Computer woes

[Robert_Moriyama]

<expletive> My home computer may have bitten the giant pseudo-banyan fruit (to borrow from R. A. Lafferty). Smell of ozone or burning plastic followed by sudden fade to black of monitor screen = at least one component fried. I was hoping that it was just the video card (an unplanned expense, but easy enough to fix), but it looks like it may not be bootable at all, in which case it'll be new (or at least new-er) hardware and hours of trying to transfer files and especially e-mail to the new beast before I'm back to my full Editorial Powers.<br><br>Suddenly Luddism seems like a good idea (he said, while posting a comment over a network spanning a continent and involving dozens of computers, routers, and relays).<br><br>Robert "My hardware don't unnershtand me" M.

[Robert_Moriyama]

I can't remember what year I bought it. Actually, come to think of it, I bought this one when my PREVIOUS computer died (although in that instance it DID turn out to be the power supply that fried, along with a dead cooling fan on the CPU -- a friend did some salvage work and diagnosed the problem, but I had a new machine by then.) It's a P4 2 GHz, bought when the top of the line was about 2.4 GHz, I think ... so that would be maybe 3 years? 4? 5? I'd check the dates on the oldest software, but I'd have to hook the hard drive up to a working machine to do it.<br><br>As it stands, the machine definitely will not boot. Couldn't find any obvious melty bits where plastic had overheated, but I haven't pulled the add-on cards. Some of the USB ports seem to be dead -- devices plugged into them don't show power lights. Power supply fan and case fan are working; DVD-ROM and DVD-writer and 3.5" floppy drive and C: drive are all getting power. C: drive is making nasty noises (like a bearing is close to failure) -- I HOPE I can salvage the data, as it includes all the Aphelion submissions, and years of saved e-mail.<br><br>I'm looking at getting a new or refurbished 3+ GHz machine -- I should be able to get one for maybe $1400 - $1500 Canadian, including tax. Some parts on the old one are probably salvagable, assuming compatible expansion slots on the hypothetical new beast (certainly the second hard drive, DVD-writer, etc., but probably not the video card, since it's AGP and most newish machines have PCI-Express slots instead).<br><br>A winning lottery ticket sure would be handy about now ... then I could get a REALLY nice machine instead of being a year or so behind the curve (again).<br><br>Robert "There are children starving, and you're whining about WHAT?" M.