In nearly eleven years of computing (yes, I know, mere beginner) I've
never had a single component die on me. Ok, one hard disk froze, but only
after I'd sold the PC it was in, and a sharp tap cured it & it ran fine
afterwards for as long as I knew the owner.
Oh, and then of course there was the time I tried to upgrade a friend of a
friend's RAM & HD. RAM went in fine... look at that massive 8Mb purr! Then
I got***y and tested the new HD while balancing it on the side of the
case.
Yes, well, HD falls off into PC and... survives perfectly! Sadly the
motherboard didn't. Rumours that said friend of friend was able to get it
fixed under warranty don't make me feel any happier about the memory.
Anyway, the point is (there's a point?) in all those years I've never had
anything die in one of my PCs until just now. I fired up N2003, having
decided recently that to "celebrate" Papyrus's demise I really *must*
invest a little time in learning to race in packs without becoming Mr
Yellow Flag.
Well, I *tried* to fire it up. But N2003 wouldn't start because although
the drive was spinning, N2003 reported the disk couldn't be found. Worked
fine yesterday.
<shrug> I'll reboot in a while and see if something got confused or the
IDE cable dropped off. In the mean time, swap the CD to the DVD drive and
fire up the sim. Bingo! Off to Daytona we go. Into Qual, pull out onto the
track and...
What's that smell? Did Papy model tyre smoke *that* well? Why's the screen
frozen?
"Oh shit!"
I reach out and hit the reset button. The PC starts to reboot. But hang
on, why the f*ck am I resetting it? I know... it's BECAUSE I'M
PANICKING!!!!!
I reached out again and unceremoniously yanked out the power cable, then
ripped off the side of the case to see where the smell was coming from.
The CPU? The motherboard? Was this my chance to get rid of this annoying
NF7-S that's never hit 200MHz without throwing a wobbly? Had my 9700Pro
died and given me an excuse to buy a 9800Pro, or pre-order an x800?
Can't tell. Everything seems to stink of dead electronics. Not a good
sign... and neither is my headache. I must have absorbed almost as much
PCB as your average blue whale seems to carry around with it these days.
I get out the torch, peer around for burnt bits, use my nose to try and
locate the problem... making my headache worse. Nope, nothing. Ok, turn on
the PC with my hand poised on the power cable again... so far so good.
Lights, fans, boot sequence, stuff on the monitor.
Go on, let it boot... <waits> Boots fine to XP. Mmmm...
Oh, hang on. Now I remember the CD drive problem. I wonder if...
Yes Andrew. I wonder if removing the CD drive, then opening it up will
reveal a *** bit of burnt plastic around where a small chip has
obviously died a very hot and spectacular death.
RIP one August 1998 vintage x36 CD drive, I commend thee to the landfill.
Or at least the nearest ecologically sound dump bin for electronic goods
(which then gets emptied into the nearest landfill, I'm sure, eventually
contributing to PCB in the groundwater, rivers, oceans, and whales. Mea
culpa).
This has been a totally pointless waste of bandwidth. If I never post
again it's because I've poisoned myself on *** chemicals ;-)
Andrew McP