Essential Tech Tools???

[techs]

Aspirin. Lots of it.

[PSJ]

Hello Everyone, One more thing a FLASHLIGHT ! PSJ

[http://forums.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum1/noncgi]

I have a box full of books, including all the O'Reilly OS "In A Nutshell" books, a book for the 95, 98, and 2000 registry's, TechRef and DeskRef, and various other handy reference books.

I have a Belkin tool kit that I've upgraded with a better flashlight, and a better soldering iron.

I've got a set of tamper-resistant screwdriver tips, and a set of jewler's screwdrivers.

I've also got a Paladin cable tester, a laser thermometer, and a digital multimeter that can be plugged into a computer.

And finally, I've got a pencil box with various testers and tools, like an ATX power supply tester, loopback plugs, an ethernet jack tester, and a phone jack tester.

For software, I have a laptop with Sniffer Pro, L0phtcrack, Sam Spade, and WS-PingPro. Those three programs cover almost anything you could ever need for testing a network. I've also got WebFerret in case I need to find something on the 'net.

[Geek #1]

Standard tool kit with a set of miniture screwdrivers, torch (hey, it can get dark in there), set of working cables (IDE/Floppy/etc), Notepad and pen to take any settings/paswords/etc.

Software side -

Set of boot disks for DOS/win9x/Win NT/2000.
PKZIP Utilities for DOS
Copies of Win9x/Win NT
Utilities Disk with Anti-Virus software/etc

[Auric]

For you canadians... Canadian Tire sells a mini toolkit, that is '25 pieces' has torx philips and flat head .. and other screw driver bits, with an interchangeable driver, side cutters, needle nose pliers and tweezer, and a set of precision screwdrivers. i bought one of these kits for $20 and an extra good philips screw driver..its all i use now, plus my extra pc hardware related stuff.

My toolbox is a laptop case, with a P90 laptop, with NIC and Modem, straight and X-Over network cables, screws..etc. etc. etc.

[BurnFEST]

[quote]Originally posted by Auric:
<strong>Icculus has a good plan thier, PCI Video card..Nic, etc.. you may want to make cd's with all the IE's on em, and other M$ stuff</strong><hr></blockquote>

Yeah, a cd with lots of common drivers, and the win98 cabs is an important tool also

[tracker]

Parts to make a complete new PC

isa/pci/agp video
isa/pci sound
isa/pci lpt card
isa/pci modem
old isa controller board
simm/dimm/rimm 's

manufacturer's hdd diag tools
Ghost rules!

[KINGofBLEH]

My doctors bag contains the following:

- My 366Mhz AMD Compaq laptop + wireless, ethernet and modem cards
- My CD case with over 100 software titles, technet cds and ghost images. All are burned copies (I leave originals at home because I tend to misplace my CD case)
- Floppy case with boot disks for all major OS's, a few common driver disks and Ghost (of course.)
- Belkin cable tester
- Fluke sniffer
- Small tool case
- Second CD case with all of the company's licensed software in it
- Serial mouse
- Internal IDE CD-ROM

Those last two may seem a little wierd at first, but they have gotten me out of many jams with old legacy PCs. Installing Win 95 from floppoes really sucks. Carrying the Internal CD-rom makes my day move along much faster when working on old junkers.

[drdoug99]

cool info guys.

when you say you are "techs" like do you work for a company, or are self-employed, do you do stictly computer-repairs, or also do you do networking, or other stuff?

I'm only 20, but have been thinking of starting a computer repair/build/networking company with a friend for about a year now. Any advice on what to learn, and how to get started? is college necessary, or just the certs? I have yet to get my A+, D'OH! but I'm sure I could pass.

when you talk about Ghost, what is that? and where could I learn about/use it? any other tips or anything?

If you don't mind, name some unusual or difficult problems you've come across at the job.

For example, my friends parents old computer, an Acer 1200 series Aspire, with the V56LA motherboard, they wanted to upgrade. Now, I'm pretty much a newbie actually, I got my first computer only 3 years ago, but have been hooked ever since. I'm only used to hardware for about 1 year, and not the old technology like my friends computer. SO anyway, they wanted a new video and sound card, and processor. they have only 1 PCI slot, and 2 ISAs. I get a PCI video card, adn a ISA sound card.

the Sound card, an Soundblaster 16 PnP, wouldn't work. I could boot the system, (win95) but could not load the drivers for the life of me. I tried the drivers from CD, tried the Internet, tried different manufactuers drivers, nothing would work. try different ISA slot, nothing. Windows would detect the new device, but after I install drivers, and have to reboot, the drivers would not take effect, device manager would show the yellow ! so we took back the sound card.

The Videocard, a TNT2 32MB, I could install, but once you turned on teh system, the BIOS would detect it, (I think) cuz, in the upper left hand corner, it listed teh TNT2, 32.0MB NVidia, after that, the screen would just start to flash. it would just Blink, over and over. so, that was my first time encoutering that problem, and I didnt know what to do from there, so we took that back.

any ideas why the sound or video card wouldn't work?

The processor, well, I didn't do enough research, and got the wrong processor, a 500mhz K6-2, when the motherboard would only support a 233 K6. needless to say, that was returned. my stupidity on that, I'll admit.

thanks for the help guys.

[Stalemate]

[quote]Originally posted by Blehboy:
<strong>...
- Serial mouse
- Internal IDE CD-ROM

Those last two may seem a little wierd at first, but they have gotten me out of many jams with old legacy PCs. Installing Win 95 from floppoes really sucks. Carrying the Internal CD-rom makes my day move along much faster when working on old junkers.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Very true.

I prefer to use an external CD-ROM drive (a Backpack) with Win9x, WinNT, Win2000 drivers just in case the system can't accept another IDE device, but that's a personal preferrence.

The usual driver compilations, OS boot disks and TechNet CDs are also mandatory for me.

[Thrawn]

drdoug99,

Well without really looking at it or really knowing about that computer, i would say maybe that it had on-board video and sound. My parents have a HP and i tried to install a 56k modem with no success because the on-board modem would not go away. I looked in the bios to disable it, and there was nothing. So some computers are plaing non-upgradable when it comes to video and sound. The best one can probably do is upgrade the memory on a ancient machine. When i go on a service call, and the person has a 486 run 3.1 and asked me how much it will cost to upgrade it, i just laugh. I tell them that you could upgrade it, but it will better in the the long run to get a whole new system. That is where i lay the charm on, go home, whip up a duron 900, 20 gig hd, 128 mb, geforce2 mx, and SB Live! value and sell for 100 dollars over what i payed for it.

[drdoug99]

yea, that's exactly what' i'm doing, getting prices and different configurations, to build them a whole new comp. Their current comp is 5 yrs old, the memory is maxed out at 64MB anyway, still using the old 72pin EDO RAM, so it's a hopeless cause for that machine.

it did use onboard sound and video, I disabled the settings, using the jumpers. but nothing worked. oh well, i did waht I could.

[infini_T]

I'm in agreement with everyones views on tools and software to carry, but I've noticed that no one mentioned winzip as an essential... try using a downloaded driver without that!

[format c:]

I have used my trusty zip drive for backups , That is on top if all the necessary tools cds etc.
I burn most of my downloads to a cdrw so I can take those with me
Ghost is great for backing up a whole system , Got mine on 5 cds ( Ghost is a part of Norton utilities )

[jbar1]

You can never carry enough and you always have too much. I think that about 50% of the time I never open my kit and 50% of the time I dont have what I need, and I have a very impressive Geek Bag. And it seems everytime I read these theads I add more to the bag which by now is about 30 lbs and my truck looks like a mobile computer supply house in complete disarray. I have got so used to having all this junk with me that " I cant leave home without it" I think that every Tech that works in the field eventually ends up this way. If you are working in the field then you will at some time need everything that has been mentioned on this forum. The problem is "are you going to be 2 blocks from your shop or are you going to be 30 miles from your shop? My wife hates it when I have to use her car cause I fill it with all that computer sH**. You cant have too much.