PC-BSD powered blogging
Posted by Eric Stein - July 7, 2006 CE @ 17:37:50 UTC
After beating around the bush trying to get the FreeBSD if_ed driver to work with my EtherFast PCM100 for almost a week, I got a random phone call from Ryan requesting help purchasing and installing a new stereo in his car. I allowed myself to be bribed with a broken USB ethernet adapter and went along. His car is a hack job indeed - he had formica sheeting, duct tape, ethernet wire, computer speakers, an inverter and an iPod built into his audio system. It improved - most of the hardware is actually normal now (ok, the ethernet, duct tape, and iPod are still there).
OK, back to business. The USB adapter was rather damaged - the flip-up cat5 jack can't hold itself shut and the case falls off. This is no problem for a true laptop ninja:
MacGuyvered laptop ethernet
As you can see, rubber bands from the produce department are always a suitable fix for your broken ethernet adapter needs. At this point I charged ahead, installing firefox from the ports collection. This didn't last long, as something somewhere segfaulted. I fell down the dependency tree, hitting everything on the way. Being the ever-suspicious-of-the-hardware-because-software-is-perfect guy that am, I immediately resorted to Memtest86. I would not be disappointed.
Someone set up us the dead ram.
Oh dear, it looks like my third stick of RAM is up to no good. I promptly removed my keyboard and removed it. Memtest86 agrees, I am fine now! Thank you Memtest86. Burn in hell, error-prone RAM.
The guilty RAM
After all the trouble I've had getting this laptop to work, I'm surprised that I'm not ready to kill Nick yet - he is after all the one who sold me a laptop with these defects:
On a more positive note, I now have a laptop with both kinds of ethernet, a great operating system, and a large hard drive for its class. I'm not complaining.
OK, back to business. The USB adapter was rather damaged - the flip-up cat5 jack can't hold itself shut and the case falls off. This is no problem for a true laptop ninja:
MacGuyvered laptop ethernet
As you can see, rubber bands from the produce department are always a suitable fix for your broken ethernet adapter needs. At this point I charged ahead, installing firefox from the ports collection. This didn't last long, as something somewhere segfaulted. I fell down the dependency tree, hitting everything on the way. Being the ever-suspicious-of-the-hardware-because-software-is-perfect guy that am, I immediately resorted to Memtest86. I would not be disappointed.
Someone set up us the dead ram.
Oh dear, it looks like my third stick of RAM is up to no good. I promptly removed my keyboard and removed it. Memtest86 agrees, I am fine now! Thank you Memtest86. Burn in hell, error-prone RAM.
The guilty RAM
After all the trouble I've had getting this laptop to work, I'm surprised that I'm not ready to kill Nick yet - he is after all the one who sold me a laptop with these defects:
- Bad RAM
- The CPU heatsink not screwed on so it overheated
- High voltage wiring in the wrong place so it shorted out and killed the laptop for 3 months
On a more positive note, I now have a laptop with both kinds of ethernet, a great operating system, and a large hard drive for its class. I'm not complaining.
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