Dead Again

Let me start of by saying I didn't spend four years majoring in Fine Arts learning how to take a computer apart. That being said, I took my computer apart.

I came back from my audience with the Dog Whisperer to find that the house smelled funny. In a house with both a dog and a cat, something that smells funny enough to stand out from all the other "funny" smells, smells pretty damn funny.

I put the dog up and sniffed my way around the house. The attic smelled like attic, the basement smelled like basement. I smelled like relief. But I couldn't find the funny smell. I kept sniffing around, literally, and discovered the smell was strongest in the office. I looked at the dog to see if looked guilty about setting off some sort of time release dog odor bomb but she was wearing a gas mask and flipping through a PETA pamphlet detailing escape options. I finally tracked the smell down to the computer.

But, but, I need my computer! It can not be making funny smells! I don't wanna have to face the computer rehab place again so soon after the last time! And for sure this they would charge me for the repair - unlike last time when they ate the charge because it went off the wagon again so soon. And I don't speak computer, so all my explanations about its symptoms - I told them I thought it might have had a stroke or something, were met with these Stuiped Human! looks from the tech guys and knowing silences. Fine Arts Major! People, give me some slack.

I was taking some comfort in the fact that funny smell wasn't smelling like smoke funny. But still? It was a funny smell. Coming From My Computer!!. The last several times it had issues, it didn't smell funny. It didn't work, but it didn't smell funny. This time it smelled funny but it worked

Before I took it apart.

I called Brosky and told him about the smell and he said turn it off, you know, now and I said, well, I had to do some stuff and check my email and then I turned it off. I have priorities. He said take off the case and see if anything inside looks like it had been on fire recently. So I did that. It took a while because its put together likes some sort of Chinese puzzle, but I finally got it into parts and I didn't find anything. The machine as a whole didn't smell, it was just one part. I did find a very old, crunchy rubber band and a lot of dust, but nothing with smoke damage.

Okay. So I put the case back on and went to turn it plug everything back in and possibly, turn it on. No dice. In the taking apart of the case I caused one of the pluggy things to fall back into the case, and I couldn't plug in whatever plugged into the pluggy thing. So I took it apart again and held the pluggy thing up manually while I plugged whatever plugged into it.

Snap, Crackle Pop and this time with genuine funny smoke smell!

Crap!

So I unplugged it again and pulled out what pluggy things I had managed to plug in and I went to see what had just snapped, cracked and popped. I couldn't find anything and I was wondering if I should put the machine in the basement or outside like I did the time my vacuum cleaner smelled smoky and freaked me out.

But as I was thinking about that, a voice said

"A Hard Drive Is Not Like An Over Heated Vacuum Cleaner. You Should Not Put It Outside… Even If It Does Smell Smoky."

So I didn't do that. I called Brosky and he promised to come over this week to look at it but he was pretty sure it wasn't something a trip to the computer rehab place was going to be able to fix. A trip to the computer hospice, though… Waaaahhhhhhhhhhh!