does anyone know if there is away to force XP Pro to rebuild the
add/remove programs list ?
no i don't want to reformat the drive and reinstall all the programs
(which took *DAYS* ) :)
i got a nifty new box which ran well for a while, then things started
going flaky, spontaneous re-boots, dropped LAN connections, inability to
copy large files successfully over the LAN, reboot cannot connect to
Internet, on and on all pointing to differing possible causes
the white box builder traced it to bad RAM (both of the 1 gigs!)
they proved it was that with some nifty basic troubleshooting
(see * footnote)
So the Add/Remove Programs list both before and after the repair has a
HUGE gap
programs listed up through first letter 'A' are seen and that appears to
be all the programs installed !
when i showed it to the vendor they said scroll down
duh
i tried that, just white space
'keep scrolling' they said
so about a mile down the list resumed with all the rest of the programs
this is maybe 30 or so pages of white space in the list below A
they said they have seen this from time to time and that it is an XP thingy
it doesn't seem to really matter, everything seems to work ok and all
the programs are there, but it does seem a little flaky
so to repeat the question is there a way to
rebuild the Add/Remove list ?
Dennis Saputelli
* footnote
here is what they did when they got the box back with my complaints
they have been building these things since the early days of PCs and
when i complained of multiple symptoms they didn't want to use just a
memory test program
they pulled out my hard drive to save my setups, no real data at risk,
just a bunch of tedious work
they put in a fresh hard drive in and attempted to install XP -
no go, multiple crashes
now they pulled the RAM and put it in another box with a fresh mother bd
and moved or put in another hard drive and attempted to install XP
no go
conclusion, bad RAM
they returned the 2 gigs RAM (2 sticks) to their supplier and got new ones
so far so good, it all feels quite solid now except for the 'GAP'
i thought their troubleshooting approach was simple and interesting
_______________________________________________________________________
Integrated Controls, Inc. Tel: 415-647-0480 EXT 107
2851 21st Street Fax: 415-647-3003
San Francisco, CA 94110 www.integratedcontrolsinc.com
Darren wrote:
Hi Dennis,
i get paste stencils for about $320 USD, so that seems in
line w/ what you are all saying
Yep.
they usually take about 1 day turn since i am near silicon valley
actually my assembler gets them but i pay for them
I haven't been able to get them in less then about 3 days, most
suppliers are interstate, and a few are coming from china now.
the trouble is they sure prove to be a disincentive to what i
feel to be the worthy goal of 'continuous improvement'
if we build 100 pcs of board before a rev spin we are doing well so i
guess $3.20 a board for a stencil is not too bad but when we do 5
different protos and then spin all the revs to the inevitable
rev 'B' it sure adds up to a lot of trashed stencils and money
seems like there ought to be a better way
Agree, I have been thinking about it for a while. Inkjet style
device is what is needed.
the only thing i have come up with is putting 2-4 different
boards on a 15" x 15" with about 1" between, this can save a bunch,
especially on protos
Yes, I do the same often.
camtastic (2000!) makes it pretty easy
darren, not sure what you mean it 'takes a while to burn that
w/ manual paste placement'
As in the labour cost to paste the boards, V the cost of the
stencil, which still takes a lot of time to paste a few boards
and then clean up.
are you saying you can do a lot of bds for $320 ?
yes, maybe 2- 5 bds depending on the features
Well it still take time to setup the stencil, screen the
boards and clean up. Then what do you do with the old
stencils ..
what do you use ?
I have one of these
http://www.apsgold.com/p_place.html
The MPP21.
and for an oven..
http://www.apsgold.com/reflow.htm
a manual time/pressure dot dispenser like EFD?
i have one of those and it is gathering dust now (actually we
sometimes use it for gluing things but not bd parts)
I run it on full manual, much faster then setting the time for
each size pad. You get very fast at it.
for protos i gave up on that and just hand solder with the good old
metcal and a big jug of flux with a teensy needle tip on the end, it
does a better job i think - no solder balls
I use a metcal style iron, hakko in fact to do the fine pitch
stuff, too much trouble to paste, place reflow and then rework
the fine pitch. Paste placement is just not controlled well enough.
either way both methods take a LONG time to build one or three boards
Yes, it is very time consuming.
i realize that w/ QFNs and BGAs a stencil is a must so i use
those only if they are a must do
I haven't done much BGA stuff in house yet, but I will have to
address that soon.
in fact after switching over to 0603s i am now switching back
to 0805s due to low volumes and the greater ease of
troubleshooting and mods
0603 can be small, but after doing some 0402 stuff, they don't
seem so bad. I remember 20 years back when 1206 seemed to be
small. :|
back to SIPAD...
it appears that somewhere along the process, unless i have been
misinformed, they make a stencil and do what the assembler
would do just at a different point in time
still, it does allow storage and therefore time shifting of
that process
To me I can't see much gain.
Regards,
Darren Moore
ds
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