Real World Event Discussions
In the garden, and RAIN!!!!
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
VIEWED: 1005090
PAGE 468 of 1154
Thursday, June 18, 2020 11:42 PM
Quote:YAY sunshine!
Originally posted by Brenda:
Out for a walk to check out the cheap monitor and try and talk to someone else in London Drugs about this again.
Also sunshine.
In a way, it's too bad that you don't have a smart phone, bc you could take a picture of the back of your PC and find the right connector for your monitor. Do you have a digital camera?
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
#WEARAMASK
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Friday, June 19, 2020 12:30 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
I'm going to take your last post to me bit by bit as I will most likely make a hash of it if I answer it straight out.
If I sound grumpy forgive me, I am in a bit of pain today. Over did it when I got home yesterday and right hip is driving me batty. But things to do.
No worries. Take your time.
I understand how frustrating things like this can be even if you're not in pain. You didn't have to deal with me while I was dealing with the car. You only read a brief day-by-day synopsis of it with most of the frustration filtered out.
Quote:
London Drugs is a big chain store up here. You can find them pretty well all across Canada. They are the only drug store that sells stuff like that. The rest of the drug stores stick to magazines, cigarettes, candy, a few toys, some books, bit of food items, cosmetics, non-prescription reading glasses, vitamins, baby stuff and support stuff for walking or fixing your home up if you need help like that. Then they do prescriptions as well.
Yeah. I get it now. With the other stuff going on in the post I was just thinking to myself that I needed clarification that you weren't talking to a Pharmacist about computer problems.
No offence, but I find that I'm twice as likely to overestimate people's abilities as I am to underestimate them. Glad everything checks out.
I'll just throw a quick list of stuff to tackle on the computer without any explanations involved that you can go back and reference, so we can make the steps clear. Because of your level of computer knowledge, the inability to order stuff online and the potential that your friend won't get back to you in a timely matter, I'm going to avoid suggesting doing anything at this point about troublshooting inside of the case, at least until we have a working monitor.
Since Signy and Kiki are both involved, they may confirm this is a good list.
1. Buy a monitor with both VGA and HDMI outputs.
(Shown in picture below)
2. Verify you have the necessary port on the back of the case for internet. (Highlighted in image below)
IF THE RESULT IS THE COMPUTER NOW BOOTS UP AND YOU CAN SEE IT:
3. See if keyboard and mouse work. If not, we'll replace one or both.
4. Plug in your existing internet cable into the back of the case if you have both the old cable and a place to plug them in. Then we'll get you online.
5. At any point during the process pick up a few USB thumb drives because they're so cheap and you can make multiple backups of all of your work.
IF EITHER THE MONITOR DOESN'T FIX THE PROBLEM, OR YOU DON'T HAVE A WAY TO PLUG IN THE INTERNET:
We'll figure out what to do when we get to that point.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Friday, June 19, 2020 12:45 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
There might be one reason that the monitor can't be easily replaced, and that was when PC's were made with that short-lived fad called the VESA local bus (approx 1992). If the PC was built around that time, it may have a non-standard video card. I don't remember what the back of the PC looked like but the VESA connector looks like this. (Looks pretty standard to me, but I can't tell from the picture.)
BRENDA, how old is the PC? Is is back from around 1992-1993?
If not, I agree with SIX and KIKI: Monitor first. You can't find out anything about the PC until you have a monitor. And even if you discover that the PC is dead, you can always use the monitor with a new PC, or even with a laptop
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
#WEARAMASK
If we're dealing with a 28 year old computer, it's time to just throw that in the trash.
I'm not even joking about that one.
A computer that old likely has a hard drive that is 1/3 the capacity of a CD Rom, only has around 4MB of memory and wouldn't even be capable of running Windows 95, let alone Windows 10.
The only way the computer that old would have specs much better than that would be if it was an actual server at some point, but it would have had PCI slots and a proper VGA/SVGA port on it. The reason that they did the VESA LB for only a few years is that most home market computers did not have the (at the time) very expensive PCI card slot tech on the mother board and the VESA was a proprietary solution for updating the graphics to the new standards the VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) was trying to accomplish around that time.
Although I have yet to find a definitive YES answer to can you plug a standard VGA monitor into a VESA Local Bus slot, I'm almost 100% sure the answer would be yes. Though a different color plastic where the pin holes are, they're both the same shape/size and they both have 15 pins.
It seems to me as though this was a stop-gap solution to bring new tech into the homes of the consumer and still keeping the computers (relatively) affordable until the PCI slots were cheap enough to put on all home computer mother boards. (That being said, it seems there were complaints about things like screen tears and display not working as it should, which should be expected when taking cheap shortcuts).
It wouldn't make any sense for them to go out of their way to do all of that just to pass savings along to the consumer and then require them to buy an expensive monitor that would have to be put on a separate assembly line and manufactured specifically for these PCs.
Honestly, if all of the above is true, it's possible my original computer had a VESA Local Bus and I never even knew it. We got it in 1993, and who knows what warehouse the HSN dug it out of before they screwd my mom on the price.
I don't even know how that one happened as I don't remember my mom ever even watching HSN let alone making impulse buys on it. I do remember her talking about the videos of whales that they were showing on the computer from Encyclopedia Britannica that came with it. Those whales must have mesmerized her while she was channel surfing or something.
And I certainly wasn't going to complain. Finally got that PC I wanted since I was a little kid.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Friday, June 19, 2020 12:55 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Hey SIX, I wanted to say CONGRATS on the car!
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
#WEARAMASK
Thanks!
I've got to figure out somewhere long to drive to now that isn't just a joyride. I'm pretty sure this thing is legit roadworthy now and I want to test that out. It's so nice on my short trips having a relatively silent car that accelerates and shifts gears properly with a radio that doesn't drop out every 15 seconds and make me panic that all the grounds in the car are bad. Oh, and GPS for the guy who can't navigate his way out of a paper bag.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Friday, June 19, 2020 4:27 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:Hmmm... Maybe they have Microsoft guys at the Best Buy by me now too. I rarely ever shop there anymore unless I spot something on a really good sale or I'm in desperate need of something. I think I've been in a BB maybe twice in the last 10 years. I'm just always wary of anybody claiming that they work for Microsoft. My mom got scammed by people based in India claiming to be Microsoft support.
Originally posted by Brenda:Quote:
2. Apparently. After a minute he said, "I work for the Microsoft store, you need to talk to someone who works for Best Buy." I didn't know this before as the last time I was in Best Buy, I just went to their DVD section. He seemed legit, handling other customers and showing them products talking to the "Geek Squad" that works in Best Buy's computer section.
They must do now because as I said the last time I was in this store, I just went to the DVD section looking for something and couldn't find it anyways. And that was end of last year.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Friday, June 19, 2020 4:41 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:If your motherboard doesn't have a port for the internet on it and requires a separate card, it's EXTREMELY old. I don't think that's the case.
Originally posted by Brenda:Quote:
I get that Jack. But keep saying that there is something missing which is where I plug the internet cable into the back of the case.
Does the back of your computer have a port that looks like the one highlighted in the following image?
If it does, you plug your router directly into that and you'll have internet.
I looked at the back of the computer last night but I couldn't tell anything. Brain and eyes didn't want to work together. Looked again when I got home today and there is no port like the one outlined in the picture. That I can see now is what is missing.
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Friday, June 19, 2020 4:49 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:Quote:
Okay. But I am getting a little confused again.Quote:
Me too, but we'll figure this out.
Not sure if I am glad that you are confused with me or not. But then your brain isn't over the age of 50 or suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury as the doctors like to classify what happened to me just over 30years ago now.
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Friday, June 19, 2020 4:57 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:Quote:
I do care but as I said writing is all done long hand and typewritten. Pictures are on a USB.Quote:I'd like to get all that work back for you too. But we won't know if we will be able to do that until you have a working monitor.Quote:
Yeah. You don't need any high priced monitor. Just make sure that it has the VGA and HDMI ports on it. The VGA is what you need for your current computer, and the HDMI port will be for when you decide to upgrade or we find out we just can't fix the old one. That way you're not wasting money getting a monitor that you can't use in the future.
Got that.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Friday, June 19, 2020 5:02 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:Quote:
No, I don't. Most games I play on this thing I am using is a solitaire site and a mah jong site that I like. Nothing fancy in the least.Quote:
If your old computer can handle everything you wanted to do before, i can guaranty that the absolute cheapest computer that Best Buy has right now will be able to do anything you want it to do.
It did. I was using it when I found that solitaire site and mah jong site.
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Friday, June 19, 2020 5:25 AM
Quote:
Originally posted by 1KIKI:
Brenda, I'm really confused at this point.
Aside from all the other things that have come up since then, did you ever find out for sure the monitor is a problem? Because it seems to me that before you can even try anything else, if your monitor truly is busted, you need to replace it. (And a new monitor will be handy anyway even if the old computer is defunct.)
The other thing I gather is that, in general, you're trying to assemble all the parts together, which is why the mouse and keyboard topics came up, the USB port, and now the inet connection. I think you got the mouse and keyboard connections figured out (the sea green and lavender ports), so if you have a mouse and a keyboard with those color-and-shape connectors, you're golden! The small rectangular USB memory stick/ flash drive port is a no-fail thing to try, if it's the wrong one it won't fit, and if it's a sort-of wrong one, it won't work; but in either case nothing will get broken. The inet connection looks like a really heavy-duty telephone line connector, with the little clip-lever on the side of it and all. Sort of like this
I realize the person who originally built your system sounds like kind of a geek, so perhaps there may be some non-standard parts to it.
No, I didn't but I have bought a new monitor that I will deal with once all the pain I am in is gone. Hopefully the weekend.
Mouse and keyboard are plugged into the tower but don't appear to be functioning.
Blair had several geek friends and I know they helped him when he had problems.
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