Near-Death Experience

[J-sews]

Whew!! That could have been a LOT worse! My precious little baby, a Hewlett Packard zx5000-series laptop computer, suffered a near-fatal illness last week. One minute she was fine, the next minute she was incoherent and babbling. Scary alarm messages were her only means of communication. A trip to the emergency room revealed a dead hard drive with major brain damage. Yikes!

A hard drive transplant is no big deal in a desk top computer, and "only" about $200 in a laptop like mine. But it had been 6 months since I'd backed anything up. Articles, reports for work, and hundreds of family photos were on that hard drive! Irreplaceable stuff.

Fortunately the very talented 16- and 17-year old computer whizkids at the repair shop were able to find and extract everything of value. I'm happy as hell to report that my baby seems to be as good as new, with no missing data! A few hundred dollars and an evening spent formatting and re-installing software is all I seem to be out. Like I said, it could have been a lot worse!

So what went wrong with the hard drive? Suffication due to a major overdose of dust, fuzz, and dog hair. The air intake underneath was completely plugged, which caused the computer to overheat, toasting the hard drive. 

Guess I learned a couple of lessons from this ordeal!

[Grant Lamontagne]

At the risk of having this taken the wrong way (or perhaps in hopes of ) make sure your lap top gets vacuumed regularly to keep the fuzz from building up and affecting your hard drive abilities.

Glad to hear everything is safe and sound though!

Def

[Anthony]

I've had a Dell laptop for a few years...when I play a DVD the fan goes into 'overdrive' after a few minutes...maybe I should look into removing some dust...

[J-sews]

I tell ya', after this experience, I'm gonna vacuum this thing out religiously! And back-up data frequently! ....And floss after every meal! 

[Grant Lamontagne]

Flossing is a very important method of data storage...

Def

[Thargor]

My pc is barely holding it together aswell, Ive been putting up with temperature warnings and random freezes and crashes for about 6 months now, the graphics card is the only decent component in it, most of the parts were all kind of "borrowed" from the labs in college, just got to make it to October so I can build a monster gaming rig to celebrate the release of Grand Theft Auto IV ;D

[Grant Lamontagne]

I haven't played GTA since the first one...

I still have it and load it up from time to time... awesome game!

Def

[Thargor]

My God, you dont watch Lost/Sopranos and you've never experienced the pure gaming perfection of GTA III, GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas? (and GTA II even though its showing its age now). Why are you punishing yourself like this?

[Grant Lamontagne]

I find the Simpsons, Tripping the Rift, King of the Hill, Family Guy, Futurama and American Dad to be much more compelling TV than anything featuring "real" people!

As for games, I mostly stick to RTS types but I have also been known to get into some serious multiplayer action in UT2004, which has all the elements of GTA.  You get to run folks over, shoot them etc.  Sure there isn't any graphic nudity, but lets face it, I am doing this all on a PC- if I want graphic nudity that is quite easily available too!

Def

[Thargor]

I dont know, I think Lost, Sopranos and the Grand Theft Auto games are unique experiences that should not be ignored, they're so completely superior to everything else

If you like RTS though you'll probably be happy to hear that Blizzard have announced Starcraft II at long last , they made us wait way too long for it, probably because all those Koreans got so obsessed with the first one and they were afraid to mess with that cash-cow.

[Grant Lamontagne]

As a security specialist with time in almost every major market in North America, there's little or no interest for me whatsoever in fictional crime or police shows.  That having been said, I would probably watch an episode where the Sopranos are investigated by NYPD Blue or the CSI guys... irresistable force, meet immoveable object!

As for the games, yeah I am pretty excited about Starcraft II but I hope it doesn't turn out to be the HALO clone that I am expecting it to be.

Def

[Raukodur]

Hmm i used to play games. Quite a lot of them, even spent a whole load of time on everquest, mainly as a merchant, before deciding to quit, sold all my money and gear for ~£2000.

Spent most of my time then playing neverwinter nights (online), also enjoyed some single player like warcraft three, mech commander, and a whole load of space simulator fighting games (where you fly around in a ship, or control a group of ships) which I found a great deal of fun.

Don't seem to have time any more though. The time I do have spare (when not doing university work) I spend watching movies, or with the wife. Do miss playing games sometimes, but I'm one of those nutters that once I start a game I get really hooked and have to play it and finish it as quickly as possible. Therefore I don't bother starting any games since I know I do not have the time to spare to finish them.

Maybe when I'm retired, although by the way British law is going regarding retirement age, that might take another 60 years+.

[NutSAK]

I tell ya', after this experience, I'm gonna vacuum this thing out religiously! And back-up data frequently! ....And floss after every meal! 

Keep in mind that vacuum cleaners can build up large amounts of static electricity.  Static does not play will with magnetic media or solid state electronics.  While I've used them before with no problems, it is not recommended.

My advice:  Buy yourself a few cans of compressed air and use them once a month or so.  Blow "across" the holes to keep the dust from going deeper inside the case.

[J-sews]

Thanks for the good advice NutSAK, that makes a lot of sense.

[Mike Micklea]

Hmm i used to play games. Quite a lot of them, even spent a whole load of time on everquest, mainly as a merchant, before deciding to quit, sold all my money and gear for ~£2000.

Spent most of my time then playing neverwinter nights (online), also enjoyed some single player like warcraft three, mech commander, and a whole load of space simulator fighting games (where you fly around in a ship, or control a group of ships) which I found a great deal of fun.

Don't seem to have time any more though. The time I do have spare (when not doing university work) I spend watching movies, or with the wife. Do miss playing games sometimes, but I'm one of those nutters that once I start a game I get really hooked and have to play it and finish it as quickly as possible. Therefore I don't bother starting any games since I know I do not have the time to spare to finish them.

Maybe when I'm retired, although by the way British law is going regarding retirement age, that might take another 60 years+.

Ugh... Everquest took up too many years of my life!  Neverwinter Nights is still one of my favorite all time games.  NWN2 in my opinion was a total disappointment though. 

You liked space simulators?  Did you ever play Freelancer?