"PLANs within LANs within WLANs within WANs" by Troy H. Cheek on May 20, 2005

Umpteen months ago, I bought my first notebook computer. Or, as we used to call them, a laptop computer. We can't call them that anymore, as the manufacturers no longer advertise them as such, tired of paying off lawsuit after lawsuit by people who have burned, irradiated, or otherwise damaged the most sensitive parts of their anatomy by using their laptops on their laps. In my younger days, we called them portable computers. Portable then being defined as "smaller and lighter than your average refrigerator."

The notebook was a eMachine m5305. I've never cared much for the various eMachine desktop systems I've looked at, but the eMachine notebooks looked pretty cool. Besides, as near as I could tell, said notebooks were being manufactured by another company altogether and the eMachines notebook computers in this line were functionally equivalent to any of those sold under many other brand names. The kickers were that the CPU and harddrive were about the same as those in my desktop system, and the price of this refurbished unit was under $1,000. These were the requirements I'd set for myself many years before, back when I first considered buying a notebook computer.

I'd also just had a change in my job responsibilities which resulted in me spending most of my time a) unsupervised and b) not directly responsible for the protection of anyone or anything. In other words, I could slack off for hours on end without fear of getting caught. I just had to be there "in case I was needed" and I could do that just as well whether I was in full patrol mode, listening to the radio, filling out the crossword puzzle, or playing computer games on my new laptop.

Unfortunately, I did such a good job goofing off that I was promoted to a new position which required me to actually work.

Of course, I'd barely worn the "new computer smell" off the m5305 when the m5310 fell below the $1,000 mark. The m5310 offered an additional firewire port, faster CPU and built-in wireless networking. Port, shmort. And I've never even seen firewire. But since the m5310 used the same cooling system as the m5305 and as such is reported to have had a minor meltdown problem, I decided that I could do without the faster CPU as well. I did mourn the lack of wireless networking, though. Oh, I'd never even considered wireless networking before, and had absolutely no use for it, but suddenly I missed its absense.

To make matters worse, I've since heard rumor that although the m5305 officially didn't have built-in wireless, some people who purchased them found that theirs did anyway. I checked again. Mine didn't. My wireless options at that point were to pay an obscene amount to have eMachines install wireless, pay a slightly less obscene amount for a plug-in solution that stuck out of the side, or simply do without. After pricing the other wireless components I'd need to integrate a wireless notebook into my existing LAN, I decided to do without.

Years passed. Well, a year and several months, anyway.

I stumbled across a guy who was selling some leftover computer equipment and, lo and behold, he had an extra internal wireless network card and internal antenna from a m5310 for $60. He even had pictures of how to install it. It seemed to be a procedure that I could perform myself, so I bought it.

Actually, I was slightly lying by saying that I felt I could perform the procedure myself, but I figured that I'd work up the nerve by the time I got around to buying the rest of the wireless components that would be needed.

That very day, I found a wireless router for $40. More importantly, this would act as a wired router and a firewall for my LAN/WAN, which was mostly a collection of hubs and switches and "gateway" computers using Internet Connection Sharing. Not the most elegant of solutions, I admit, but it was cheap and mostly used hardware I already owned.

I went home that night, bit the bullet, and pulled out my trusty m5305. I'd left it running so that it could crunch Seti@home work packets for me. I found that it had shut itself off again. It had done that a few times over the last few months, usually after a power flicker. Even with the battery fully charged, it seemed to have trouble dealing with multiple flickers in a short time. I attempted to reboot but was told that the operating system was not found. I'd seen this once before, and that time the m5305 booted fine after I'd left it unplugged for an hour. Unconcerned, I began the procedure.

The m53xx series, by the way, hides the internal wireless antenna behind the LCD screen. I don't mean that it clamps on to the back of the notebook. I mean that it's inside the back of the notebook. This means you have to take apart a piece of the notebook that God and eMachines and the nameless Japanese manufacturer never intended you to take apart. It was slow, tedious, painstaking work. I just knew that when I powered up, I'd see that I'd cracked the screen or pulled a wire loose or something.

The wireless antenna actually had wires. These followed a maze of twisty passageways (all alike) from the screen to the mini-PCI slot. I went slightly cross-eyed before I'd routed all the wires and had to take a break before I could finish, but finally the job was done.

I carefully put the battery back in and found the power cord. I booted up, fully expecting to see my little m5305 give up its magic smoke. It didn't. And the screen seemed without damage as well. I sat back to watch it boot into Windows XP.

An hour or so later, I quit watching. Something was wrong. In spite of my complaints about Microsoft, I do know that Windows usually loads in just a few minutes. I rebooted several times, being told that there was no operating system each time. I began to worry, but then remembered that I hadn't really used the computer for anything vital lately and no irreplaceable files on the drive. I decided that I should restore from the included system restore CD.

After a dozen attempts, I gave up trying to restore, tired of seeing all those errors reading and writing to drive C. I didn't know if it was the m5305 mainboard not being able to talk to the harddrive anymore or the harddrive just not working anymore. I went to the local Mom-n-Pop computer store for advice.

Their advice was that they didn't work on notebook computers or sell any equipment for them. Scanning the shelves, I discovered that this was not entirely accurate, as they did sell a device which would allow me to connect my notebook harddrive to one of my desktop systems. They also had a notebook harddrive very similar to my existing one for the low low LOW price of $180.

The last time I spent more than $100 for a harddrive, it had more storage capacity than the United States Library of Congress.

I took home my Super Happy Funtime USB Portable 2.5" HDD Box and hooked it up to my m5305 drive. From the instruction booklet: "Congratulations on your purchase of a product! Will we show you a new storage conception with safety and convenience. It is your pleasure to give us the best solution to expand their HDD's capacity and enhance data's reliability in PC system or Mac system. Before using a product, please read this manual carefully for further recognizing of the product." A picture of a drive to be installed was called a "practicality map" and a diagram of the installation instructions was a "assemblage map." According to assemblage map, the product contains a very large solenoid.

In spite of these instructions, it took very little time to hook things together and determine that the drive was deceased. An ex-drive. It was pining for the fjords, as John Cleese might say.

I searched online for a bigger/faster/better harddrive for less. I found one for about $80 shipped, used the recovery CD, and was in business in less time than it took to write this report. Wireless networking works like a charm. Sure, I still don't have an actual use for it, but sitting on the front porch enjoying the fresh air as I surf the net is still pretty cool. My wired internet access is also faster now that I'm using a router and not Internet Connection Sharing.

Of course, all is not perfect. My loverly lady friend, Kitten, having recently decided that her current situation in life requires her to have a notebook computer, has been casually mentioning that it would be nice if she could borrow mine. I'd been citing the mysterious disappearing operating system problem as a reason I couldn't let her do that. Now that this problem is fixed, I have no excuse not to give it to her.

Oh, darn. I appear to have lost the power adapter.

Copyright 2005 by Troy H. Cheek. Reprint with prior written permission only. Comments and questions to