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What Was Your Worst Computer Accident?
Anonymous Writer writes "I learned years ago to backup regularly and never keep a drink on the same table as a laptop. I accidentally spilled a drink onto my laptop's keyboard where it drained into the laptop's innards, ruining the motherboard, CD-ROM, and hard drive. Thousands of dollars and all my data disappeared in a flash. Considering that there are even people out there that intentionally damage hardware, I was wondering what kind of disasters Slashdot readers have experienced."
I learned the hard way that backing your data up to another hard drive does no good when the power supply freaks out and fries *everything*...including BOTH hard drives.
Luckily, I had bought matching drives for use in another computer (a total of 4 HDs). By removing the controllers from the good drives and carfully placing them on the fried drives, I was able to get everything back.
Word to the wise, backup and keep off box and off site!
Whoa. Never had that happen to me, and I use acetone quite frequently for cleaning computers... the inside of them at least. It's an extremely good solvent for most things you want to remove from, say, a CPU or a connector (like dirt, grease or thermal paste - especially the residue left by thermal pads from cheap heatsinks is hell to remove normally), it usually doesn't harm what you are cleaning and it isn't that toxic or flammable.
;-)
Spilled a couple of drops of lemon juice on an old Microsoft Natural Keyboard once though... and it actually ate deep pits into the plastic. Hmm... maybe I should try and see what acetone does to it - it is a Microsoft keyboard, and this is Slashdot after all
Nasty - best way to do a "DELETE ... WHERE" if you're at an SQL console is to do ...
:-)
"SELECT something FROM table WHERE conditions"
then, once you're happy that it's showing you the things to delete, backup the command and remove the "SELECT something" and replace it with "DELETE". Much safer
"If you think the problem is bad now, just wait until we've solved it." --- Arthur Kasspe
Hope this Helps,
Sig:Why copyright isn't a fundamental human right
If by reliable components you mean reliable powersupplies, there are a few brands which are well known to be high quality and reliable.
Antec is considered to be the top end for reliability and performance. They contain seperate transformers for the different voltage rails. I have 3 Antec powersupplies in my computers. All have worked great.
Enermax is another maker of very beefy powersupplies. I've got one and haven't had a problem with it.
There's bad news, though. 50% premium? No. Try 200%, if you're used to those shitty $30 powersupplies. A 380W Antec will set you back somewhere in the region of $90. It's worth it, though. Cooler powersupply, cooler system, increased stability due to lower temperature and solid voltage.
Some reviews at Tech-report and AnandTech should give you some baselines to look at.
Random and weird software I've written.
You understand the ways of economics and bussiness. So allow me to enlighten you:
Insurance is a for profit bussiness, at least in the US. The make more money than they pay out. That means, on average, insurance will NOT pay for itself. You will pay them more than they give you back. They set their premiums as such, otherwise, it just could not work.
So why have insurance? Well you have it for things you can't afford to replace, or those required by law. Like health insurance. I pay in $25, and my employer $260, to give me comprehensive health insurance. It covers everything that might go wrong with me, at almost no additonal cost.
Well, if you do the math, that's $3400 per year paid for it. I have never, not even when I got in a car accident and went to the hospital, spent that much on healthcare in a year. I would be much better off financially if I took that money and put it in an intrest bearing account, and used it only for health care needs.
So why don't I do that (pretending for this example that my employer would give me their portion of the payin)? Well because my health is important to me, and repairs to my body could easily exceed my financial means. If I got seriously hurt, or a chronic disease or something, the cost could shoot above $100,000, well over anything I could pay even if I saved the $3400/year for a number fo years.
In all likelyhood, the insurance company will make money on me. However I am willing to allow them to do that for the promise that, if something should go severly wrong, they will loose money on me to try and keep me alive and healthy.
Well, my computer isn't the same. Supposing the whole thing blew up, I'd need to spend about $2000 to replace it. A financial difficulty for sure, but something I could afford. What's more, it's not critical like my health. If I were without a computer for some time I'd be sad (and end up hanging out in my office to play on the Internet at night) but it wouldn't harm me at all.
Insurance like this is only worth it if:
1) The hardware is critical to you for some reason. If, for example, your bussiness relies on it then yes, you want to be covered since the money you loose due to it being gone could be ruinous.
2) It would be financially extremely difficult or impossible to replace the hardware yourself.
If you don't meet those two conditions, you should probably not waste your money on insurance. Instead put that $120/year away, and you'll find that you probably can pay for any failures AND have enough left over to get better hardware.