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January 2, 2007

Fixing a hot PC; NFL playoffs picture; Vacation report

What I did on my vacation: My computer fan had been getting loud. If I opened a couple of dozen Firefox tabs, it sounded like a noisy air conditioner. Occasionally, it crashed. But it still generally worked --even if it did drown out the TV -- and I had Christmas shopping to do and a job to go to. There just wasn't time to delve deeper.

Finally, in the waning days of vacation, I searched around and found a little free utility called Speedfan that might tell me which fan was failing.

Amazingly, when I ran it, the fans looked fine, but a flaming icon warned that the temperature of my CPU -- the computer itself -- was 67 degrees Celsius -- that's 153 F. (Googling around some more, I found it should be in the 40s.)

Old-house dust. Cat hair. They must be blocking the vents inside the computer.

The HP support site offers a troubleshooting page with diagrams of where the fans are.

Off came the case. Sure enough, solid walls of dust had accumulated. A vacuum-cleaner hose stuffed into a kitchen funnel took care of that.

When it restarted, the computer was nearly silent, quietly purring as it did when it was new (My family pooled their pennies to give it to me last Christmas.) Speedfan now shows the CPU temperature as 41 degrees C -- that's 106 F.

Repair cost: $0.

This is fairly common as computers age. I'll pull the case a coupla times a year now that I know how to prevent this.

Coffee with a 'drop' of milk. This photo by an amateur photographer wows them at DPChallenge, a digital photography contest site. IreneM writes,

It took a LOT of images and about 5 hours of drip, drip, dripping milk into coffee with a pipette to get this one but it’s been worth it in the end. For the lighting I used a Nikon SB 800 on one side of the coffee and a Metz slave flash on the other. The biggest problem I had (apart from getting the splash in the first place) was getting the coffee colour bright enough without blowing the white of the milk.

NFL playoffs: AP quotes N.Y. Jets wide receiver Laveranues Coles (Mangini, Jets face familiar opponent in first round of playoffs):

"I guess we didn't have much luck, I can say that much -- any time you have to go play against the Patriots," Coles said Monday. "They're an excellent football team and I really didn't want to play them in the first round."

That's how I felt about Denver -- but the Broncos were eliminated from playoff contention Sunday by the lowly San Francisco 49ers in overtime. I wasn't looking forward to Indy, either.

But Denver's loss means Kansas City will face Indy this weekend, and running back Larry Johnson could be the Colts' biggest headache. Johnson broke the NFL record for rushing attempts in a season Sunday with 416. In that game he had 33 carries for 138 yards and three touchdowns as Kansas City beat Jacksonville, 35–30. Indy's defense famously can't stop the run, relying instead on Peyton Manning's offensive prowess in the air.

Manning's autopassing could also be threatened by his old Patriots nemesis Ty Law, now catching interceptions for KC.

It's going to be a glorious weekend on the couch.

The playoff schedule:

Saturday, Jan. 6
4:30 p.m. on NBC -- Kansas City Chiefs (9-7) at Indianapolis Colts (12-4)
8:00 p.m. on NBC -- Dallas Cowboys (9-7) at Seattle Seahawks (9-7)

Sunday, January 7
1:00 p.m. on CBS -- New York Jets (10-6) at New England Patriots (12-4)
4:30 p.m. on FOX -- N.Y. Giants (8-8) at Philadelphia Eagles (10-6)

The Super Bowl is Feb. 4.

Broncos tragedy: Rocky Mountain News has extensive coverage of the fatal shooting of Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams in a limo early New Year's morning.

Other vacation moments: During the Rose Bowl, I paused the game and fired up the video of Fleetwood Mac recording Tusk with the USC marching band to show the family.

James Brown, Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein arrived together at the pearly gates, and this time, I just watched, without firing up the forebrain to extrude words. Tabloid Baby stepped up to offer a match-the-tributes quiz.

The Christmas dinner update: All turkeyed out, our family opted for a beef tenderloin cut into Chateaubriand steaks. It was incredibly tender and tasty, and much less labor intensive than rising at dawn to stuff a bird, making gravy and finding burners for all the traditional sides. And, to my surprise, it even cost less.

There were even leftovers after five tore into a three-pound hunk o' meat, but that might be due to the dips and cheese of the cocktail hour before dinner.

I'd definitely do it again. There's way too much going on at Christmas to get frazzled over turkey.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:43 AM | Permalink