Computer Woes, Or the Near Loss and Triumphant Return of Sheng

(For those who don't know, Sheng is the name I affectionately gave my laptop when I first bought it, in honor of every teenybopper Hmong girl I knew who had that name.)

For the last many months my poor laptop has been running really low on hard drive memory.  I managed to delete things (music, mostly) in order to keep open at least 3-5 GB of her once available 170ish.  Eventually, at the recommendation of my technical support representative (more on him to follow), I decided I just had to break down and buy a new drive, and I found a really great deal for one that was 500 GB, which I thought I could surely never fill.  At first I thought I could just add a drive to use in addition to my current one, but I guess my computer doesn't have space to allow for that.  But I was informed that my drive could be cloned to the new and bigger one, so I bought it, but it kind of sat there for a few weeks... I'm kind of hesitant to make big changes like that sometimes because I'm afraid of losing everything on my computer and then where would I be??  Well, I would still probably be right here, but Sheng-less, so I just kind of toughed it out for a little while longer.  My hard drive kept reminding me that it was low on memory, and then one day, for no apparent reason, the whole thing just shut right off.

O.O

Of course that's the expected reaction when your computer inexplicably shuts off.  I waited a few minutes for it to cool down and then booted it back up.  It ran fine, but over the next few days shut off on its own once or twice more, and I noticed it was really hot where it sat on my knees (which is especially no fun when your apartment is already so roasty from the summer heat), so I decided the time had come for me to make arrangements to put it in the hands of the professionals.  "The professionals" is a phrase which here means my brother Matt, who is a master computerman and very, very awesome to always answer my questions about technology.  He's kind of like Kip in that he loves it.  So I let him know the latest developments about the shutting down (which he guessed was due to overheating and fan issues), and put Sheng and the new drive in his capable hands and left him to work his magic.

A day or two later I received an email from Matt with the prognosis, as well as the following pictures, assuring me in the email that "No laptops were harmed in the taking of these photos."

And still a work of art.

I think I started to panic a little when I glanced at this one, before I had read the actual email.

The pictures looked intense to me, and made me realize that while I might have been able to do this sort of thing myself (eventually, after hours of frustration and terror that I was going to do irreparable damange), I'm really glad that there are people with specific expertise for this very thing so I don't have to.  He told me that he could replace the hard drive, no problem, and cloning it would means it would be exactly like it was, but with much more available space.  As for the shutting down, his guess about overheating was right on--the fan was old and grungy and not working properly, so luckily Sheng was smart enough to just shut off when she overheated to avoid doing more serious damage to her innards.  Matt suggested I could either have him clean up the old fan and reinstall it to see if it works any better (unlikely), or I could just buy a new one (pretty inexpensive) and that one could be installed.  Naturally I just bought one and had it shipped to his place, and a couple weeks after I left it with him (oh my word, they do take their sweet time shipping those parts, don't they?) it was back at home and working better than ever!  And now she looks like this:

Just like the day I bought her, which is when this picture was actually taken.  Except my wallpaper now is much more attractive, because it's a picture of me and my stunning wife.

It took a couple of adjustments for her to get her bearings and remember who and where she was, and how to connect to our wireless signal, but now here I am not worrying about space every week when my podcasts download or wondering if she's going to shut down at any moment while she burns up my lap.  She's as good as new, and all of her parts are even better because all of her bolts have been tightened and all of her nooks and crannies have been swept clean.  Nothing like a happy laptop for laptopping.  The only payment Matt would accept for these particular services were fresh-baked cookies (pretty good if I say so myself) and girly giggles (see about 9:30 of the video).

As a side note, I'm kind of baffled by how hard drive space works sometimes, like how defragmenting the disk can actually leave you with less space, or how it might go down just because you open a file or move files around, and I have no idea how I could possibly have filled up 30 GB already...  But I'm not against housecleaning, doing an occasional iTunes sweep to delete songs I never listen to (or ones I didn't even know I had).  Sometimes less really is more.  Remember the days when we used to have towers and stacks of CDs?  Now I have it all right here on Sheng.  Packing my music for vacations is so much easier with an iPod than it was with a Discman and big old case of CDs, oh my word.


Thanks, Matt!  You're the best IT department/technical support ever!  To illustrate my feelings, here are a couple of relevant clips from The IT Crowd.  (And if there's a person in the reach of my blogvoice who hasn't watched The IT Crowd yet, do so forthwith.  Come on over, we have Series 1 on DVD.)  Enjoy:





Sheng returns!  And I'm one happy camper.  If your computer keeps giving you grief, Wife, we'll give her a similar facelift treatment, hmm?

Silent Drive Home...

Hello. We had a lovely weekend in Moab. I spent much of it with an "unsightly growth" in my ear (as Elise would call it), my iPod earbud, providing a subtle soundtrack to my life, especially useful as we walked around and as I spent time by myself, resting or reading. The iPod itself spent most of its time in my pocket, the whole apparatus hardly perceptible by anyone else. We had a great time, watching Todd and Mike golf in the two-day tournament, watching the girls swim in the pool (enough to turn their hair green!), watching good movies, visiting with Grandma and Grandpa, overall relaxing.

The only sorrow is thus: Today, after a nice visit to the Moab 4th Ward for church services and a short walk to see some petroglyphs and some big, red rocks, I went to watch the little girls at the pool. There I was, sitting on the edge of the pool with my feet on the first step, cooling my tootsies, when I stood up to let some newcomer kiddies get in. The one time, of course, that my iPod is in my lap and not in my pocket is the time I stand up over open water... It fell and pulled free of its earbud cord with a sickening splash, falling into water not even a foot deep. The good: I grabbed it immediately, seriously not even two seconds in the water. Some water dripped out of it, and it seems any water that had entered the earbud jack (which seems to have been the only entrance to its innards) exited. It was covered in its leather case (which is actually quite all-covering when closed, and which wasn't even completely wet, when examining the velvety inside lining). The bad: It was 'on' when dropped, and then, when tried, continued to play after being retrieved, but only for about ten more seconds, when the screen went blank and hasn't returned. I also tried to turn it on several times since then, but have decided on the advice of many to wait several days for it to dry completely before trying to turn it on. This seems to be a common problem, and I have much reason to hope (mostly because of this website--luckily mine didn't fall into a toilet). This stupid little thing is too important to me (mostly because of sentimental, but also financial and entertainment reasons), and while there are many variables like and unlike stories I've read online, I'm still hoping that in a few days, my little toy will be as good as new. I've barely had it for seven months.

NOOOOO!

Anyway, other than that, great trip! Nice weekend, and looking forward to this week.

P.S. One more plus--the thing was also wrapped in a protective plastic covering, so that prevented a lot of water from penetrating certain places. Really, I'm only worried about the earbud jack.

P.P.S. No, I did not drop my iPod again into the water to take the above picture. That photo is courtesy of a google image search for "iPod in water".

UPDATE! The iPod is now sitting propped in front of a desk fan, hopefully having a nice drying. Almost two days since the plunge, we'll see what happens in a few more.