5 Jun
2008
5 Jun
'08
6:57 p.m.
I arguably my first vintage computer invaded by
apparently teeny tiny critters once! I had the box, a
TI PC, stuck in my parked van for a winter anyhow. I
fired it up one day, and nothing happened, and the fan
would only budge intermittently. I opened it up and
*something* doo doo doo doo, tore up all sort of paper
and insulation to make a really suave pad! Thing is
the opening were pretty small. I have trouble thinking
it was done by insects, but I cannot imagine a rodent
fitting through any of those openings. It was skeery!
--- schwepes at moog.netaxs.com wrote:
I've had the issue twice. The first time was a
Heathkit stereo where
a bad capacitor killed the transformer and the
second one was an Acer
286 that had a mouse problem, biological kind.
bs
On Wed, 4 Jun 2008, Tony Duell wrote:
> I can understand worrying about something
that's
not been used for
> a few years, but if you check everything
that's
not been used for
> just a few months, when do you have time to
actually _do_ anything?
Well, if I am using a machine every day, I don't
check it every time
(there's no point, the PSU could fail in the
time
between checking it and
reconnectin it to the logic :-)). But if I get a
machine out that I've
not used recently, then, yes, I do check it.
It doesn't take me long. I've probably done it
before, so I know what to
unplug, where to connect the dummy load (if
needed) and the meter, and so
on. In come cases, I've built up test units,
in
which case it takes even
less time.
And 10 minutes, or so, spent checking the PSU is
easily a lot less than
the time it would take me to sort out the damage
caused by a
malfunctioning PSU.
-tony