It has been quite a while since my last entry. Life has been rather uncharacteristically busy for the past few weeks, what with all the computer problems and assignments I had. Luckily I've learned my lesson from previous experiences and always have several backups of my important information! Make sure you do too! :D

First, my laptop got infected with a very very very persistent virus. Quite a long story, but here's the gist of it :

1. My cousin, Syira, messaged me on WLM that she needed a serial number for InDesign very urgently 'cause her assignments are due soon.
   
   
2. I didn't have any, but I knew where to get a keygen. The site was risky 'cause it's filled with viruses, trojan horses and other malwares, but since she said it was urgent, I thought I'd risk it.
   
   
3. Downloaded the keygen, and promptly got infected.
   
   
4. Keygen worked though. Syira got her program serial and authentication numbers. (Piracy FTW!)
   
   
5. I figured I'd clean out the virus, with no problem, but realised that I was infected with several malwares. About 3, if I'm not wrong. I kept finding new crap, but I think one file dropper was regenerating the same files with different names. I didn't manage to find the parent file. MEH.
   
   
6. Ran several battery of antivirus + anti-spyware + anti-malware + anti-Nazi + anti-new-baby-package programs overnight, and I thought I got everything.
   
   
7. Continued using laptop the day after without restarting. Wasn't sure if I got everything cleaned out 'cause something at the back of my head was still nagging me. New runs of anti-whatever came back clean though.
   
   
8. At about midnight, I decided to restart the laptop to confirm that it was clean. I was about to sleep 'cause I was going for a study group early the next day with my UniSIM classmates.
   
   
9. Laptop refused to restart. Didn't even go to the loading screen after P.O.S.T. MEH!
   
   
10. I had several things that I could do to try to fix the problem, but it was late and I knew it would be very difficult and frustrating to get rid of every single trace of the malware. So I decided, "Fuck it, I'm formatting my OS partition and reinstalling Windows."
    
    
11. Stayed up until about 5 am to complete installation of Windows, Windows Updates, device drivers, Matlab (which I needed during my study group), Office and several other programs.
    
    
12. Woke up at 8:30 am to get ready to meet my classmates at 10 am at Republic Polytechnic for our study group. Only to wait till 11 am before anybody showed up. ><

There were 7 people in the study session that day, doing 2 different modules. Usually, it's always been 4 people max (for some reason), and always doing the same module at any one time. This time was a lesson for me, that's for sure. Too many people doing 2 different modules = hectic! I found myself running around answering different questions every few minutes, and ended up not focusing on my own questions. Terrible. Me and Kyle spent about 2 hours on one question (which seemed so simple, yet so elusive) without getting anywhere. It wasn't a very productive day for me personally, but I managed to help several people with their problems. Wasn't so bad, all in all, I think.

I finally managed to find that elusive answer a few days after, while lying down in my room, relaxed and focused. Haha. I've always been one to need to study on my own before I go study in groups. Cannot change that.

Anyway, during that study session, my younger bro gave me a call, telling me that there was a lightning strike nearby and the power went out. When he restarted the desktop computer, Windows refused to boot. I was like, "What?! Not againnnnn... Fuck it lah, just switch it off. I'll fix it when I get back."

First my laptop, then my desktop. KNS. The second thing that ran through my mind was... I have a bloody on-line Uninterruptible Power Supply. Why didn't it kick in? Isn't that the whole bloody purpose of a UPS during a blackout? ARGH.

When I reached home from my study session, I immediately went to troubleshoot the problem with the desktop. I have this OCD thing where I am not satisfied if I know my desktop is not functional, or not functioning properly. The symptoms were, when booting up, it stops responding at the loading screen, with some weird artifacts to the right of the progress bar.

My first reaction was, of course, "What the helllllll..." I googled the symptoms using my laptop and most of the search results came back saying it was a problem with a faulty RAM stick. I forgot what the rest said. But I figured I'd try some software fixes first, in case it was a simple driver issue. P.O.S.T looked fine without any of the garbled screen, and I managed to go into Safe Mode. Safe Mode looked like crap though, even worse than the loading screen did!

Those lines are not part of the wallpaper! There were red, green and blue (which should've clued me in on the real problem, but it somehow slipped my mind) garbled crap all over the monitor. I did a quick uninstallation-reinstallation of my graphics card's drivers and rebooted to normal mode. No luck. After a few tries with I-can't-remember-what, I suddenly wasn't able to boot into Safe Mode anymore. BAH! Then I thought I'd give ERD Commander (this is not the copy I used... I downloaded one off bittorrent. Hoho.) a try, to do a System Restore, before I do anything drastic.

ERD Commander basically allows you to boot into a simplified version of Windows, running off the CD, and it gives you several diagnostic tools from Windows to work with, including System Restore. Pretty nifty, eh? I have a BartPE boot CD too, but it's not as functional, in my opinion.

Managed to do a System Restore, but no dice... Still unable to boot. Not to Windows, nor Safe Mode. So I opened up my chassis and removed one of the RAM sticks, and rebooted. Oh hey, Windows is loading! So, okay, the 512 MB RAM stick was the problem! As mentioned in a lot of the google search results I found! Time to RMA the damned stick!

But to be sure, I swapped the RAM sticks and rebooted again. Couldn't start. Ok, this should confirm it that that RAM stick was the problem, yes? I swapped back the 1 GB RAM stick in and rebooted. Uh-oh. Windows loading, but the artifacts are back! What the hell is going on?!

I don't know why, but I thought it might have been a software problem. In retrospect, this was a bit of a weird idea, but I noticed that the ERD Commander loaded fine with no artifacts at all, and I figured it could be my Windows installation had been corrupted due to an improper shutdown (because of the blackout). I tried repairing my Windows via the Windows CD, but no juice. Artifacts still there! So I finally decided, "Fuck it, I'm reinstalling Windows."

Since all my important information are placed in several other partitions, it was safe to format my OS partition and reinstall XP. Plus, I have that 500 GB harddisk that I had just bought recently which holds a back up of my crucial data. I had some stuff on my desktop though, so I used BartPE (I could've used the ERD Commander CD, but I just grabbed the nearest disc, which happened to be BartPE) to copy the files over to the other partitions. Off I went, deleted the OS partition, recreated it, reinstalled Windows XP.

About 30 minutes later, it rebooted into normal Windows XP mode. Oh, for fuck's sake. Artifacts. It must be my graphics card! Dammit! Why did I only think about it now?! I restarted, went into my BIOS, changed the display setting to use my internal graphics card, shut down the computer, plugged the monitor into the internal graphics card port, and restarted. Oh hey, what do you know, no more artifacts. Geez... It was never a software problem to begin with, and I didn't have to reformat my OS partition in the first place. Oh wellllllll.

No harm done, though. All the information lost from the Windows XP partition were negligible as I have all the installers on another partition. Can just reinstall them one by one when I had the time. But I was 99% sure it was my graphics card that was dying. I wanted to make sure, but I couldn't be bothered anymore that day.

Oh yea, and a heatsink dropped off from one of the chips on my motherboard... I'm not sure what the chip below is (cannot be bothered to check - it's the chip in the centre of the photograph), and I wasn't able to put it back because three of the hooks that were supposed to be on the motherboard fell off somewhere and disappeared.

Now I have this heatsink on my table, and am not bothering to reattach it. *Yawn*

Anyway, the next day, I reinstalled back my 512 MB RAM stick, and what do you know, it didn't cause any problems. Hohum. Next thing to do was to confirm the deadness of my graphics card. Went into BIOS, switched back to AGP from the internal graphics card. Reseated my graphics card, in case it was just slightly dislodged. Plugged the monitor cable out from the internal graphics card and switched it to the graphics card. Restart computer. A series of beeps. Wow, the computer refused to even boot now! I didn't bother to count the number of beeps as I knew it was my graphics card that was the problem.

But the issue now was... Was it really the graphics card that was dead (no visible trauma sign on the card itself), or was it my AGP slot (no burnt marks on the slot either)? I took a chance and bought a new graphics card yesterday. I'd loved to test the possibly dead graphics card in another system, but I don't have any other to try it on, and I didn't want to bother anyone with this crap.

Of course times like this make me want to buy a whole new system. My 1.8 GHz system is sooooo outdated. Haha.

That will have to wait.

I bought a lovely new (old) XpertVision Geforce 6800GS for S$88 at Bell Systems in Sim Lim Square. Plugged it in and voilą! No more artifacts! Yay! It had been my graphics card all along. Oh well. Loving the new (old) graphics card... It was so huge that it took 2 slot spaces, covering one of my PCI slots. Haha. And it needed extra power too, provided by 2 molex connectors. None of my previous cards needed so much power! I hope my CoolerMaster power supply unit can stand all the extra stuff I've been loading it with... I've got 4 harddisks, 2 optical drives, 3 harddisk fans, 2 other cooling fans, and now this power hungry graphics card. *Worried*

Oh yes, I had assignments too. Which I did in between the times I was fixing my computer. Haha. Had several study sessions which were pretty productive, but I was a little slow with typing them assignments out. Why? 'Cause of all the freakin' equations, that's why. MathType saved me a lot of time, that's for sure, but it's still quite a pain to use!

In other news, I passed my COR 100 waiver exam! Yay! :D Remember I overslept for the original exam that I was supposed to attend (and got totally emo all about it)? Then I managed to get it deferred, and attended the exam last month... The results were out 2 days ago, and I was a bit worried that I might fail the damn thing (I'm always worried about failing, haven't you noticed yet?) 'cause I knew I didn't do my best in the exam due to my lousy time management. I managed to finish the whole paper, though, so at least I had that going for me... I know a few people who didn't even manage to complete the paper. But all that worrying for naught, 'cause I passed! Yay! No need to sit for the actual module, saving me (or rather my parents) a few hundred bucks. Heh.

Whew, super long entry... I think I squeezed in 3 or 4 entries in one here. Hohoho.