Bad Hand Day

Got a scare from my computer yesterday. It just suddenly went off without any warning. When I tried to turn it on again, the power LED blinked once, but the system wouldn't start. Even the blink couldn't be reproduced without unplugging and re-plugging the power source.

Clearly a power problem, so I swapped the power supply box. When it didn't work (the only improvement was the stronger blink since the new PSU had higher wattage) I was at a loss as to how to proceed next. Plugged in my housemate's CPU and went on Google. Cleaned up the accumulated dust that I'd been lazy to take care of. Started the long tedious hardware troubleshooting process: stripping to the bare operatives and adding the peripherals back one by one. Luckily before long I discovered that I had connected one wrong pin in the first attempt. =D It is back to work now, with fortunately no component damage.

Well, my fault. My system has been heating up very quickly for a long time, but aside from minimum attempt at better heat dissipation, I ignored it and kept overloading it with external HDDs and overnight operations. With the higher wattage now (480W, previously 350W) it is noticeably much cooler.

Computers, our darlings. Won't do to just take advantage of them without maintenance spending, huh.

It is still pretty noisy though, a problem that started recently. Not a threatening issue as overheating is, I suppose, but I should probably try a few tips as mentioned here in the next maintenance.