Computer Geeks and Their System Care

Ever hear the quip about a plumber's sink is always clogged and a mechanic's car never runs?

Well most of the geeks I've worked with were in an environment where we spent most of our time repairing everyone else's computers while our own systems...well, they worked, but they were cobbled together in a style that showcased a "let's get it working" methodology.

Cases would have missing panels, video cards weren't screwed in, cables were loosely attached...the lab was a mishmash of parts and wires running all over the place.

I was reminiscing over these memories because my computer, a rather stocky system with hardware RAID mirroring and some neat little additional features all assembled (rather nicely, by the way) by the folks at Puget Systems about three years ago or so for me at a decent price at the time...suddenly started making a rumbling noise.

I recognized the sound as an errant fan. The thing is that peering through the clear plastic window on the side of the case (yes it has internal lighting; I had them do it when I ordered because I'm not a case modder, if you can tell from my previous description of my own systems and those of my friends usually were Frankensteinian concoctions) I counted no less than four fans plus one hidden in the front of the case, and that didn't count the mini cooling fans in a 5 1/4 slot on the front of the case as well. One of the fans was buzzing.

Bearing going bad? Something loose? I couldn't tell offhand. A quick smack on the case would make the buzz disappear for a few minutes but then it would return. I opened the side panel and carefully prodded the fans. I found that if I gently lifted...applying slight pressure, that is...the giant fan covering the graphics card on my system the sound seemed to stop. Let go of the fan and the card drooped slightly and the sound started up again.

Great.

Several years ago my wife bought me a neat Transformers watch that came in a collectible tin in the shape of the red Autobot symbol. That tin happened to be the right height to prop up the video card...so now there's an Autobot symbol facing through the plastic window on the side of my computer, applying enough pressure that the buzzing noise stopped.

Part of me questions the wisdom of putting something metal in there to do that. I figure I'll need to order a new video card at some point to swap it out. I take comfort in a couple of things;

1. Computers are sensitive to shorts. If you short something out it'll generally die right away. Trust me. I slipped a screwdriver many many many years ago while a computer was running and the end hit the legs on the memory chips on the motherboard; Windows NT (yes, it was a 3.x version of Windows NT) blue screened on me. Whoops. Rebooted just fine though. Lesson learned. Sort of (obviously).
   
2. Computers are EXTREMELY sensitive to goofing with the video card. If that card slipped a little out of the slot or overheats...generally any little problem with the video...the system will crash HARD. The tin slipped into place and the system kept right on chugging along.
3. Most shorts or issues will have the machine shut down rather than blow up in a massive fireball. So far...nothing that I know of has happened.
   

This doesn't mean that it's wise to put that into the case. I figure it's a temporary measure until I get around to ordering a new video card. In the meantime it just gave me a few moments of reflection on memories of the past. And, of course, make backups of my data.