The computer and I crash. One of us is repaired

Succulent flower currently open by the bird bath

Succulent flower currently open by the bird bath

The weather had changed a few days back and cold fronts were now rolling in with snow on the mountains and at Oberon. The changes were sudden enough to  be attacking my joints with old Arthur-itis and the pain was coming in long waves that all the painkillers in my arsenal did not touch. There was very little sleep over this period as well.

I like the cold normally. I leave the house open when I am in bed at night and have warm downy duna and a hot water bottle. The cold is crisp on my cheeks when I am sleeping. My pleasure over that might be down to the fact that I was born and bred in a very cold part of the Victorian Hinterland and cold, nasty winters were a feature before global warming started making the place warmer.

Thursday, after the usual bout of insomnia, the community worker came and drove me to Bunning’s big hardware store so I could figure out what was needed to line the garage and take back the space for a studio. Three hours of limping back and forth and my body started to seize. I had been in emotional turmoil the whole time and recognize that as a sign of exhaustion. The garage has been a possum house and prison for my art equipment for the whole five years I have been here and I couldn’t stand the thought that I might not at least get a feel for what I could do to get it back to usable space.

The worker had to help me into the house. I was bumping into things and could only get up the front stairs very slowly. Among the things I had obtained from Bunnings was a set of shelves and some builders plastic. The idea was to line the shelves with plastic as I built them so they provided a possum proof storage area and I could start moving all the art supplies out of the back room, With my body now so stiff I could barely move it took a painful several hours to get the shelves plasticized and built. It was finished by about eleven pm and my eyes were shutting on their own. I was walled in by pain.

Even so, sleep was broken by bouts of more pain and at five in the morning I gave up trying.

The computer had broken again and the guy had been unable to come back for several days. He was due Friday morning. I was desperately tired and my body had seized up to the point where I could only walk slowly. I had a stance like Popeye. The kitchen was buried in clutter and dirty dishes so I wedged myself against the sink and washed and cleaned. First the dishes and then the stove and surfaces.  Just before he was due I noticed there was no milk to offer him coffee. Every step was causing me to grunt but I hopped onto the scooter and went to the bakery for a bottle.

Ten minutes after he was due to arrive he rang me to tell me he would be unable to come until Saturday.

I needed the computer. I could hardly move. There was nothing to do but read or watch day-time free to air TV and sit with all that pain and illness.

I opened the tower of the computer and started pulling things apart. Every fan and vent was cleaned. All the memory and graphics cards were cleaned and repositioned. Every time I moved my arms or my body shifted on my knees there was a burst of pain and I would let out a loud grunt. It must have looked and sounded awful. The SATA cable was replaced and the DSUB feed to the monitor was replaced with a digital one. All of the other cables were re sited and checked to make sure they were tight. The pins and sockets were all either burnished or polished with a brush.

The power was turned on and it started immediately. My head slumped forward and waves of savage pain went through my joints. I was suddenly aware that I was in trouble. It took all of my strength to fight my way to my feet. My body had seized almost totally. I had to throw my weight forward and around to take a step and I was sucking up pain to do it. I can describe the pain level. On my first day at Kenpo martial arts when I was a about seventeen years old the instructor had us doing sets of three hundred stomach crunches at a time. I was fit but had not done that much specific stomach exercises. The stiffness over the next three days was so bad that I was doubled over for the whole time and could not get up stairs. My girlfriend had to help me to sit and I couldn’t get into a car.

This time I went to the bathroom and took a double dose of painkillers and then to bed. All that took a long time even though it is only a tiny apartment. In bed my vision had closed down to a pin point and then I could not open my eyes or roll over. There I stayed until I got up this tonight. It took quite a while to maneuver my way to the computer and I hurt all over though much less. I feel less than well and am slumped.

Ken from Cornerstone Computer Connections turned up Saturday Morning after I wrote the first version of this entry. He had a determined look on his visage and when I told him I had it working he ignored me and sat at the desk in front of the keyboard. “I think you are going to have more problems with this.” he said. “I don’t think we have it cured. Don’t worry this is after sales service!”

He spent hours running deep memory and other tests, taking things off the machine and testing again and again looking for problems. The power supply seemed unstable at times so he fitted a second-hand unit he had.

He felt that the power supply was one reason I have had ongoing problems. There was and is an ongoing problem with the RAM and he recommended I replace it with faster and better quality gear. He told me he could supply it and then gave me a list of other suppliers such as Megabuy (they are my favorite right now)and suggested I look around before I see if he can beat the price

To be honest Ken is the first guy I have had working on my computer in over a decade who made me feel the machine was in good hands. We spoke a lot about computing, electronics and security. I wasn’t surprised to find he had a good understanding of all that and was happy to talk about it.

The other guy I had fix this machine treated me like a fool and I never felt anything but unwelcome in his shop. He used crap parts and did a half-arsed job. Ken Farlow is a big change from that and I feel good about the machine and it’s prospects into the future. The other guy left me dreading the possibility I may have to get it fixed

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