Thursday, June 10, 2004

Again with the hating my computer

Even though yesterday's post is marked 8:44 PM on Wednesday, June 9, which is the time I started writing it, it didn't really get posted until a few minutes ago.

This time my computer waited until I had saved my post before it died. Actually, I think it might have been the act of saving the post which was the last straw as far as the computer was concerned. This time it died hard, with a vengeance. Cascade failures and repeated appearances of the blue screen of death weren't enough; now it got itself into a loop where it would boot up so far, begin giving me error messages, and then reboot. On approximately the umpteenth try at getting control of the beast, I was able to run Norton Disk Doctor and found errors that I have never seen before. I was able to correct most of them, but that still didn't cure my computer, as the next reboot was met with another chain of failures. So finally, I decided to shut the damned thing down for the night.

This morning it works without a fuss. I was able to retrieve the saved draft of yesterday's post, spell-check it, and publish it.

I think the problem is temperature-related. The last time I had a problem like this was last summer. Maybe the air temperature of this room is too high. Maybe the computer is running hot, which is helping to increase the room temperature. The clumps of dust I pulled out of the cooling fan couldn't be all that good for my four-year-old PC. Maybe it's time I pop the hood (hood = "bonnet") and have a look inside.

Maybe I'll take the Queen of Spades' advice and look into buying Alienware. But only if it comes with a guarantee to never, ever, ever give me any problems. Ever. I don't want to hate my computer anymore.

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