[MSN Spaces] Spectacular electronic death.

I have the distinct feeling that my LCD monitor at work is going to blow up in my face. Maybe I should give you a brief history of my spectacular electronic deaths. They might be few in the grand scheme of things, but I'm sure I've had more than my fair share. For an older writeup and more detailed history, check out my forum posting at TeamPfeffer.com.

Let's see... The first spectacular death happened back in 2000, when I was working with the Canadian Coast Guard. I had built a computer up from our spare parts bin with which to mess around. The hard drive was way too small, so I went back to rummaging through the bin in search of a larger drive... that worked. Since I was swapping drives in and out all the time, I never bothered to formally install any of them. I just connected power and IDE, then booted up with the drive resting in the cage. This was never a problem until I grabbed a Seagate drive. I haven't dealt with too many Seagate drives since, so I don't know if their design has changed, but the design of that drive was just stupid. The ICs were flush with the bottom of the drive. Since the drive was just sitting on the (BARE METAL) cage, when I powered up the computer, up it went in smoke. There was a nice, big, bright arc of electricity from the drive to the cage. Several burnt and destroyed ICs later, the drive was thoroughly gone. The pungent smell of burnt electronics filled the air as my reward.

The second spectacular death happened about one and a half years ago. I had acquired a brand spanking new computer for myself at work and had just spent the day getting it all set up to my liking. I even loaded up a bunch of music to listen to while I worked. So there I was, blissfully unaware of what was to come. I pulled out my earphones and plugged them into the front jacks. The monitor went blank. "wtf?" A few seconds later, *POOF*. The motherboard had blown. I won't get into the details of how and why, but suffice it to say that the techs at Discovery Computers are (were) dumbasses. Oh, how easily old memories are brought to light by the smell of burnt electronics.

The third spectacular death happened about three months after the second spectacular death and is related. After getting the motherboard replaced, we (me and the tech) tested my headphones with the jack and it all worked out fine. So I continued to use them and listened to music at work. Everything was fine and dandy for awhile, but then it all changed in an instant. One day I went to plug in my earphones and the screen went black. All I could think was "" and "Not again?!?!". I flipped the power off and waited, hoping against hope, that it would still work. I unplugged the earphones and flipped the power back on. Nothing. Well, nothing at first. A few seconds later *POOOOOF!*. This wasn't the same *POOF* as the previous time. Nooooo. This was a LOUD *POOOOOF!*, accompanied by a BIG, bright flash out the back of the power supply. If any time you knew a computer was dead, this was one of those times. Ahh, the smell of burnt electronics. How quickly we become intimate bedfellows.

So yeah. On to possible spectacular death number four: my LCD panel. I've always generated a lot of static electricity. I used to get shocked by my old car all the time. Now that I no longer have a vehicle with cloth seats, that's not so much of a problem anymore, but I still get the occasional shock. It only gets worse when I wear my fleece jacket. As I take off my jacket when I get to work, I can feel the large field of static electricity surrounding my jacket and body. If it was all dissipated in one go, it'd be enough to kill small rodents. Knowing this, and knowing that electronic devices don't particularly like static electricity, I discharge myself on the metal bits of my chair.... which works to a point. Even with most of the charge dissipated through my chair, turning on my monitor gives a nice stinging shock. That can't be good. To delay the (probably) imminent, spectacular death of my monitor, I discharged myself on the metal frame of the whiteboard behind me this morning. It stings and is irritating, but I'd rather that than a LCD monitor blow up in my face. But then if it does, I'll have another story to tell... and I'll get to see my long lost friend, the smell of burnt electronics.

That is all.