"I had a heart attack because of my computer" association

I just lived through a terrible experience I wanted to share - not shaving related - and maybe start an association to regroup people who had a similar experience to help each other live again, without anticipation of catastrophe or nightmares.

I am actually full of work, and at the same time making job applications for next year (yes, you are reading me well, they need one year to choose and appoint somebody to a place of Assistant professor). In order to accomplish that mission, I needed to talk to a friend in the US to discuss my applications (I am applying all around the world). So, I prepared everything on my Mac (a present from my father dating from less than two months ago - my old PC died) and was browsing the web waiting for the evening to make the video conference. And I am sure you can guess what happened...

Firefox crashed. Annoying, but nothing special... I closed all other programs, and switched off my Mac. Pushing the button to restart and... nothing! only three beeps repeating every 10 seconds. Grey screen, horrible noise... dead. :rant:

First thing... a call to the emergency line... after a few minutes of description of my problem, the verdict: RAM problem; I needede to go to a Mac Doctor :cry: Hopefully, there is one not far from my home. Entering what looked like an informatics cave full with Mac Geeks, I presented myself and the unfortunate beeping dead computer to the secretary. She was friendly, filled up the form, and said: "the computer will be ready next week". NEXT WEEK :eek: *heart attack* I don't know how I managed to say that I couldn't wait THAT long... I had a video conference appointment in the evening... the nearby Mac-Doc-Geek said in a law voice: "it is impossible. Next Thursday maybe"; and taking the computer from the hand of the secretary he begun to work on it.

Not working
Trying to remove and change one RAM
Not working
Testing
Not working
He said, almost to himself: "the RAM is dead"... I wanted to say: No, I am dead but didn't - my mouth like sand, sweating, white as a sheet of paper.
He said again: "need to change the RAM. Now that everything is made in China..."
He changed the RAM and switch on the computer again.
Not working
He said: "there is a problem with the hard disk"... I don't know how I could manage to say without fainting: "but I switched it off correctly, no problems. I always switch it off when carrying it..."
He tried to boot the computer and access it from an external hard drive.
Not working.
He said: "we'll need to format the hard disk again. You'll have to bring me your time machine backups. Maybe it will work". And as he was saying that, as I was praying for a divine help, the software to re-organise the hard disk begun to work.:confused:
And after half an hour, my computer was back to life!!! :y:y:y

I decided to change its name for a more adequate one: Lazarus!

Now, after all this adrenaline strike, I am calming down with my loving wife, drinking a good beer, and thinking of a possible future as professor.

All people who have died because of their computer, unite!

That's why I usually buy cheap generic PC's.. They're easy to work on, parts are easily obtainable and all of the possibilities that you mentioned would have taken a couple of hours to take care of. The only downside is that the new ones coming out now run on Vi**a (the reason why I am running Linux on this one) :eek:

Oh man - I had a cold sweat as I was reading that. Similar thing happened to me several years back just as I was finishing my thesis. It all ended well in the end, and I was able to get the machine working again.

I backed up and went and bought a new computer the next day.

Glad things worked out for you in the end Ockham - and good luck with the job. I know how much effort those jobs take to get. I'll be rooting for you!

James.

I've had some major issues, but mostly cause computers have been a huge hobby of mine for the past five years.

I remember countless nights in college where I'd have crashing issues and refused to go to sleep until I had everything up and running perfectly. Once I get to troubleshooting, I just can't seem to stop.

I've backed off recently now that I've gotten quite into straights; my last big computer project was setting up my watercooling system on my gaming rig (which is in the same, double-wide case as my fileserver). That was... I don't even remember, but sometime last school year.

I once managed to screw up my thesis, a couple of days before having to hand it in.
It sucked, but I have always been paranoid about having daily backups, so I lost only a day of work.
In this day and age, USB keys are your friend. I always copy important stuff to USB storage.

Eeek. I hosed my Mac during a firmware update...the folks at the Apple store were great...I didn't lose anything...the tech made a copy of the entire HD to my external drive and I just had to copy over my files to the MacBook. Still scary.

Rules:

1. Backup hourly.
2. See Rule 1.

Also, what the tech did, you could probably do yourself if you got the steps and watched him in detail.

I've had more problems with PCs than with Macs....much of which I attribute to Microsquish and some of their resource-hogging apps.

MS Outlook...the world's only virus with a GUI.

:rofl2:

Being in the computer industry I know exactly how all you feel. One thing I learned early is have a back up plan. If I asked a few of you what type of back up plan you have and you had to stop to think about it, then you are in for a world of hurt sooner than later. They can be as simple as an external hard drive or as complicated as an online backup utility with a redundant network server. Personally I have 2 external hard drives in rotation that I have copies of anything personal (photos, videos, music, and documents). Everything else can be replaced. Start researching now before it's way too late. :cool:

WireBeard - I love that Outcrook quote, too bad it's true

What a bummer. Anything important of mine is backed up pretty regularly to a different hard drive or kept in the cloud. I've got everything I need to resuscitate a Mac or PC though, so unless all my rigs go down, I shouldn't be too hurt by it.

For those of you with multiple systems and a Mac, invest in a firewire cable. You can hook that mac up via firewire and access the harddrive like an external. If you're a Mac only type person, you can use it to write images back onto the harddrive, making things extremely easy (assuming you know how to use it). I bought a good firewire cable just for that!

The absolute worst time you'll ever have though is when a harddrive literally dies. When freezing and tapping just won't do it, and there's absolutely no way to access it unless you send it in to one of those expensive recovery companies. That's a rough thing to have to tell a client:cry:

Scary! Glad everything resolved ok.

Bad luck with the ram but bear in mind hard drives have a limited lifespan especially in laptops. Always be backed up.
The software is pretty bombproof but things that spin real quick can break real quick.
I'm an early adopter of OSX (2001) and till now only had to reinstall the system 3 times. Always due to a hard drive problem of some sort.
" There are 2 categories of computer user. Those who have suffered a total drive failure and those who haven't - yet. "

I've murdered many systems and I keep a fire extinguisher right nest to my desk... no foolin! I overclock and do extreme benchmarking using phase change units that I build. Phase change freezes the cpu and north bridge and video processor. Bringing a cpu down to -100C + does have it problems... condensation is a killer and I've had 2 boards go up in flames (see fire extinguisher). In the past year I've killed a Q6600, 2 E8600's and a Q9550 along with 3 of the motherboards they were on. Right now I have a C1 stepping Q9550 to 4.2ghz on a p35 board..... nice a stable.... for now.:D

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Originally Posted by myfreakinears

Being in the computer industry I know exactly how all you feel. One thing I learned early is have a back up plan. If I asked a few of you what type of back up plan you have and you had to stop to think about it, then you are in for a world of hurt sooner than later. They can be as simple as an external hard drive or as complicated as an online backup utility with a redundant network server. Personally I have 2 external hard drives in rotation that I have copies of anything personal (photos, videos, music, and documents). Everything else can be replaced. Start researching now before it's way too late. :cool:

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At work I have the fileserver which hosts daily backups of every important server.
It has a RAID5 disk configuration, and we backup the fileserver weekly to LTO3 tapes.

At home all important data is on my workstation with hardware RAID1 disk config, and backed up regularly to external USB disks. 1 of those disks is always off-site.

What I really want is an LTO drive for in my workstation.
But for the money they cost, it is just not going to happen any time soon. :(

Still, my solution is better than what 99% of the computer users do, which is usually nothing.
I know several people who lost months of important family data in a disk crash. none of them had backups. :gaah:

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Originally Posted by denmason

I've murdered many systems and I keep a fire extinguisher right nest to my desk... no foolin! I overclock and do extreme benchmarking using phase change units that I build. Phase change freezes the cpu and north bridge and video processor. Bringing a cpu down to -100C + does have it problems... condensation is a killer and I've had 2 boards go up in flames (see fire extinguisher). In the past year I've killed a Q6600, 2 E8600's and a Q9550 along with 3 of the motherboards they were on. Right now I have a C1 stepping Q9550 to 4.2ghz on a p35 board..... nice a stable.... for now.:D

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Dude...
:bow

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Originally Posted by denmason

I've murdered many systems and I keep a fire extinguisher right nest to my desk... no foolin! I overclock and do extreme benchmarking using phase change units that I build. Phase change freezes the cpu and north bridge and video processor. Bringing a cpu down to -100C + does have it problems... condensation is a killer and I've had 2 boards go up in flames (see fire extinguisher). In the past year I've killed a Q6600, 2 E8600's and a Q9550 along with 3 of the motherboards they were on. Right now I have a C1 stepping Q9550 to 4.2ghz on a p35 board..... nice a stable.... for now.:D

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Sweet Jesus man...next time you decide you might fry one, just send it my way. I run an abused computer shelter where the most rigorous thing we load up is video software and games. We like to treat all computers nicely and with respect:rolleyes:

I've been doing this sort of thing for 20 years now, ever since I had a 286 with 1 meg of ram. It's sort of like drag racing computers. :shrug: I really like doing this and I get promo boards from some manufactures just to test them, so that does cut the costs a bit. There is also a lot of swapping and trading going on in the overclocking forums. I build phase change units for people and that makes money too $$$$. Here's a couple pics of one unit that is now running right next to me. The unit uses 2 rotary refrigeration compressors and it is all fitted into a nice sound proofed box. The 2 braided lines have evaporators on the ends that are clamped to the cpu and video cpu's (crossfire, x1950xtx). The whole unit in box weighs about 75 LBS.

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...n/Cascade1.jpg

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...n/cascade2.jpg

Denmason, so how far would you say that a Q6600 can be safely pushed? ie... no super cooler...
Photoguy67

Man, what the hell IS THAT THING? Supercooling does what? Seriously, WTH is that? ("Are you boys cooking in there?" "No." "Are you making an interoceter?")

Processors can run faster the more juice you pump through them. Unfortunately, that also increases the heat, such that it will eventually cook itself. Denmason has basically attached a refrigerator to the cpu, chipset, and video card so that heat isn't an issue.

Looks like that thing will make some good hooch. Send some my way <g>

GOOD LORD denmason. That thing must take some power to run as well.

My pc is pretty simple....just 3 fans, one on the powerfeed, 1 on the processor and one on the videocard.....but seeing that thing makes me wonder how hard I could push them all.

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Originally Posted by Photoguy67

Denmason, so how far would you say that a Q6600 can be safely pushed? ie... no super cooler...
Photoguy67

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With a good heat sink and fan you can take them pretty easily to 3.6 and be stable.

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Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

GOOD LORD denmason. That thing must take some power to run as well.

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Yes, I do see the cost on my electric bill......:p It's like running an air conditioner.

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Originally Posted by Quick Orange

Processors can run faster the more juice you pump through them. Unfortunately, that also increases the heat, such that it will eventually cook itself. Denmason has basically
attached a refrigerator to the cpu, chipset, and video card so that heat isn't an issue.

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What the hell do you even need a computer to run so fast for? Does it speak to you and read your brain waves? Really, I'm kind of stunned here. Just... why?

Ah... So if I understand, boost the electricity through the unit so that programs run faster, and use the refrigerator to keep the components cool. Is that it? That thing looks like it will become self-aware at some point. And then make me nachos.

Luckily Macs never crash.....


Or has that now been exposed as a blatant lie?


Sorry to hear of your travails, Ockham. I hope you get the job!

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Originally Posted by Philadelph

What the hell do you even need a computer to run so fast for? Does it speak to you and read your brain waves? Really, I'm kind of stunned here. Just... why?

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Why?.... Cuz it's fun.:D

Happened to me in january - managed to get life support(linux) to run for a week when it died again permanently. Nothing but one corrupted hard disk was salvageable. Goodness knows what happened.
I lost everything. All my work, documents, photos, EVERYTHING!
Absolute nightmare - now I will never keep important stuff on my PC, no matter how safe I think it is.

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Originally Posted by nickyspaghetti

Absolute nightmare - now I will never keep important stuff on my PC, no matter how safe I think it is.

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There is no problem with keeping stuff on your PC, as long as your PC does not contain the only copy.

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Originally Posted by Photoguy67

Denmason, so how far would you say that a Q6600 can be safely pushed? ie... no super cooler...
Photoguy67

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I can push my Q6600 over 3.7 Ghz with water cooling. I never really pushed her on air, but my limiting factor is actually the VRM temps and not the CPU temps. That was kinda frustrating.

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Originally Posted by holli4pirating

I can push my Q6600 over 3.7 Ghz with water cooling. I never really pushed her on air, but my limiting factor is actually the VRM temps and not the CPU temps. That was kinda frustrating.

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Slap on some heatsinks and fans or water blocks. There are a few different kinds of heat sinks that will fit on your VRM. Also get some Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound... stuff works great. For the heat sinks you might look at ThermalTake stuff, they might have what you need.