Old computer in new case

I think that I haven't blogged about the problems that I've been having with my home computer. Looking back, I discovered that I bought the computer two years ago, and it's served me very well over that time.

About a month ago, the computer suddenly started turning itself off after about an hour, which made it very difficult to do any serious work with it. After checking, it seemed very likely that the fan in the power supply was no longer working (it had been making very suspicious noises previously and then was surprisingly quiet) and the computer was 'clever' enough to turn itself off before it overheated. I sent the computer to two different places in the hope of getting it repaired, but nothing was done, apart from cleaning out all the dog hairs which had accumulated inside.

After these 'repairs', the computer was still turning itself off after an hour. I spent one Saturday programming, with a very close eye on the clock: whenever an hour would go past, I would save everything, turn the computer off and then do something else whilst the computer cooled down. Obviously it wasn't possible to continue in this manner, and I transferred my development environment to my mobile computer. Whilst developing (or porting) on the mobile has definite advantages (like being able to sit on the balcony in the early morning and work amongst the bird song), I don't like working with the small keyboard, and the screen is poorly lit. I also don't have Office installed on the computer (my company tries to save on licenses), making debugging any automisation code impossible.

I am on holiday all week, so I decided that this would be the time to settle the computer's fate. I opened up the case yesterday and realised that I can't do anything with the computer's innards, as the (very neatly engineered) contents were developed specially for this model. I took the computer to a nearby repair shop, and this time the repairman suggested that he transfer the motherboard, disks and assorted card to a new case (which would have a more standard power supply).

This he did, for the princely sum of 350 shekels (about 90 dollars), and now I have a computer which seems to work properly. It's been on for five consecutive hours, I've done a virus scan, several compilations and downloaded email; the computer has performed perfectly, and is totally quiet to boot.

It seems that the power problems are passed (and past).