:: it's a scary world: rants from a chemically imbalanced mind ::

:: Friday, November 09, 2007 ::

ok, i have to tell SOMEone this because it's just too amusing to me. so we've had a recurring problem in the wbul studio recently that has REALLY caused problems - the dual monitors they use on-air have been going BERSERK.... going out of synch, blanking out for a full 5 seconds at a time (which in radio time is unbearably long) and scrolling hideous black lines up and down the screen. it wasn't a CONSTANT but always seemed to happen at just the wrong time. Makes doing a live morning show a BITCH when you can't see what the next song coming up is or if you've got a traffic break coming up. well, this has been going on for almost a month now. and everything i tried was pointless in solving the problem. and the real bitch was that i couldn't just replace something and look at it. i had to wait for the problem to recur or not recur. (once we went FOUR days with no problems... thought i'd solved it... but then......) so i replaced the video card. then i replaced monitors. then i moved the hard drive over to a duplicate, ready to go pc. NOTHING. okay, what about the long distance kvm's inline? was informed by some fellow it people in the company that a common problem was the wall warts (you know, those big ungainly plug in the wall power supplies for electronics? of course you do.) they sometimes go bad and generate bad signals. hmmm. ok, maybe. i'll try it. so i hookup with the it guy in nashville and he has a couple of spares so he send them to me. i put them inline on the studio side. problem goes away for a day but comes right back and now it's actually getting worse. move the two new wall warts to the OTHER end of the chain. nope. same shit. godDAMMIT. fuck it. i'll go take the kvm receivers and transmitters from whir and move them over to the bull and try THAT. so i spend an hour undoing cabling and cable ties to make the switch. hmmm... looks good. no lines.. no blanking... i walk away praying this is the problem fix. two hours later, what do i hear? HEY DOOD! IT'S FUCKING UP AGAIN! GOOOODDDDDDammit. so i grab gerry (chief engineer and my boss) to take a look at it with me. we start poking and prodding everything. pulling pieces and trying to figure out if i have a duplicate somewhere to use yatta yatta yatta. just all manner of crazy "hey could it be this?!" and "could it be that?" questions flying back and forth. i throw my hands up in disgust and come over to gerry's side of the board. he's thinking software at this point because face it, we've replaced damn near everything but the hard drive and the cabling at this point. i'm still thinking hardware because basically i don't trust trust any machine. they're all bastards and they're all out to get me. in a moment of nervous energy, anger and dissappointment at not being able to fix this, i start playing with things. i play with the pen. i play with the little pig figure. i poke the power button to the flat screen monitor on my left (the pc the jocks use to surf content on) and suddenly, the other screens clear up. HUH?!!??! i reach over and turn the side monitor on again. the on air monitors start going BATSHIT. turn it off. monitors fine. turn it on. hell on a screen. no FUCKING way. i yank the power from the surfer and the SECOND i do, it clears up again. son. of. a. bitch. now me, i'm no electrical engineer like gerry so i don't understand this shit BUT suffice it to say that the power supply on the side monitor was slowly going bad and in the process, it was causing the synch rates on the other two to go berserk. sigh. you cannot IMAGINE the weight that lifted off my shoulders. i tore out the monitor, grabbed a new one, put it inline and the damn things have been FLAWLESS ever since. amazing. i've been doing computers for 31 years now and that is the FIRST time i have EVER seen anything like that. EVER. i'll file this one away in the back of my mind for future use. (by the way, the reason i never replaced that side monitor during the whole affair is the fact that it is a totally separate computer/monitor setup.)

phew. that was a lungful. sorry if i bored you but i just wanted to get that one down on paper. it REALLY was becoming a large part of my life and a serious problem for the jocks. and an imperative from management. BUT. all's well that ends well. so now i know i can look forward to going back in on monday morning and NOT hearing complaints from the moo crew. and that will make for a relaxing monday morning. that and the fact that the following week i'll be off and doing nothing but laundry and lounging.

:: Shaman 11/09/2007 06:20:00 PM [+] ::
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