I really need to work on my perceptions of reality. I get into the stupidest situations where I'm so frustrated I have to put down the screwdriver I'm using trying to do some ludicrously impossible task because I can picture myself jamming it into my own fucking guts just to make the channel change.
I picked up this computer from M's house. It's a
1999 orphaned NEC Z1.
They're a weirdo all-in-one, no separate box machine (the CPU is built into the back of the monitor screen) that was a bit of an experiment that went out the window when there was some kind of buy-out. So basically there's maybe 11 in existence, no manual, and because they were built as an all-in-one unit, manuals from other machines don't help much. Not that I even have any of those.
Anyhow, I pick it up Tuesday afternoon, crank it up, and there's a user password request. Turns out M had turned it over to a long gone roommate. So I'm locked out of the bastard. Fine. M ran it into the ground by NEVER running any anti-spyware, never defragging, blah blah, so I had anticipated having to wipe the hard drive clean and shit anyways, so a clean install wouldn't be much more work.
I DBAN its ass, then spend hours trying to get it to boot of an XP recovery disk I had. No dice. This goes on for seemingly days. Bad, annoying grouchy days. Finally, I say fuck it, knowing the pricks that be were probably going to want a registration number at some point that I couldn't find either. I look for open source OSs, I find Ubuntu. Can't burn the newest version .iso files. Bash at that for a while. Find a cd install of Hoary Hedgehog I'd burnt last summer. That actually works! Hooray!
Then I start to notice the computer has got that old computer overheating smell. Then it starts shutting itself off. Because I'm using a live Ubuntu install, the thing has to run off a cd rom continuously which is heating it up like a fucking Dairy Queen french fry station.
I think about this for a while an figure out the fan is probably beyond filthy. By now it's Wednesday night. I decide I my as well grab a scalpel and rib spreader and see if I can clean its guts a little. Found a great tutorial from one of The Eleven That Own The Z1 on how to get it into bits. I opened up the power source box which had that cute 'if you open this box you're a fucking moron stickers' on it.
The fan is beyond dirty. It looked like it was constructed of roofing tar and cat hair. I cleaned it as best I could. Then I put the box back together.
Problem. The fan needs to be screwed tightly up against the inside of the box, which can't be done because the screws from the outside simply shove it away into the loose space in the box. I put it back together anyway, put together the whole box, turn it on. Yak tak tak tak tak tak tak tak. Shit. Do it again. YAK TAK TAK TAK TAK GRIND TAK YAK TAK YAK!
Fucking shit. By now I'm accumulating a little pile of tiny unidentifiable chunks of broken-off plastic and mystery screws. I finally start to cry. Yep. I kick over a chair. The cats pack their things and leave. I'm omitting many indescribably frustrating details. I finally poke a wire into the back of the power source box, trying to lasso a blade of the miserable plastic plastic fan so I can pass the wire back out the air intake cut outs and yard the bloody fan up tightly against the case so I can get the screws to attach the thing securely to the inside of the box rather than the screws half-assedly catching and shoving the fan back *into* the box so it will rattle like a motherfucker.
Please God, may you understand, kind reader, what I'm trying to explain there. I manage to do so by holding the wire ends in my goddamn teeth to pull the fan up snug to the screw holes inside. Then the inner metal case of the entire computer back gets all fucky. That's when the bashing starts, followed by the outer plastic case getting the duct tape action.
I have to say, I purposely started this blog entry so I would be across the room from the bastard when I fired it up again and cringed, waiting for the grinding noises, smoke puffs and creepy twin little girls to show up. This was all supposed to segue into the Moral Of The Story which was how I really shouldn't beat the fuck out of myself for failing at shit that's actually A. Really hard - no manual, no experience whatsoever opening a CPU, retarded tools. B. Not my fault - M had that thing looked at by a pro friend of his at least 4 times I can think of, yet they never bothered to clean or maintain stuff like the fan, or even the main air intake going into the fan.
So I tried to do something really fucking difficult; it makes no sense to trash myself that I couldn't magically do it.
But...here's where it gets weird...the beast has booted up, quiet as a mouse, safely too far away for me to fling it out the fucking window from where I sit now at my usual computer. No fan rattling. Not overheated.
This is the point where I jinx it all to hell and back if I say more, so I won't. I will say that the cats have moved back in and are unpacking their little cat suitcases and putting their little cat toiletries back in the medicine cabinet.
ghosty ghosty crocodile
