A little past 4 years since the time of its frankenstein creation, my faithful companion has bitten the dust in a puff of black (probably toxic) smoke. He was built of some of the finest parts of his time, which makes him woefully out-of-date now. I was thinking of putting him out of his misery, but didn't think I would be compelled to (my 8 year old Dell which they claim is just old enough to be un-recyclable by them still works fine on the occasions I pull it out). After probably too hard a workout since being taken out of its storage box from the move, the system did shutdown gracefully before the crackling and acrid smell commenced. A first glance after a cool down period did not provide any great clue to what exactly what wrong. Guesses are power supply fan, case fan, processor, or something on the motherboard (wouldn't the puff of black smoke mean a fuse or resistor?). I was planning on replacing everything on it except the drives (which have been gradually upgraded over the years), but if it is just the power supply I might spend 30 or 40 bucks to get it going again. The damn thing was noisy as hell anyway. The autopsy will probably have to wait for a couple of weeks. Sleep well old friend - the computing world is diminished and the continent is a tad smaller.
Posted by shs4 at September 7, 2004 11:51 PM | TrackBackAh, that's too bad. I remember that machine all the way back through mIRC in GA, to MS Hearts, to Playsite Euchre, to a Magic the Gathering demo version, to more Playsite Euchre, and beyond...
Posted by: maggette at September 9, 2004 10:22 PM