You know you’ve been working too hard when your *computer* gets tired.
On Wednesday night I was working late and I went upstairs to make dinner. I left my computer on because I wanted to finish up some stuff after we ate. When I came back downstairs the computer was off. Or sort of off. An orange light had replaced the green light that normally glows when it’s happily running. I tried restarting the machine and thought maybe something bad had happened, so I downloaded the latest Windows patches. (When in doubt, blame it on Windows.)
I was at meetings much of Thursday, but nothing seemed wrong with my computer. This morning I turned it on and at about 11:30, I found out what really happened the other night. I was highlighting some text and then the monitor made a "zzddddttt" noise and the computer shut off. Uh oh.
I thought, "okay, it’s a 10 year old monitor. Maybe this is my big chance to buy a new cool flat screen." So I swapped out my old 21-inch monitor for another (smaller) one we have around. (The old one weighs a LOT, so this was no small task.) Anyway, I got everything all plugged in, restarted and set to work. After about 5 minutes, again, the computer went "zzddddttt," shut itself off, and glowed the orange light at me. Bigger uh oh.
I figured okay, it’s not the monitor, it’s the video card. Fortunately, I have an extra one of those lying around too. So I took the whole thing apart again and then opened the case.
I pulled off the side cover and was horrified to discover that it looked like some small gray hairy animal had DIED in there. Egad, it was foul. Anyway, I dumped out some of the most disgusting dust and hair, grabbed my anti-static bracelet and embarked on some serious computer interior clean up.
After inhaling 7,000 pounds of dust, I put in the new video card, put everything back together, and turned the computer back on. Almost immediately, and more emphatically, "ZZZDDDTTT!"
Okay, now I was getting depressed. But my computer was cleaner and I’d narrowed down the problem to the power supply. (No, we actually don’t have an extra one of those.) So, I called my favorite computer repair place and they said, "come on down." So I grabbed my unhappy computer and hit the road. They replaced the power supply and blew still more dirt out of the box. I took my clean, happy computer home and all is well.
Sometimes spring cleaning happens in an unscheduled way. When the computer says, "I’m tired and filthy!" apparently sometimes you just have to listen.