The "Other" Kind of Computer Bug

I'm finally back on line again after yet another computer disaster.

This time, thankfully, I didn't have to buy a completely new computer and didn't have to fork out hundreds of dollars. Whew! However, the problem had our resident computer man, Michael, perplexed for quite a few hours.

We'd had a major power break down in Wangaratta that fateful day and I turned my computer off to save it. The emergency battery powered back-up system worked perfectly so that when the power went off, my computer remained on and unharmed until I turned it off manually.

All should have been well. But, of course, it wasn't. When I turned the computer back on, it ran for 10 minutes then shut itself off. I turned it on again. It ran for 10 minutes and shut down again. After three goes at that and a lot of inventive language usage I called in the expert.

The computer was taken apart and put back together and there didn't seem to be a problem. Nothing was "fried". Everything seemed to be working. Michael was a bit thrown. The machine kept turning off after 10 minutes. As you would expect, the machine is not on when it is being "fixed" and while it was off, there were no visible problems. When taken apart, each separate part functioned perfectly.

Not to be deterred, our intrepid expert powered up the computer and stood back to watch it's inner workings. Everything worked - except the internal cooling fan. So, being a good little computer, it shut itself down to avoid overheating after 10 minutes.

Asking the obvious question, Michael removed the fan to investigate. And there, wrapped around the fan, was the problem.

A great big hairy spider had crawled inside my computer and become wrapped around the fan. Result:- dead spider; dead fan.

I'm glad it wasn't me who had to unravel the dead body from the spindle of the fan. I'm having a hard enough time imagining myself sitting here typing while that enormous "thing" was sneaking around my desk mere centimetres away from my hands. Aaaargh!

Moral of the story? Computers can be killed by "other" types of bugs!

I guess this would come under the heading of "Stupid Things That Can Happen to Computers", and - I swear - it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I'm blonde!!

Catch up with you all soon.