Computers do not like coffee…
Posted in Life on 06. Jun, 2010
For those of you NOT on a reader… you will notice I am lifting the face of the blog. Still playing with the design, so patience is a virtue. I promise though, I won’t take too long in my playtime. Full change coming soon. It’s just so darn fun to play.
In other news, I almost fried my computer on Friday. I offered it, quite forcefully, a cup of coffee. After I forced a shutdown, took off the back and dried it off, I panicked. I then left it to dry for 24 hours during which I prayed like a mad woman.
Dear God, I didn’t back up my last couple chapters of Deglan Rising… please help.
Saturday morning, I saw the kids and husband out on their trek to Texas and then cleaned the carpets… Still praying the computer would accept my peace offering. I understand it doesn’t like coffee… I am sorry I tried to force the issue.
I screwed it back together, powered it up and BRILLIANT… Saved all my documents and felt happy again… I love thumb drives.
The “no more coffee” sign posted on the HDD is a good reminder to me that it wants to stay un-addicted. I can handle that and I even figured we could still be friends… with benefits. I don’t feed it coffee, it starts up for me.
Enter Sunday morning when it refused. Just flat out said, NOPE not going to have it.
Enter Eisley freak out. I think there were tears… because like a wise young (ahem) woman I am… I wrote three fabulous chapters yesterday and didn’t back them up. Oh yeah, I am a really looker, but where’s the brains. *headdesk*
It was getting stuck on the windows status bar… loading loading loading…
Freak out… @LisaIri on twitter saw my freak out and slapped me. Thank you Lisa… She then sent me over to her awesome DH @LabyrinthRat… who then slapped me. Thank you Lab. He told me what to do… and I did it… with a few modifications. I took the whole darn thing apart… and washed it down with alcohol. Alcohol dries much more quickly then water and well, quite frankly… water on a circuit board freaked me out.
I let is dry thoroughly and then stuck it all back together and prayed, “Dear God I promise to NEVER offer my laptop coffee again. I know it’s an addiction and I ask you to help me NOT be a stumbling block to this DELL. -Amen.” Okay, maybe it wasn’t quite like that… but it was close.
So I press the power button and… I said I press the power button… PRESSES HARDER… NO FREAKING POWER. *headdesk* I killed it, I fried it, it’s dead. God wanted to teach me a valuable addiction lesson about computers and caffeine, I am almost sure of it.
Enter James Tanks… Friend in town who knows computers… After pleading for help, he goes thru all the possible things… “… maybe you disconnected a jumper…”
You mean I have to take 40 screws out again? Yup… not once… but twice more… trying to find the jumper/something/anything I might have disconnected. And cleaned some more yummy hazelnut flavored junk from the board.
BINGO! Found a flipped jumper thingie doohickie (technical term) that needed to be flipped BACK to the right way. Ohh and another, Go me. Flipped it over…. Screws back in… NOTHING!
*cry cry cry*
Took all the screws out again and took all the jumpers off the board one by one and put them back in after wiping them clean… still praying.
It worked… Sorta. The machine powered up but still remained STUCK on the windows status scream.
I am sure I have a few new grey hairs. Besides the point…
I threw up my hands in defeat! Told the thing I was sorry for the last time and then just left it trying to boot up… dang thing. Hoped on my kids laptop and posted the woe is me to twitter… I think. I can’t remember, because about twenty minutes later… I heard the freaking thing BOOT UP!
SHOCKED and perplexed, my computer started up and has been running fine since! I did save my documents and anything else that I thought needed saving… and I am writing to you from it right now.
*shakes head*
I have learned my lesson… Computers do not like Coffee. It may seem like a good idea at the time… it’s not. Just don’t do it.
That is my PSA for the day.
Related posts:
- Coffee talk… It’s Wednesday and I am sitting here with my cup...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
I spilled coffee on my laptop once. It died too. I had to take it apart and dry it by hand, then leave it sitting overnight to get the rest out. I mean, it only fritzed the keyboard, but that was bad enough. Glad you got the computer fixed, good lady!
Maybe next time as the computer if it’d like some tea….