Disembowelment

Not as if it’s news or anything, but my PC’s been giving me hell recently since a really long time. I think I’ll write out the entire story.

I think it all started around the ‘Boreds’. Basically, in my anticipation of them ending, I had gone on a download spree of sorts…TV shows, movies, games, you name it, I torrent it. That was probably a mistake. Those days, my PC was on for days on end, and from previous experiences, I know that that’s not good in general for my PC. Stuff overheats, thermal paste turns to powder i.e. in general, sh*t happens. One of the things I downloaded was Burnout Paradise.

By the way, that’s the first Burnout that’s been releasd for the PC. It’s simply an awesome game. Amazing graphics, addicitive gameplay, and the crashes…oh the crashes…they’re beautiful. This is best left to another post or something. Anyway, this game is very, very resource intensive. Even at the lowest resolution, getting full quality is a big thing to ask for. So I was cruising Paradise City, and I start hearing this crackling sound from the speakers. My first thought was some wiring issue. But then it progressively got worse. It was funny, cause sometimes I could hear the car perfectly, then city sounds.

And then my system crashed with a BSOD… By the way, after my semi-harrowing experiences over the last 2-3 months, I have newfound respect for the true meaning of the term Blue Screen of Death.

A few restarts and a bit of experimenting later, I found that it was a weird heating issue, which meant that my PC would work fine, as long as it wasn’t running a 3D app.  I also found that Alt-Tabbing myself out of the game was a temporary fix, as it allowed my system to cool down. My 8600GT with stock cooling was touching the mid-90s, which although isn’t system-threateningly hot, but is definitely a matter of concern. Meanwhile, the BSODs were mysteriously fluctuating. Sometimes, just a few minutes of iTunes visualiser could spark off an episode, while in other cases, half an hour of Burnout didn’t bother my system.

Then the problem progressed to stage 2. The PC refused to POST. By this I mean that there was absolutely no response from the PC. No beeps. Nothing on the screen. Just the sound of hard drives and fans whirring to life. And this too apparently randomly fixed itself. Draining all power from the PC, by switching off the UPS and just letting the PC be for a few minutes also sometimes helped. Once the PC was running, it would either crash shortly after POST or run fine. I admit I did worsen the situation by letting the PC run for a day or two when it did end up working, which meant it conked out for the next two days or so.

Once it got really bad. It had been in a coma for three days, and I even went to Nehru Place to scout for replacement parts. Then I got back, and thought, well, let me pack it up. I was dismantling the entire thing. And once I was done, I noticed this pretty small and insignificant chip marked ROM…well not actually marked ROM, but my manual said it was the ROM chip. I fiddled around with it, and I could even prise if off with a screwdriver. It wasn’t a chip embedded into the PCB, but just fitted into a slot. Well, after I cleaned it and fitted it back snugly in place, I fired up my PC, and heard the most joyous error message. It didn’t matter that my RAM wasn’t in place, I just sat there for some time, listening to that beautiful sound.

The next few days, everytime it refused to boot, I just reached through the now-open cabinet door, reached through the mass of jumbled wires and cables, and pressed down on the ROM chip. This worked most of the time. In short, all was well…or was it? <cue ominous drums>

Naturally this wasn’t to last. I had left it on for a prolonged period, and then left my house. Came back to notice that the power was gone, my UPS had died, and so had my PC. This time I really thought it was gone. After a few days, decided to try the disembowelment + pressure points method. I found that in fact, my ROM chip enclosure was broken. A bit of careful refitting later, I heard the error messages again. It’s been OK since then. And I’m not going on any mad downloading sprees. It’s now acting like a normal PC, with proper rest and all.

In the light of recent events, I’ve realised my PC has a personality of its own now. The problems it throws at me, are probably unique in the sense that no other PC may actually have the exact same combination of problems at the same time. So I’ve decided to give it a name – Dick. Go figure…

A word of advice – if your PC ever gets cranky like mine, just disconnect the hard drive power cables before you do anything. All that turning on-turning off can lead to a hard drive failure, especially for older hard drives.