Source Guru

Yes, that toything. Hehe.

Ok, so after one of my Flatmates decided to tread on my wireless dongle (which I had trailing on a long USB cable down the stairs outside my room so I could actually pick up the signal!) and break it, I haven’t used my Desktop machine in a good few months. It was pretty much of a case of without internet access, it was pretty useless other than for watching DVDs on (which is when I’d boot it up) - so I used my eeePC instead.

Anyway, I went out and bought a nice new PCI Wireless card today - no chance of it being trodden on. And I got a nice one with 2 aerials, for connectivity purposes (and I can say - it’s boosted my signal from what was on average 15% on the wireless dongle to on average 65%!)

I’m happy and actually surprised that Ubuntu picked it up straight away, and even used the settings from my old Wireless dongle to connect straight away!

Anyway, after a while, I hardlocked…. I hate hardlocking… tis so annoying. So I rebooted into the Hardy Installer CD (This still has Gutsy on) and tried an install… Another hardlock…

Uh-Oh I thought …. and ran memtest86+ - no problems… Try again.. another hardlock.

Ok, reopen PC to see if wiggling the wires does something…. OW! I burnt my hand…

My PC was seriously overheating.. So - I had a look - MY PSU and CPU fans were clogged up with orange dust. :’( damnit.

So I took a walk down to Maplin and went and got myself some compressed air… Something I’d learnt from my IT Technician days was a godsend for cleaning CPU Fans.

Anyway, My PC is now sparkly and shiny inside, and on a plus, I’ve gotten rid of the annoying rattle it’s had for the past year… I thought it was the CD drive… as it would always stop when I whacked the CD drive (another trick I learnt as an IT Technician!)

So yeah - I’d suggest that any geek out there goes and invests in a can of compressed air (or ‘airduster‘ as it seems to be branded these days) - It is the magic computer fixing tool… if it can’t be fixed with compressed air, (and/or wiggling the cables) you might as well replace it - it’ll save you time and stop you banging your head against the wall

I just wish I’d thought and taken photos of how dusty it was (It was orange dust too - which was strange… I think the dust puppy’s are becoming Ubuntu themed)