LOL!

I have two desktop computers coming (Both FREE!) soon that I will go through and get ready to find a new home for. One is and older Widows 98 machine (Still works!) The other...all I know is that it is a Windows XP tower, no telling what it is that I might receive?

I'll try to keep this updated, I'm searching for jobs daily on-line. Some days I find ten jobs to apply for, the next none.

Life is hard, God is good!

Later all!!

Me!

Acer Aspire 5100-5840 Update AGAIN! AGAIN!! DONE for real!

After I did the system restore and updated the BIOS to accept the upgraded processor I downloaded ALL of the Vista updates, AVG Free, C Cleaner, Ad-Aware, Auslogics Disc Defrag, Registry Cleaner, and a couple of others.
As soon as I tried to get on line through my wireless I knew there was a problem. I'm going to spare you with all of the BORING details, my fix was installing the latest driver from Atheros "Click Here for site" The wireless card in my Acer 5100 refused to even identify my network with WPA/ WPA2 encryption, but connected right away if I set the network to open with no encryption. Installing the correct driver will instantly fix this issue.
The Acer has been running like a champ for the last week or so now, with all of the upgrades, and a clean install of Vista, it is running like a champ. Finally! I think this thing MAY be finished! LOL!

Later all!

Acer Aspire 5100-5840 Update AGAIN!

After the last of the upgrades the notebook ran fine for a day or so, then started crashing on me. After some messing around, I ran Disc Check, that found some errors on the disc and repaired them, I then restarted the system and all is well once again.

**Um YEAH! Done? NOT! The TL-62 that I installed was not properly recognized, this caused the computer to continually crash. I did a system restore figuring it would help, NOT!
I reinstalled the TL-52 and after a bit of research, decided to update the BIOS and see what would happen, THAT did the trick! I reinstalled the TL-62 and the system now sees it properly and it is stable. The system is now also completely restored and updated.
Kind of fun playing with this thing, and frustrating as well, but I won in the end!**

Computers, love to hate them! LOL!
At least this toy is all done!
Later all!

Upgrades on this machine in the last four years:
From 2Gb of ram to 4Gb (3.3 Recognized)
From a TL-52 (1.6Gb) Processor to a TL-61 (2.1Gb)
From a 250Gb, 5,400Rpm, 4Mb Cache Hard Drive, to a 320Gb, 7,200Rpm, 16 Mb Cache Drive

At least it is DONE! No more upgrades to do! There is a slightly faster processor, but 200MHz is NOT worth the cost of that processor, not now anyhow!
Later all!

Me!

CRASH!

CRASH! LOL! That is EXACTLY what happened after I ran Auslogics Registry Defragmenter. I should have known it was going to happen, it reported a 65% fragmentation, which is HUGE! But, I ran it anyhow and crashed the operating system.

I can't remember the last time I lost a machine? I am SO O.C. about keeping things clean and tuned! I'm running system restore now, this is going to take some MAJOR time! I think I will be a little more careful next time I see a 65% come up! LOL! DOIH!

I'm thinking that what caused the problem was that I didn't restart after running another cleanup program, that would do it! Remember to re-start after running each of your cleanup programs, or, you could end up like me and do a two hour system restore. The reason for the length of time? I want the file tree's to be left in tact, I didn't back up audio files that I should have! That is MY bad!

The Acer Aspire 5251-1513 is a nice little machine, the only upgrade I have made is to the memory, up to 3Gb from 2Gb, not a massive increase by any means, this computer will run up to 8Gb of ram, eventually I will get it there, but for now, there isn't enough money to make that happen.

What eventual upgrades?
1. 8Gb of Ram
2. A 7,200Rpm, 16Mb Cache, 500Gb hard Drive
3. A faster Processor
It will be some time before this happens, I need to have a job first!

Have fun everyone!

Me!

The last upgrade

Five years ago I picked up an Acer Aspire 5100-5840, it came with a AMD TL-52, 2Gb of ram, and a 250Gb-5400rpm-2Mb Cache hard drive.
I first added the 4Gb of ram, the a 320Gb-7200rpm-16Mb Cache hard drive, upgraded to Windows 7, and finally today I added a AMD TL-62 processor. It had been three years since I had made any changes to the notebook, there is always something else that needs to be done.
All combined the upgrades netted a HUGE performance boost. I did it over the last three years, when the parts became affordable. The only thing I can't upgrade is the graphics performance. The computer can allocate 512Mb of ram for the graphics processor, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to adjust it? The highest setting I can see is 256Mb? So no way to increase that.
The computer has been enjoyable to use, no major problems at all, I haven't even had to do a system restore yet.
There are a few tweaks I'd like to make, but for the most part I am done. I need to find out how to adjust the video performance, the "last" thing to be done

Me!