April 2nd, 2008

Maybe that's how you do it, but around here, we have a different convention for indicating which things are broken

One of the reactions to my story of investigating a dead computer struck me as rather strange. Commenter Steve wrote, “Usually video cards left on a table don’t works well (the one inside a computer have a better probability).” While it’s true that the ones inside a computer are more likely to work, it’s not the case, at least around here, that the cards on a table are unlikely to work well. Many people have a small stash of cables and other spare parts specifically for repair purposes. If you see a video card on a table, odds are that it’s part of somebody’s spart parts stash and works just fine. At least around here, we follow a different convention for indicating when things are broken beyond repair: We put them in the garbage can. Joke-ruining clarification: Or the recycle bin, as appropriate. Computer repair follow-up: Last Thursday morning, I turned on my home computer and it didn’t boot. The symptoms were exactly the same as the previous death, so started with what worked last time: I unplugged the video card. The computer booted up. It looks like my home computer eats video cards. Now what? Do I feed it cheap video cards? Was this just a fluke and my replacement video card happened to be a dud? Are the video cards actually just fine, and it’s the motherboard that can’t cope with them? Do I abandon the computer and start over?

I’m going with option two: Assume I just got a bum video card and try again. But if the second replacement video card also dies within a short period of time, then I’m going to have to decide what I’m going to do with the computer that eats video cards.

Author

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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