Got a computer in today-an old Dell Optiplex. As soon as the front people brought it in, I knew it'd be trouble-the computer had scorch marks around the power supply, for starters. It was dirty, smelled faintly of burning plastic and dusty. Complaint was that he couldn't burn CDs.
Now, I know what you're thinking-poor Acolyte is going to have to open up the computer, discover the dusty equivelent of The African Lion Safari*, and write it off.
Well, you're half-right. I opened it up, took it over to the air compresser, blew it out and also removed a shattered CD from a DVD drive (Yes, CD in a DVD drive).
I took it over to a bench, booted it up...and was greeted with, quite possibly, the best running Optiplex of it's age I've ever seen**.
I was stunned-by all rights, it should have been a doorstop. Nope, ran wonderfully. The power supply tested fine (On later inspection, it was revealed to be newer then the rest and, thus, probably hadn't caused the scorching around it-I just couldn't tell at first because of the dirt and dust.) The CD and DVD drives both worked fine-I tested both several times. Everything else checked out.
I'm not sure this was an amazingly lucky SC, or a really good practical joke.
*You know-the dust bunnies had evolved to dust elephants, dust lions, roaming herds of dust gazelles...
**And, when I was on helpdesk, had to turn 13 similar Optiplexes into firewalls and small servers. This one ran better then any of them, and the 13 had been reasonably-well kept.
Now, I know what you're thinking-poor Acolyte is going to have to open up the computer, discover the dusty equivelent of The African Lion Safari*, and write it off.
Well, you're half-right. I opened it up, took it over to the air compresser, blew it out and also removed a shattered CD from a DVD drive (Yes, CD in a DVD drive).
I took it over to a bench, booted it up...and was greeted with, quite possibly, the best running Optiplex of it's age I've ever seen**.
I was stunned-by all rights, it should have been a doorstop. Nope, ran wonderfully. The power supply tested fine (On later inspection, it was revealed to be newer then the rest and, thus, probably hadn't caused the scorching around it-I just couldn't tell at first because of the dirt and dust.) The CD and DVD drives both worked fine-I tested both several times. Everything else checked out.
I'm not sure this was an amazingly lucky SC, or a really good practical joke.
*You know-the dust bunnies had evolved to dust elephants, dust lions, roaming herds of dust gazelles...
**And, when I was on helpdesk, had to turn 13 similar Optiplexes into firewalls and small servers. This one ran better then any of them, and the 13 had been reasonably-well kept.
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