Skip to main content

Dell Latitude E6500 blinking Hard drive light

My Dell Latitue E6500 laptop all of a sudden started locking up. It didn't seem to be a windows problem because it locked up even in safe mode and even just at a command prompt. I couldn't tell if it was a memory problem or a hard drive failure.

I called Dell tech support and they walked me through a built-in diagnostic program. By turning off the machine and then holding down the "fn" key while pressing the power button to turn the machine on it went into a low level diagnostic. It passed all the memory tests but failed on a hard drive seek test. They are sending me a new hard drive but I've decided to replace it with a solid state (SSD) drive - $400 for a 160gb from Amazon.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ethereum Merge - So What?

Artwork by Steven Grundy The long awaited Ethereum "Merge" is finally upon us.  I've heard people say "So what".   So what?  I think they don't understand the implications of the merge.  Either that or they really are betting against Ethereum. I think this upgrade is probably the biggest thing for Ethereum since smart contracts first came out.  This change has the possibility of upsetting the apple cart in terms of Ethereum and BTC.  That's a big claim, but I really think it's possible. The Ethereum Merge has been set for the week of September 19th, 2022.  The merge is when the Ethereum execution layer will be joined with the new proof of stake consensus layer.  What does that mean and why should I care? What it means is that Ethereum will be changing from an energy intensive Crypto coin like all others to a 99% more efficient crypto coin like only a few have done.  Right now Ethereum is mined just like BTC and a host of other Crypto cur...

Troubleshooting a Discourse Update on DigitalOcean: Resolving Unresolvable Errors

For the past three years, I've maintained a Discourse server on a DigitalOcean Droplet. Recently, I decided to update it with some of the latest Discourse features. What I anticipated to be a straightforward update process turned into several days of frustrating setbacks. The version of Discourse I was running was already three years old, so I assumed that running the built-in "Update" feature would suffice. However, after clicking the update button, the progress bar sluggishly crawled forward over the next half hour, only to display the dreaded message: "Error – Update Failed." The logs provided little to no help, but based on my experience with other software updates via GIT, I suspected that the failure might be due to the repository head still being called "Master." In recent years, there has been a shift away from using "Master" as the repository head, with "Main" becoming the preferred term. Despite trying several methods ...

Etherum on the Move...

Artwork by Steven Grundy What, more Crypto talk? Yes, sorry, more crypto talk, but I'll try to keep it short. Back on July 16th I said that I thought the bear market had ended that day and we were starting a new bull market. Only time will tell if I was right because we haven't had enough time to call it a bear market. But, in that time, Ethereum, the bellwether coin that we measure with, is already more than 50% from that date and 120%+ since June 16th (2022). There are a lot of coins that did better than that, but for a "safe" bet like Ethereum, that's a really nice move. But, it's not too late. Ethereum makes a change on September 26th that will dramatically improve it's capabilities. I think we are going to fairly quickly see ETH return it, and pass it's all time high of $4891.70, maybe even before the end of the year. Now there is always the chance that ETH, and all coins, will turn around and head back down for a test of the low of $876.54....