My computer is down. Well, one of my computers is down – the main one, the desktop, the one I do all my serious stuff on (even blogging). My house has been a hotbox for some time now and until the new AC unit gets installed, there’s not a whole lot I can do.
When I came home last night, I shook the mouse to wake things up. I hit the keyboard. I noticed everything was strangely quiet. I pushed the power button on the tower. Getting annoyed, I pushed the power on the UPS. Nothing is starting up. And it comes to me quickly, then. The power supply is dead. It’s not an uncommon occurrence and it’s one that most people don’t give much consideration. But not me. I’ve had times when my power supply dies and it becomes a scramble to get a new one to get back up and running quickly.
And the last time it happened, I said I wasn’t going to be scrambling anymore, so I bought a spare power supply and left it in its box in the closet. If my computer ever decided to crap out again, ha. I was going to bring it right back.
But that night, I just wasn’t in the mood. I had settled down with a nice snack at my desk and was munching on the apple slices staring at my dead tower. In my head, I ran through the hassle of changing the power unit. Not only all the cords and cables plugged into the back of the tower, but all the wire runs and connections inside the tower, too. I continued to eat apple slices and procrastinate as much as possible, because I just wanted to do stuff. Not that stuff.
Finally, I got down on the floor and started yanking cables out the back. Might as well get this over with. I took the tower out to the kitchen where there’s good light and a big work surface. Popped the case open and started unrouting all the power cables. Inside the case was a collection of dust, which is expected and was all cleaned out. Ready to go? Let’s start the bullshit of putting in the replacement.
I went to the closet, fished out the spare power supply and noticed, huh, it’s a 430 watt unit. The one I just took out is a 500 watt. Part of me was concerned because I did have a lot of hard drives in the tower, along with other modern pieces that might use a lot of power. But it should be fine. It will probably be at its limit, though.
I open the box and pull the new power supply out and take it to the tower. Then I see that this just isn’t going to work. The power supply was too old for my tower. When I bought the power supply, which was many years ago, the power standards were different. I wouldn’t be able to power my hard drives with this power supply.
The replacement power supply had a bunch of:
when I really needed a bunch of:
So I was stuck. Off to Amazon to buy two new power supplies: one for now and one for later. Am I dumb for possibly getting myself stuck in the same situation next time? I don’t think so. It’s just an insurance policy. You may never use it, but you pay for it in the rare event you need it. Some people carry spare tires in their car. I don’t have anything in my car and luckily have never needed it. The one time I had a flat, I filled the tire up and drove the car really slowly to the service center. If the situation’s ever really bad, I’ll just call roadside assistance from my insurance company.
But anyway, this time, my insurance policy was expired. I tried to cash in on the policy and it was invalid. So I bought another policy. It will be in tomorrow.
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