Ventilation

Do you remember Clippy, the MS Office version of Gladys Kravitz? Everybody hated him. He was more reviled than Idi Amin, Pol Pot, and Joe Biden combined. There was great rejoicing when Microsoft put him on the guillotine and then placed his severed head on a spike in front of the original Starbucks store in Seattle. But with all the computer problems I've been having lately, I'm wondering if he couldn't be of some service...if he were still with us.

Here's the thing: Pretty much every problem you could have with your computer is accompanied by informational popup messages. Your virus checker is out of date! A new version of Acrobat is about to be installed! Windows demands that you stop what you're doing so that Internet Explorer can be updated with additional search buttons you don't want! And when applications do crash, they generally seem to cheerfully restart themselves and recover your data.

But not Windows itself. When the Blue Screen of Death occurs, all you get is incomprehensible gobbledygook (IRQL is not less than or equal 08x000016, etc) and a bunch of scary text that makes you think fondly of Chernobyl. Once the machine reboots, you might also see a dialog box that says "Windows experienced an unexpected problem and is clueless what to do about it. Al Capone's vault will be searched and Geraldo will notify you if a solution is found there."

My question is this: Why can't we resurrect Clippy to explain these problems? Wouldn't it be cool if he said "Gee, Pal, It looks like you need a bit more RAM, and Best Buy has it on sale at the Bowles and Wadsworth store," or "Dude, the fact that you put your computer's air intake vent right by the fireplace is causing your CPU to overheat and shut down. Why don't you move the unit over by the hamster cage, where the wind from his wheel will solve your airflow problems?"

But no. Instead, we're basically left with the options of buying a new computer, fiddling with every conceivable setting and hardware connection in a vain hope of randomly achieved success, or accepting that the only word processing you're ever going to do will be with a pen, a notepad, and a fifth of Scotch. After all, Hemingway never had a BSOD, did he?

Anyway, when I mentioned my BSOD plague to my son, he suggested that I investigate the airflow issue. And sure enough, the case fan was a bit dusty and the temperature inside the box was approaching the egg-fry zone. So I opened the side panel and pointed my little desk fan at the motherboard and let 'er rip. The bad news is that my computer has crashed once since then...but the good news is that it was able to complete my latest video render project without dying, and it survived an entire night while performing background backup tasks—A vast improvement over the previous few days. I doubt that a fan-based solution is a valid permanent fix, but I'm going to go with it for now.

Since I fully intend to win the Lotto jackpot this weekend, I suppose I can just replace the hunk of junk with an allocation from my newfound millions. But on the off chance the Lotto board conspires to deprive me once again, I may have to look into other solutions.

In the meantime, if you have any good suggestions, let me know. And have a great day!