It all started with a break-in. Our little flat was broken into and the bastards stole both of our laptops, the playstation and a few games. I suppose it shouldn’t have come as too much of a surprise to us considering that we live very near to Glen Innes.
Losing the technology wasn’t a problem since both laptops were about 5 years old. I was most upset that the stupid buggers made off with my backups, obviously thinking they were a playstation game. Anyway, with the insurance money we went ahead and bought a gaming desktop, a decent laptop and a new slimline playstation with wifi controller (not to mention a number of deadbolts).
So far so good.
About a week after getting the desktop, I was playing my new game (world of warcraft, woo hoo) and it turned off! Yes, that’s right. My desktop machine simply turned off. It then refused to turn back on until a few minutes. Now, as a programmer, I have had a number of problems with computers, but I have never had hardware turn off and then only turn back on after a lot of cursing.
This carried on happening for about a week or so until, one fateful day, it turned off never to turn back on again.
No doubt, we were pissed.
We immediately suspected the power supply unit (PSU). After a call to the suppliers, Sarah was surprised to hear that their returns process was very efficient. This, obviously, made us suspicious.
True to form, it’s only a few weeks later and the computer is making beeping noises, telling me the machine is about to overheat again. It helps if I take the side off it and fan it with a piece of cardboard. Now, you try killing night elves with one hand on the mouse and the other fanning the innards of your desktop PC and you will realise that this just isn’t working.
So, I trawled through the web thinking about ways I could cool down my overheated machine. I mean it’s the middle of winter and it isn’t that much of a beast anyways! I toyed with the idea of super cooling but that Fluorinert stuff is expensive.
So, I splashed out and bought some accessories that I hope would make my geeky electrical engineering friends (you out there Izzy?) nod in approval, or at the very least wouldn’t make them howl with laughter:
I’ll let you know what happens when I connect it all up. To be honest I think a better power supply will fix everything. The piece of crap we have at the moment is an iCute 320W Single Fan (don’t let them give this to you with the box, just tell them to send the bubble wrap instead). I think I might take it apart and play with the shiny bits inside though.
Ooh, shiny!