Last night, I was just drifting off to sleep when I heard a strange noise. Sort of like mini-blinds being swatted by a cat. Now, this was strange as both of our cats were on the bed with me. I got up and looked around the apartment to see if a squirrel had gotten in (again) or somthing along those lines, but couldn't find anything unusual other than a vague sulfur-ish, gun-powder-ish smell in the dining room (which also happens to be the computer room). I figured I was just crazy so I went back to bed.
This morning I woke up and went to the computer and was rather surprised when I hit the magic switch (a switch I wired up to turn on the power-strip where my monitors, speakers, and printer are plugged in) and the monitors didn't come on. I also noticed that it was very quiet (well relatively so). In fact, my desktop machine didn't seem to be on at all. This seemed odd, since it's the only one of the three computers that's on a UPS. I hit the power switch (which is made more complex by the fact that I broke the switch on the case off and so have to reach through the hole in the case to the switch behind it) and... nothing.
Long story short... a resistor in the power supply had blown up (minor scorching and little ceramic bits floating around in the power supply). This was distressing. So I had to go get a new one this afternoon, and install it.
It turned out to be one of the easiest repair/replacement jobs I've ever done on a computer, so that's a good thing.I salvaged the fan and a fuse from the old one, also a bunch of wire. (Yeah, I'm a packrat.) I'm trying to get the power switch out but it's not cooperating. Anyway... that's my little computer saga for today.
The lesson: if you smell sulfur in your computer room in the middle of the night, check to see if the computer is still running.
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