Memory Test For PCs

My domain controller started to blue screen today. This is an old box so my first thought was the old hard drive was failing. At time it acted like the drive was bad. I got errors that files were missing. Even coming up in safe mode with a command prompt at one point indicated there was no C: drive. I was about to pull the drive, rebuild and restore from backup. Something did not appear to be right that it was the disk drive. I got different stop messages and the system would fail at different points in time. For the most part I could boot the system and logon. A few minutes after logon I would blue screen. Each time with a different stop message. I got thinking that I may have a memory problem. The box has two memory cards (PC-100) memory: 128k and a 256k board. I found on Microsoft's site a nice memory test utility. You have can create a boot floppy or a boot CD from the file you download. I chose to create the boot floppy. A big CD....All of 1-meg! Boot from the CD and the test immediately starts. It found several errors but was unable to tell me which memory board the problem was on. I shut down the box and pulled one of the boards. With only one memory board I re-ran the test. One board passed the other failed. Of course it was the 256-meg board. I got the domain controller back up on 128-megs. Runs slower but at least the lab is back online.

The memory utility is mtinst.exe. Has a nice users guide you can print.

Windows Update Service

What a pain for something that should be simple. I have a lab of six systems. About half I can't get WUS to run. I found the following steps fixed most of the problems. I have one system where I can not run the server 2003 service pack 1 from the CD. Get some stupid error like "ASN1 Unexpected end of data"

Found this on the web in hords of pages I looked through. Put this into a command file and run it on the system having a problem. Works on XP and Server 2003. Also, if in a domain, make sure you don't have a group policy muck'en around with the automatic update service and configuration.

net.exe stop wuauserv

cd /d %windir%

rd /s softwaredistribution

REGSVR32 %windir%\system32\wuapi.dll

REGSVR32 %windir%\system32\wuaueng1.dll

REGSVR32 %windir%\system32\wuaueng.dll

REGSVR32 %windir%\system32\wucltui.dll

REGSVR32 %windir%\system32\wups.dll

net.exe start wuauserv

Not around much

Well, I sure have not used the blog much have I? Just get busy doing other things and first you know a year has gone by. Judging by the number of blogs I see I think many of us don't have anything to do. In theory this blog should be a good place to record thoughts on my amateur radio/electronic tinkering. I do things then move on to something else without thinking to record the activity for future use. I am rebuilding my web site so I can record some of my projects. You never know the information may be useful to someone. I sure have found technical web sites by other to be useful.

I have found it amazing at the news blogs are getting from those that open up to the world their what ever activities and end up getting caught. You know hiding behind the keyboard causes one to open up a little more then they would at the office lets say. Toss things out in the wide open internet world like that and they are there to stay.... forever cached somewhere. Depending on how you identified yourself the entries are bound to catch up with your someday.

I guess I am just a boring person as I don't have anything to write is the "oh my gosh!!" department.

I also try not to be political or enter religious comments. Sure, some may creep in from time to time but try to keep them out.

Updates from the last time here? Well, lets see.

The interference problem sort of comes and goes. It has not been around enough to justify trying to get the utility company to do anything about it. So far I just put up with the occasional problem.

BPL (broadband over power lines). Unfortunately, power companies still see this as an opportunity. I think eventually they will drop this technology as it will be come too cumbersome to maintain. Other technologies will become more advantageous at lower operating cost. Until then the shortwave community will have to suffer. Fortunately in my home town the local utility has other problems to deal with. I don't think internet access is high on their business model at the present time. 45-miles south of me there is an operating system with a lot less customers than that utility wants to public to know. They have a system we could live with. It effectively notches the ham bands and does not put RF onto the medium voltage lines. Just the drop into the house is on HF. Unfortunately, for shortwave listeners they are out of luck. They notch the ham bands but not the shortwave broadcast bands.