COMPUTERS, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

[Stanley]

14mbs is a lot faster than dial-up!

[Pluggy]

Just come back from a job from an established customer (yeah, I know, Sunday, bank holiday weekend.....) Whose Sky broadband was down to 300 kb/s. He had a dead telephone line yesterday, and Openreach repaired it this morning. but the broadband is still very slow. Spent hours on the phone to Sky customer services (after jumping through all the hoops I knew they'd want jumping beforehand) who eventually concluded its the router thats on the blink, I have my doubts but we'll see.....

[Stanley]

It's Cunning Wheeze isn't it. Bit like the old one, "sorry the computer's down". Gives them time to let it mend itself.....

[chinatyke]

Just come back from a job from an established customer (yeah, I know, Sunday, bank holiday weekend.....) Whose Sky broadband was down to 300 kb/s. He had a dead telephone line yesterday, and Openreach repaired it this morning. but the broadband is still very slow. Spent hours on the phone to Sky customer services (after jumping through all the hoops I knew they'd want jumping beforehand) who eventually concluded its the router thats on the blink, I have my doubts but we'll see.....

We were talking about this same subject at lunchtime and two guys said they had cured their slow internet speeds by buying new routers after being advised to do this by their local ISP China Telecom. Their conclusion was that wireless router technology has moved on and the old routers weren't up to the job. I don't know if their explanation holds water but it may be worth a try with a new router and seeing if it is a quick fix,it solved their problems.

[Pluggy]

The ISP is sending him a new router. The old one is isn't that old, he joined Sky in 2010 and its they one they gave him then. I was round at a friends last night who was struggling to connect his new smart telly to his wireless. H'e been faffing with the router and succeeded in killing the Wifi. It was pretty old so he went out to Nelson to buy another. The wifi in mine died a couple of weeks back, so I fitted a spare one I had. His and mine both worked flawlessly when hooked up with old school ethernet.

[Big Kev]

I've been helping the local economy today (hopefully). Pluggy came round and picked up the poorly laptop to see if he could breath any life into it.

[plaques]

I struggled with the wireless connection to our smart TV. With a brick wall and a floor to transmit through the connection was intermittent at the best. My conclusion was unless the TV can see the router you can have problems. The final solution was to use a Power Line connector. No problems with this system.

[Big Kev]

I've been helping the local economy today (hopefully). Pluggy came round and picked up the poorly laptop to see if he could breath any life into it.

It's terminal

[Stanley]

Hard luck... did it have a long and useful life?

[Gearce]

??????????????????????????????????? Why do I bother?

[Big Kev]

Hard luck... did it have a long and useful life?

it has been used a lot but was only 4 years old...

[Big Kev]

Hard luck... did it have a long and useful life?

it has been used a lot but was only 4 years old...

I've found a new board, complete with CPU, on Ebay for £38. I think it's worth a go

[Stanley]

Four years isn't much is it. Motherboards are usually more robust, the only time I had one fail was when a young friend plugged the wrong power supply into it. It didn't like it!

[Steven Chorkley]

14mbs is a lot faster than dial-up!

I feel for you!

The ISP is sending him a new router. The old one is isn't that old, he joined Sky in 2010 and its they one they gave him then. I was round at a friends last night who was struggling to connect his new smart telly to his wireless. H'e been faffing with the router and succeeded in killing the Wifi. It was pretty old so he went out to Nelson to buy another. The wifi in mine died a couple of weeks back, so I fitted a spare one I had. His and mine both worked flawlessly when hooked up with old school ethernet.

Pickup a HG253a. Doesn't matter what ISP. These things sync really well, although they do have a habit of holding sync on a dead connection. With Netgears I sync at about 16000 but with the huawei I sync at around 18000, quite a difference!

It's worth saying though that it is a crap WiFi Access Point and the integrated switch is 10/100 - But why would you expect any different!

[Pluggy]

14mbs is a lot faster than dial-up!

I feel for you!

The ISP is sending him a new router. The old one is isn't that old, he joined Sky in 2010 and its they one they gave him then. I was round at a friends last night who was struggling to connect his new smart telly to his wireless. H'e been faffing with the router and succeeded in killing the Wifi. It was pretty old so he went out to Nelson to buy another. The wifi in mine died a couple of weeks back, so I fitted a spare one I had. His and mine both worked flawlessly when hooked up with old school ethernet.

Pickup a HG253a. Doesn't matter what ISP. These things sync really well, although they do have a habit of holding sync on a dead connection. With Netgears I sync at about 16000 but with the huawei I sync at around 18000, quite a difference!

It's worth saying though that it is a crap WiFi Access Point and the integrated switch is 10/100 - But why would you expect any different!

He's already bought it, one of these - http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/p ... :c|adp:1o5

Cheep....

[Pluggy]

Four years isn't much is it. Motherboards are usually more robust, the only time I had one fail was when a young friend plugged the wrong power supply into it. It didn't like it!

Have you ever owned a laptop Stanley ?. I'd say 4 years is average or even better than average for a laptop motherboard, they tend to fail a lot more often than a desktop. On a windows desktop, the motherboard failing will often make them un-economic to repair. The operating system needs to be bought again when the board goes. Well, it does if its an OEM copy of windows (almost all are OEM). The Microsoft spyware (aka Genuine Advange) is getting very good at flagging hardware changes and sticking a big notice on the screen saying you've got a dodgy copy of windows. The cost of the Windows is more than the main board. The standard dodge is to hack it so it doesn't flag and disable windows updates so it doesn't bring a new version of GA in), not recommended given the holes in Windows the bad guys are always finding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Genuine_Advantage

[Pluggy]

Hard luck... did it have a long and useful life?

it has been used a lot but was only 4 years old...

I've found a new board, complete with CPU, on Ebay for £38. I think it's worth a go

New or new to you ?

[Big Kev]

New to me. Might just buy a new laptop...

[Stanley]

Plugs. I've had three laptops which I used when I was travelling. You could be right, none of them stayed the course.... Mind you, I only bought one new, a Sony Vaio but that too failed. Got it repaired and gave it away! I like big boxes that never get warm...... Seems to me that laptops cook themselves.... (But what do I know about anything!)

[Steven Chorkley]

14mbs is a lot faster than dial-up!

I feel for you!

The ISP is sending him a new router. The old one is isn't that old, he joined Sky in 2010 and its they one they gave him then. I was round at a friends last night who was struggling to connect his new smart telly to his wireless. H'e been faffing with the router and succeeded in killing the Wifi. It was pretty old so he went out to Nelson to buy another. The wifi in mine died a couple of weeks back, so I fitted a spare one I had. His and mine both worked flawlessly when hooked up with old school ethernet.

Pickup a HG253a. Doesn't matter what ISP. These things sync really well, although they do have a habit of holding sync on a dead connection. With Netgears I sync at about 16000 but with the huawei I sync at around 18000, quite a difference!

It's worth saying though that it is a crap WiFi Access Point and the integrated switch is 10/100 - But why would you expect any different!

He's already bought it, one of these - http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/p ... :c|adp:1o5

Cheep....

Seems decent enough..... But I always went cheap too but I finally brought myself round! I have the HG253a bridged with a £110 RT-N66U - the best purchase I have made in terms of networking! I live in a Georgian house and I have never had a WiFi signal cover the entire house. I have used PowerLine in the past but I no longer have the need! It's also very stable and doesn't crash under pressure!

[Stanley]

Steven, you appear to be working under a misapprehension. I don't need sympathy, I have 16mbs. I was just pointing out that some of us remember the automatic dialler set to ten attempts and watching a 1mb download of an image building line by line down the page. This is how it was for everyone not too long ago. Now we have instantaneous images and 50mb downloads as standard. Why chase even more speed? It's not how fast the connection is but what you use it for.....

05:45. News that BT have announced they are closing the Dial-up service down as broadband is so cheap. Didn't realise it was still available.

[hartley353]

Probably damned my self by posting, but my present Samsung laptop is coming up to its eigth birthday. It cost £299 in an Argus sale and has not had an easy life, from the day I purchased it i've used it stood on an old thyristor heatsink to aid ventilation, the battery is original and can still give an hour of use but has been set at a charge rate that would extend its life from day one. Next year I will probably look at replacement but only because the key board is becoming worn out, and is full of biscuit and crisp crumbs.

[Pluggy]

I gave away a working 12 year old laptop last year. Some do last a long time. A lot don't. I suspect more modern ones aren't as robust as older ones and older people certainly take a lot more more care of them than youngsters.

[Big Kev]

Looking to replace the "close to death" laptop with a tablet. Nexus 7 or Galaxy Tab 10.1 are currently in the running.

[Stanley]

Good for the economy Kev!