Why people buy Dells (or why they used to)
I have been having terrible luck with computers for the past, oh, two years of my life. First, my desktop at home died a sudden heartbreaking death (the kind where it suddenly, one morning, simply won’t get up), effectively forcing me to write my dissertation on my laptop (which, incidentally, has led to a rather bad space bar problem with this machine). Then I tried to repair my home machine (new CPU, nope; new motherboard, nope; new memory, nope; switch to Intel all the way, forcing me to by new graphics card, memory, power supply (I hate forced obsolescence), the machine boots but never starts), but found that I simply lacked the time to tinker with it. Luckily, my office machine stayed well, no doubt because of its air-conditioned splendor.
Several months later, I set up the computer desk (a rather lovely Mission alder piece we got at the local unfinished hardware store), and finally got a chance to put the office machine together (as the home machine now). And then I hear it: a clunk of metal on metal as I pick up the tower. Maybe my video card came disengaged (unlikely, since I packed these well). I open it up: the CPU heatsink has fallen off, taking the video card with it in the process. !!! A run to the local electronics store later for thermal grease and the time (really willpower to see this also crash and burn) to do the fix, I finally boot the whole thing up this evening. And it seems to boot. Then I hook up the monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. I turn it on for real, and am shocked to see squiggly bright dots all over the screen. Pure gibberish.
Truly pure gibberish.
What’s gone wrong? I think it’s just a video card malfunction, but maybe the processor is fried (worse, I can’t get the machine to finish booting, I can’t see the error message). Upon examining the innards more closely, I realize that there’s a little piece of shiny copper at the bottom. What is this?
The heatsink shim. I forgot the heatsink shim.
Back off comes the heatsink, I reapply the thermal grease, put the heatsink back on and boot it again. No change.
So it seems that the video card is gone (that’s my hope). So another $50 down the drain. Of course, I can’t use the brand new one for the broken home machine because it is for AGP 8x, and won’t fit in this octogenarian 3 year old board.
It almost makes me want to go buy a premade machine. But then I’m seduced by the thought that only a couple more bucks until it works. It’s a vicious logic, since in the end my time is completely wasted and I’m less productive, because the machine languishes until I can get around to it. I have no love of computer building; I’m really not that good. I’ve broken, I think, one processor in heatsink installation, blown a memory stick, and purchased countless dud products from huckster sites that have draconian RMA policies (this was, kids, in the days before Newegg hit it big). But I continue nonetheless.
And now I wonder why, writing here on my laptopwithoutaspacekey.
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