Maybe it's Munchhausen's Syndrome By Proxy

Computer tech people think that the only phones people use are cell phones, which is why I didn't figure out why no one showed up to fix my computer until I called them. “We left a message on your cell phone,” was, of course, the explanation. Nonetheless, within 20 minutes I had David back in my office, bearing a new logic board for my Mac Pro.

“Funny how much faster this goes the second time,” he said. Out went all the innards of my computer, arrayed in neat rows. Then a special heat-transfer goop onto the CPUs, and the radiators put back in place, then the fan, the hard drives, the PCI cards. Then he plugged it back in. And the fans still roared at full throttle. “What is going on?” he cried, almost in tears. The diagnostic program pointed again to errant heat sensors on a brand new motherboard.

I left. I wasn't of much help, Robin was back home and I wanted to catch up on her day. “Maybe it's Munchhausen's Syndrome by proxy,” suggested Robin. “Maybe you're lonely for company, and this is how you're getting attention from smart geeky people.”

“I think Cody was right,” said David, when I returned to the basement. “You've really pissed off the Mac gods by whatever you've been saying about Steve Jobs.”

“It's the ley line we're on. Or maybe it's a special gift I have. Computer manufacturers should just lend me new equipment for awhile, so I can generate some never-before-seen error for them.”

“Maybe it's the heat transfer mechanisms. Maybe it's memory,”  he muttered. I left to finish the Obama article in the recent Atlantic Magazine.

I wandered back to the basement. “Hear anything different?” The computer was on. It was quiet. David was smiling. “It was the power plug for the graphics card. There's more than one place it can get power from.” Who would have thought. “This is great intel for me,” he said.

“I truly hope we never see each other again,” I said as he left.

Comments

[david adam edelstein]

Years ago my dad proposed a rule for solving computer problems: Whatever the stupidest possible answer is, that's the one that's probably correct. The !()#!*)( power supply for the graphics card? Dang.

[Doug Plummer]

The great annoyance is how many people I had traipsing through here who could not diagnose my problem. And how much money it cost me to not solve it.

But (knock on wood) I seem to have all systems operating, and a great storage setup now.