justin_tx_16 Posted January 3, 2003 Share Posted January 3, 2003 First off, I apologize to those who I promised emails tonight, this goes for you Dale, for one. My computer has officially kicked the bucket and I will be off this weekend to blow about $1800 on the new one I was hoping to not have to buy till May or April. I have lost everything, 6,000 MP3's, about 2000 emails, and all the help files I created. Don't know what happened, started off with a non responsive keyboard, then the power indicator light went orange, blue, purple, in cycle, and now it is stuck. Won't turn off. If you unplug it and turn it on, it won't turn on again. Finally the Sony has crapped out, but at a very unopportune time. Now to the question, totally unrelated. The other day a slightly "unsober" friend swaggered on my balcony (where the Heresys and HK430 were playing, and tripped over the power cable of teh HK430. It has a short now so I am going to have to replace it. The cable I have is a really nice one I have cut open, came from our old Compaq server computer. It has three cables inside. Black White Green I suspect it goes like this Black - Negative White - Positive Green - Neutral This I got from installing a ceiling fan. Is this correct? My HK430 does not have a ground so I am just going to clip off the ground prong and the ground cable but I wanted to make sure I am clipping off the right cable, as in I don't want to clip off the negative line. Your help is greatly appreciated. I will really miss this bulletin board for the time being. My mac is at the other house. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Invidiosulus Posted January 3, 2003 Share Posted January 3, 2003 Justin, Too bad about your "unsober" friend. A typical voltmeter should have a continuity setting which you could use to see which wire goes to which prong. Some of the color schemes used in seperate power cords can be rather odd, I had to make a new end for one we were using on a ceiling mounted projector at work. It sounds like your motherboard died, if so you should be able to salvage the hard drive with all the data(Illegal music) totaly intact. A number of times I have seen computers die at work but the hard drives were ok. I hope you get your stuff back. Peace, Josh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fini Posted January 3, 2003 Share Posted January 3, 2003 Justin, USUALLY, the black wire is the HOT, the white is the NEUTRAL, and the green is the GROUND. The advice to double-check is good. You might be able to use that ground wire to ground the chassis, but do not take my word for it! fini Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HDBRbuilder Posted January 3, 2003 Share Posted January 3, 2003 Justin, My advice is to replace the power cable for it with one just like it...with both the blades of the plug same size...so that it can be plugged-in either way...this is so that if a hum occurs, you can just flip the plug over and plug it in and eliminate the hum...which is how these were designed to be used. By installing a power cord that gives you just one option when plugging-in the unit, you will eliminate this option of a "fix" when/if it occurs. As for any worries about needing a power supply ground...that is what those fuses are for...for additional safety, though, it is good to have a surge protector to plug its power cord into! You have hopefully learned a lesson here....never assume a wire on the floor WON'T get tripped-over! Next time use an EXTENSION cord across the walkpath instead of the unit's power cord...and leave plenty of EXCESS cord nearby the unit(in case some idiot STILL manages to hook the cord with his feet...but can't rip the cord out of the unit because there is plenty of slack available)...also, use duct tape to secure the cord across any pathway to the floor...this way it will not only have protection from being scuffed-to-death from shoes(leading to a bare-wire short situation), but it will also be SECURED to the floor and won't be easily tripped over. If at all POSSIBLE, tie-off the unit's power cord to a railing or something, close to the unit...so that if any running ends DO get tripped-over, the cord won't get ripped out of the unit, and/or the unit won't get dumped from a height to come crashing do the floor! Third...just leave the unit where you NORMALLY have it in the first place, and instead just run the speaker wires out to the speakers...this eliminates the possibility of this happening to begin with! LOL! Fourth...it is time you set up some rules about where people CAN and CAN'T walk or BE when around your equipment...general rule of thumb is NOBODY, DRUNK OR SOBER within TEN FEET of the equipment...and ENFORCE the rule! You haven't even made it to college yet, and stuff is already happening to your system...just wait til a hundred or so drunks are meandering in and out of your dorm room!!! Always PLAN for the WORST possible scenario!! Never take ANYTHING for granted! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcolm Posted January 4, 2003 Share Posted January 4, 2003 For cords that adhere to U.S. standards, black is the hot conductor, white is the neutral conductor, and green is the equipment grounding conductor. Don't ground the chassis of your HK 430 with the green conductor. It is not designed to be connected to ground. If your old power cord on the HK 430 is polarized, one blade wider than the other, you need to use a polarized cord or you may have a safety problem. The wide blade is neutral. The narrow blade is hot. If you leave the ground pin in the plug, but don't connect the ground at the other end, you also have a polarized cord. Now for the other topic in your post... Geez! Haven't you ever heard of backup? To quote Dr. Phil, "What were you thinking?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prodj101 Posted January 4, 2003 Share Posted January 4, 2003 green is always ground, or if you're in england "earth" lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcolm Posted January 4, 2003 Share Posted January 4, 2003 Almost right. If the cord follows international standards, green with yellow stripe is ground, brown is hot, and blue is neutral. FWIW I have seen power cords manufactured by asian companies that didn't follow either the north american or international standards. I have even seen cords where the ground wire was neither green nor green and yellow, and the hot and neutral wires were the same color. Apparently they used whatever wire they had on hand. How they managed to ensure they didn't swap hot and neutral on half the assemblies is anybody's guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_tx_16 Posted January 4, 2003 Author Share Posted January 4, 2003 Well, the only reason that the setup was out of place was because it was new years and people were in teh pool and whatnot, even though it was QUITE cold (heated pool makes up the difference). So I don't see this happening again, and besides the new cable is much sturdier than the previous, I believe it is 16AWG vs nothing more than 20AWG. The HK430 plug is not polarized, neither is the cable i am using. Like I wrote, I have no intention to use the ground on the cable, I just want to take advantage of this highly shielded cable Ok, so just as I thought then, thanks! On to the computer. Yes and No. I am not as dumb as to not backup, I do it whenever i can. However, for the past year the CD-RW drive has only allowed me to burn at 4x and only 300mb per disc. So to back up JUST my music it takes around 50 CD's and about a week of solid backup, if it even works. As far as the email i had been using a program that was supposed to backup Outlook. Turns out there is a bug with office xp with this program and while it may take up around 120mb of space as a backup file, you cannot bring it back into outlook. My main hard drive, 40GB IBM is about as reliable as... well it just is not reliable. Actually, it was recalled but when I was working to get the new drive it turned out that it would cost me $40 just to talk to sony about getting this fixed, so I bought a new one, however, WinXP is so stuckup i could not install it on the new harddrive and just decided to leave "well" enough alone. I was backing up everything on our home network but the backup computer died about two weeks ago. It was struck by lightning. I almost bought a Syquest backup the other day, I may get one with the new computer. Bottom line, I needed a new computer, but this is not how I wanted to have to get it. I have a $400 warranty on this computer but Circuit City won't honor it. After paying $300 to get back what information I lost about 2 months ago, see older thread, it ticks me off that I have lost it again. I will never again buy a Sony computer or any high priced item at Circuit City. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HDBRbuilder Posted January 4, 2003 Share Posted January 4, 2003 Justin, keep in mind what I told you about the H/K 430 needing to be able to have its plug go in either way! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_tx_16 Posted January 4, 2003 Author Share Posted January 4, 2003 Yeah, I checked that. This cable has no preference, just like the HK430's original I should get the new computer today. Not the one I wanted but I don't want to spend much more than $2200 on this right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fini Posted January 4, 2003 Share Posted January 4, 2003 Justin, Why not get the new iMac? fini Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_tx_16 Posted January 4, 2003 Author Share Posted January 4, 2003 NO! LoL! My mother has a new iMac at home and one at work, these are HER computers, no one gets to touch them haha. I have a mac laptop and it gets the job done but the programs that I have invested $1000's into and need to use on a regular basis I cannot put on the mac. Using virtual PC made thigns slower than mollases in the winter. Furthermore it would not integrate into our LAN easily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarD Posted January 4, 2003 Share Posted January 4, 2003 Justin, you should look into a Desktop PowerMac, they are all dual processor now and with the advent of Virtual PC 6 you may discover that it is much more capable than your previous experiences with it. I work on PCs all the time, but I am personally a mac user, it's nice to sit down to a computer that just works after a day of fighting with a PC to get it to do even the smallest things. I have had my current G4 since june running MacOS X (and only MacOS X, now at version 10.2.3) and have yet to have a system crash...that's what I call stability. I've also been using Macs for more than 10 years and I've never yet had a virus...that's what I call reliability. To top it all off, I don't regularly back up my data, there has never been the first sign that it might be a good idea for me to do so. Finally, go look up what some 1 year old macs sell for on eBay, and find an equivilent PC on ebay...notice the price difference. Macs hold their resale value amazingly well. I buy a new Mac about every year and sell my old one on eBay for enough money to pay most of the cost of the new one. My last trade up cost me about $200. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcolm Posted January 4, 2003 Share Posted January 4, 2003 Wow, Justin, you've sure had more than your share of bad luck with this gear. I had a hunch that it was more than just never backing up. FWIW you might consider a DAT drive for backup, or even a DAT changer. Lots more capacity than a CD-R. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_tx_16 Posted January 4, 2003 Author Share Posted January 4, 2003 I will not get a mac. If I wanted a used mac, or new one, I could get a G4 tower from my mom's office. I just don't care to use a mac for extended periods of time, and I have been using macs since I was in kindergarten. I got my first PC when I was in 6th grade and since then I hvare really not liked the Mac. Stupid Microcenter SOLD the computer I was holding! How can they do this? This morning I had them bring it to the front witha blue slip to hold it for me for whenever I got back and when I did they said that it was already sold. It will be 7-10+ days before another one comes in. I don't think I should have to buy a DAT. I spend $1400-2200 on a computer w/o the price of the monitor. I think that should also buy some reliability. Circuit City will not honor the warranty I bought from them. I got a 4 year warranty for around $330. It says on the contrat that the third time that the computer fails, it falls into the three time lemon law and I get the money spent on that computer towards another purchase at Circuit City. This is about the 4th time it has failed but only the 3rd reported major failure. Twice they sent me to Sony to have them "fix" it. All they did was reformat. The first time they did not send back my mouse and keyboard. The second time they did not send back my system restore discs (4-6 of them). So now I cannot reformat my computer. I had two previous computers from them that did not last 30 days. Infact, this Sony died the first time within 45 days. The second time it died I had to pay shipping to Sony which was around $40. I am so tired with the "service" I have been getting from Circuit City. I really want to sue on the ground of discrimination of a minor (at the time) and deceptive trade practices. Not to mention false advertisement (easy, no questions asked type returns). I would also bring up the points that after they sold me my 4 year warranty... 1. I was not allowed to use it the first year (that is bull$hit) 2. They sold the same warranty to another guy named Dennis Roberts who owns a Compaq Presario 3. The number I called said they would not setup an in house fix, they don't do that (that is the deal with the warranty, if they can't fix it over the phone they come out to the house) As usual, after cursing at the computer enough it turned back on, reluctantly. Colors are screwed up, slower than can be, and it sure likes to switch off randomly. So now Circuit City will reformat and for 10 days everything will probably be A-OK. Then it will crap out on me again, I will lose whatever was not backed up, and the process starts over again. At one point I was having to reformat every month or two. Even still. For over a year now I cannot watch DVD's on this computer w/o lowering the resolution to the lowest setting and closing all applications. It takes over 8 minutes to start up. I cannot burn a CD over 300-500MB and no faster than 4x on an 8x burner. When are we finally just not going to take this kind of "service" and these companies reform? I hope sooner rather than later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fini Posted January 4, 2003 Share Posted January 4, 2003 Can I have a G4 tower from your mom's office? fini Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_tx_16 Posted January 4, 2003 Author Share Posted January 4, 2003 Sure, just send $1440 to... She has gotten/is getting the new Dual G4 tower for her server. I hope she brings that home to play with first. I am going back to the galleria house in about 15 minutes once my other computer finished burning a cd. maybe with some enthusiastic (=confrontational) speech they will find the missing PowerSpec 9320 that is rightfully mine. Probably will have to do this tomorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fini Posted January 4, 2003 Share Posted January 4, 2003 ---------------- On 1/4/2003 7:58:35 PM justin_tx_16 wrote: Sure, just send $1440 to... ---------------- And here I thought we were like brothers...sheesh!! fini Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dkbks Posted January 4, 2003 Share Posted January 4, 2003 Don't assume you can't recover anything from your old hard drive. I'm a PC Tech & at work when a PC fails, the data on the hard drive can be recovered about 3/4 the time. Only a head crash on the drive will make it unreadable - & even then if the cost is worth it the data can usually be recoved by a professional service. The easiest thing to try is to hook up the old drive as a second hard drive in another computer. (You may need to change the jumper to make it a slave instead of a master.) The fire up the computer and see if it can "see" the second drive. If it can, the date can be copied off. Let us know if this works. There are also other tricks to try including putting the drive in the freezer overnight. Don P.S. Sony's are not necessarily bad machines but I wouldn't suggest Circuit City as the best place to buy a PC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcolm Posted January 4, 2003 Share Posted January 4, 2003 Justin, Yeah, you shouldn't have to buy a DAT drive. But considering the amount of data you keep around, it would be a good idea. You might think that the hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars the companies who employ me spend on a single computer system would buy reliability. It doesn't. That is why they spend lots of money on automated tape libraries for backup, redundant disk arrays, redundand communications channels, and completely redundant systems. S**t happens. Better to be ready for it than to just complain about it. FWIW, in my experience, the most common component to fail is a disk drive. Head crashes are rarely the cause. Usually, it is an electronic failure of some type. If the data is worth enough money, it can indeed be retrieved if it is still on the disk. Unfortunately, this costs more than either of us is likely willing to spend for a personal system. You may be lucky enough that there is nothing wrong with your disk drive itself. In which case, if you keep the old drive when you replace your system, you may be able to retrieve some or all of your data. You mentioned that you were a minor when you bought the system. Getting your money back ought to be as simple as returning the system and telling them you want your money back. Just tell them you were a minor at the time of the purchase and have decided you don't want it. The seller doesn't have a choice. A contract with a minor is unenforceable. If he balks at refunding your money, take him to small claims court if the amount falls within its jurisdiction in your state. If not, you'll have to take him to regular court. My guess is with a little persuasion, perhaps from a parent, you won't even have to go to court. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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