This is the cable that came with the monitor. On the underside of the monitor screen, there is a green jack port (probably getting all these terms wrong, but this sounds better than saying "a little round green hole where the green plug goes to the monitor"), so, logically - and since there were no written directions, and since the pictogram that came with the monitor gave no indication which end went where - I stuck the green end in the little green hole.
See the blue hole on the backside of the hard drive tower? Since I had a blue jack at the other end of the monitor cable, I (see explanation above) stuck the blue jack in the blue hole. No sound came from anywhere unless I plugged in my earphones (green jack on them, too) into the green hole at the front of the tower. Pictogram didn't show/mention this, either.
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I had to use my 3x magnifying lens, with my glasses on, to decipher the tiny lettering on each jack port shown above. Blue is input, green is output, pink is microphone, orange is c/sub with a speaker icon, black is rear speaker and grey is side speaker. What I want to know is, with all these damned speakers somewhere in this computer, why did I have to buy external speakers?
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All jacks and sockets (whatever!), connected, at long last. I don't care if this isn't the correct configuration. I now have sound and picture and I don't have to put up with rabbit ears!
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L-R: Router box, new printer (which also now works the way it is supposed to do), sub-woofer of the (probably redundant) speaker set, with their attendant cables and power cords - prior to being organized and bundled together neatly.
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Neatness counts, especially when you don't know what the heck you're doing. And, yes, there are corresponding labels on the cords, farther down the line, out of sight.
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New tower, which is half again as tall as the old one.
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The BOOM-SHICKA-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM box, a.k.a. the sub-woofer.
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This desk hasn't looked this clean and well-organized since the Johnson Administration, and didn't again within twenty minutes of this photo being snapped.
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My short legs don't reach all the way to the floor comfortably when I sit at this desk, so I used the packaging from around the speakers and sub-woofer to help elevate them. My feeble attempt at being green.
PS: Why can't I get my text and pictures to line up right when I post this? Everything is where it's supposed to be when I check it in preview, but it's all screwed up when it gets posted. ARRRGGGHHHH!
11 comments:
Welcome to the wonderfully frustrating world of multi media technology. Prozac is available at all leading drugstores...
Your arrggghhh!!!!! is exactly why I use a linear top-down approach, no matter how unhip it looks. Now, can you make a road trip and tighten up my desk like that?
I see happy feets in your future.
Crow, I think you need a geek! :-)
Good for you.
Steve, I think I am beyond help!
Jim, I used the same linear approach, but it didn't post the way I wrote it. On the other matter, I would love to visit North Carolina, but my desk looked like that only as long as it took me to snap the photo.
Francis: May I borrow yours? He sounds like the perfect friend to have. Does he have a cousin in Pennsylvania?
Z, I admit to feeling quite virtuous at the end of the day, when everything worked right. Of course, it took all blooming day to get it together!
Very clever all this stuff. Soliciting sympathy for your feigned (First time this year?) techno-ignorance but doing it in a way that proves your techno-comptence. Gosh, the tension I suffered wondering whether you'd solve the green-blue leads problem. (Parenthetically, leads - pronounced leeds - is the "in" word for what you call cables. A cognoscenti word.) I approve of "neatness counts" and someday I'll reveal my solution with an anti-surge (You OK on anti-surge?)multi-socket that stands on its end and thus saves space. Heh?
BB: This post was written in response to your comment on the previous one. I wasn't looking for sympathy, but was attempting to say a word in my defense about not knowing why there was no sound audible unless I plugged in the headphones. This is the first computer I've put together. My ex-husband was the techno-genius in this household. I'm learning, slowly, by experience. I know how to use the PC and how to trouble-shoot most of the software loaded into it. That's the extent of my techno-competence.
Thank you for updating my computer vocabulary. I couldn't remember that the word for the plug-ended wire is lead. I knew I was probably wrong, but I used cable anyway, because it was what I remembered Ken using in reference to some wires with plugs on the ends, at one time. What you refer to as anti-surge Ken called a surge protector. Mine is sitting atop the back-up battery, and I placed it there to save space.
If I am guilty of anything with this essay, it is that I was publicly patting myself on the back for managing, on my own, with no clear directions included with my purchase, to put this mix of machines together, neatly (which is neigh on to impossible for me), and have it work - sort of. I still don't think I should have had to but external speakers. There weren't any with the old monitor, but I didn't put the old equipment together, and my ex is not around to offer advice.
I do apologize for increasing your tension. If you know the solution to the built-in speaker problem, please give me the answer. I could then return the others for a refund. (US$60 is hardly anywhere close to NASA's budget, obviously, but it was way more than I should have had to pay, if there are workable speakers already included.)
One more thing: I don't "feign" jack-shit, and you should know that by now.
Only after I called the store where I bought the stuff did it occur to me to try plugging the monitor cable into one of the other openings
Oh, gosh. When you use "jack-shit" like that I know I've over-stepped some Pennsylvanian equivalent of the Berlin Wall. A Freudian slip, of course. I feign all the time trying to encourage pity and offers of free apples. I shall now return to Feigning School and brush up my act.
"Patting myself on the back", otherwise boasting. But there I go again as Reagan said to poor befuddled Carter. In fact we all boast the minute we press the first key on the keyboard. We assume that someone will want to read what we've written and in this instance there's no difference between assume and hope. However when someone responds does "boast" still apply? We have created one of the links on which society is based. As in the previous apology (This one hardly deserves that label; it appears to be coming apart at the seams) I boast as much as I feign. Shamelessly. How? I frequently use big words which I only partially understand. Sometimes I misuse them and am found out and have to crawl into a corner. Which I am doing at this very moment.
I have the short legs, tall desk/chair problem too. Isn't it annoying? And achey! I saw this wonderful foot rest in an office last year. Kind of like a rubber cheese wedge. I considered mugging the beurocrat and running off with their wedge, but short legs don't run fast and beurocrats have no sense of humour... :-\
BB, I apologize for my rude response to your comment. I left my manners somewhere else.
Michelle, I'd love one of the rubber wedges, too. We could tag team the owner of that one and leave false trails for him (her?) to follow.
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