"Our computer is f*cked"
So I got an email from my sister Rebecca last week:
"Our computer is f*cked. It's UNBELIEVABLY slow.. there is something seriously wrong with it. Any time you try to get it to do anything even open a document, it hangs and takes about 5 mins to open ... Do you think you could call out some evening and sort it out?"
So after going to see out new house again with Nikki yesterday morning and having coffee n' cake in Mugs in Dalkey (where Andy works) I drove across over to her house (an hour and a half away on the other side of county Dublin) yesterday at about 4pm and after tea n' a sambo, sat down and gave it a go. Took about 5 minutes to boot up. Hmmm. Windows XP, I don't remember them getting that. No programs installed that are particular memory hogs. Right. I see.
"Virtual Memory too low, Windows XP needs more memory. MOOOOORRE MEEMMMOOOORRYY!!!!" (or something like that)
Ctrl. Alt. Delete.
Physical Memory total: 89MB
Commit Charge total: 218MB
Well that clearly won't do, will it? I opened up the tower and there was one 64MB and one 32MB DIMM card. I've only been 'into computers' for a while and I had never even seen a 32MB DIMM before (in an actual computer I mean, I've seen them in pictures)! So I gave them the old 'WinXP into 96MB won't go' and a quick lesson in swopping RAM cards out and told them to give me a ring if that didn't work. I'm sure I'll be called out again within a week, but seeing as I kinda owe them a huge favour, it's cool.
4.21-en
Geek Support, fixing of bugger-ups, moral support, code splicing, tech. administration, whining, über-nerdery and fetching of fluffy coffees by 
Comments
You say you've been "into computers for only a while", yet you have "seen pictures" of a 32MB DIMM card. Do you collect them in a little album? This would suggest true geekdom ;-)
Posted by: annie | February 5, 2006 6:21 PM
No, I did a bit of homework before I swopped the DIMM's on my computer in work. I'm not a true geek, I'm only a yellow-belt in geek-fu.
Posted by: Matt | February 5, 2006 9:30 PM
Were the pictures useful? I find they tend to look pretty much the same.
Although I may think that just because I too have a relatively poor belt in geek-fu.
Posted by: QE | February 6, 2006 12:56 PM
The pictures were not very useful, as one DIMM card looks much the same as another (ie like this).
If I was a black belt I most likely would have cut printed the pic and put it in a scrapbook or something.
Posted by: Matt | February 6, 2006 3:16 PM
You don't mean on paper, surely?
Posted by: QE | February 9, 2006 1:04 PM
Actually yeah, I'd imagine it would be some sort of online 'virtual' scrapbook or something. Of DIMM cards. Possibly organised by year of manuracture.
Posted by: Matt | February 9, 2006 1:15 PM