I’m doing a Windows Update on my W2K machine, and there are seven critical security updates that repeatedly fail to install. Anyone have any ideas as to what I should do?

[Update on Sunday morning]

Sigh. Was it really necessary to specify a priori that advice to get different operating systems (I have two other machines running various flavors of Linux) or computers would be unwanted, and unhelpful?

It’s not the power supply. I just swapped it with another computer’s (a fairly new, 450W one) and the same thing happened.

Next is a memory diagnostic.

[Update at 12:50 PM EDT]

Memtest86 found five errors in the first pass, on tests 6 and 7. The problems with the Athlon supposedly show up on test 5 or 8, so it’s probably not a speed problem. I’ll let it run another pass and see if it sees the same thing the second time through.

[Update at 1:17 PM]

Only one of the errors repeated, on test 6, but it did repeat.

[Update at 2 PM]

I let the machine reboot into Windows after the memory test, and it’s now been up for over half an hour, which is a record for the last couple days. I don’t know why running a memory test would have that effect, but the problem seems to have been (at least) mitigated, at least temporarily.

[Update at 8:40 PM EDT]

OK, the machines is now up for over six hours, with no glitches. I’m posting from it. Go figure.

No, thanks, I know this isn’t the end of the story.

[Friday morning update]

The machine is still alive and healthy this morning.

Firefox has let me down. I haven’t previously used it that much in Linux, but I was forced to today with my current computer problems. I notice that on my Fedora box (Core 3), it’s started crashing with regularity. I had several instances of it running, some with multiple tabs, and they suddenly all disappeared. Now when I try to reopen it, sometimes it will open, and after I open up a couple tabs, and switch to another one, it gets blown away. The last time, it died even before it finished loading the first page.

Does anyone have any idea what the problem is? (If anyone’s wondering, I’m posting this from another Windows machine.)

[Update a few minutes later]

I decided to upgrade from 1.0 (which was a preview version that came with the Fedora install) to 1.04, which is the latest version. We’ll see if it’s more stable. So far, so good…

My primary Windows machine is glitching. This morning, it woke up dead. Or rather, I woke up to find it in a zombie state, with power on but no video signal. I couldn’t even do a hard reboot.

I shut it down for a while, than powered it up, at which point it booted. For a few minutes. Then mouse and keyboard froze, and I had to power down again. After repeats of this, with different applications running, I came to the conclusion that it’s a hardware problem, most likely some component on the motherboard overheating. The fan seems to be running all right, but the CPU seems like the most likely suspect to me. Are there other reasonable possibilities? It’s really bad timing, because I’ve got some data on that machine that I need for some deadlines today.

I’m posting this from my Fedora box.

[Update at 9 AM EDT on a rainy south Florida morning]

I managed to get it up just long enough to drag some files over to the other machine, but I suspect it will be a long slow process in continuing to reboot it until I get everything I need. I really need to set up a nightly cron job to automatically back up to it.

[Follow up at 11:22 AM EDT]

In response to questions in comments, the cabinet is open, the fan is running (though I don’t know it it’s at an adequate speed), and the (Athlon XP) processor is running at its default speed of 1.8 Gigahertz (no reason to overclock this machine–I just use it for office work).

It’s now gotten to the point at which I can’t do anything useful with it–it bluescreens shortly after logging in. It’s been fragile for a while, often locking up or bluescreening randomly, or occasionally right after boot, but whatever the problem was seems to be coming to a head. I’ll try swapping out fan/CPU, because that seems like the most likely source of the problem. I’ve been wanting a faster processor anyway. But probably not today–no time to mess with it

My trip to Europe has been delayed, but I’ll still have to go sometime in the next few weeks.

I lost my internet connection on Thursday night, and only now got it restored. In addition, I’ve had a family problem come up that will necessitate a trip to Europe as soon as possible, so posting may continue to be sparse here for another several days.

I took a redeye back from CA last night, and am suffering from a combination of sleep deprivation and an attack from the netherworld between life and death (i.e., a virus). Sore throat, cough, and a nose that runs like a Congressman from a Cessna.

Maybe back on line later.

Posting will be intermittent/non-existent through the weekend. I’m about to fly back to California for a niece’s graduation from USC, and probably won’t have a lot of time to spend on line. I will have the laptop, and broadband in the hotel, though, so I may check in from time to time.

I’m digging a new sprinkler system before the weather here gets too hot to do it. Part of the fun is laying a sixteen-foot tunnel out of one-inch Schedule 40 PVC under the driveway.

[Update at 4 PM EDT]

In response to the question in comments, I use a hydraulic drill. The soil is sandy (this wouldn’t work if it were rocky or clay). Attach a straight nozzle (Home Depot sells them just for this purpose) to one end of a twenty-foot length of PVC, and a hose connector to the other. The jet of water blasts a hole ahead of it to allow it to be pushed underneath the concrete. Unfortunately, the longer the run, the more friction on the sides of the pipe, particularly from the junction that sticks out, and the last few feet require a hammer to get it all the way through. I don’t think I could manage a wider driveway than I have. Once you’re all the way through, cut off the hose connector and nozzle, and hook up the pipe to each end.

First Clark Lindsey, and now Lileks. Do the end times approach?

[Update at 11:45 AM EDT]

Hobby space is back up. Lileks is still down, though.