Hey Computer, NOT NOW Please
A few weeks ago my home computer’s power supply died. Popped in a new one, no problem.
It’s a Pentium III 1 GHz that I built almost five years ago. Still as fast as I need it to be. It started out with an IBM DeathStar DeskStar hard drive, an early 7200x one, which was always overly loud. That died a couple years back, but it didn’t “die,” it just wouldn’t boot as a master. It’s been a slave drive since I put in a new one, working just fine.
Last night our DSL connection went out. Deb came in the living room and told me that, then a short time later she said I had some funky sound file playing on my computer. I came in to check it out. The machine was as I had left it, going squeak clicka clicka squeak clicka click squeak clicka clicka squeak clicka click, etc., and it didn’t go away when all overt programs were closed.
So I rebooted.
Well, the computer recognizes the keyboard and mouse, but doesn’t get beyond that. The rhythm section starts as soon as the machine powers up enough to juice the hard drives.
Yay, Self tech support. Yay, money I don’t have possibly needing to be spent.
Anyway, the possibility exists that the old IBM drive finally gave up the ghost and is afflicting the machine until it is physically disconnected. That would be a decent outcome. The possibility exists that the primary drive died, which would be a serious bummer, since my attitude toward backups is more “do as I say, not as I do” than “be obsessive.” And there’s always the tweaks and settings and little details that fit like a glove, which can’t necessarily be backed up as such. I don’t think it’s at all connected to the CD or CDRW drive. That would be too helpful.
This could also be a delayed result of damage from the power supply dying. That has to make me wonder about the rest of the system. Or it could be that drive that was on its way out two years or so ago, finally going.
Luckily I have a new 80 GB drive at the office, waiting to be a replacement in a machine where a drive dies, or to be used if I need to build a machine. Just in case. Also, ironically, in the car I have a computer from the office. It’s for working on code at home for our beta program I never work at in the office but had worked on very effectively at home before its deployment at one firm.
At this point the phone rang, I talked to the landlord’s sister and learned the story behind Slacker Dude’s girlfriend no longer living upstairs, found out she thinks Sadie looks like me, and reported that the gutter above the front steps needs to be cleaned so we aren’t walking through a waterfall when it rains.
Then I popped the side off, unplugged the power from the old IBM drive that was already partly dead (making it the most likely culprit), and viola, the computer booted! So I can finish this and give Deb her computer back. Woohoo!
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