Thoughts on being sick and having a dead computer

February 10, 2009 by JD · 4 Comments
Filed under: Macintosh Computers, Musings 

The last two weeks have been interesting.

In late January, I was sick for about a week and just didn’t feel like doing much of anything. On top of that, I’m still going through Mom’s personal papers and some of her notes about the pain she tolerated for years and the gradual abandonment she felt as her friends visited less often were depressing to read.

Normally, I’m a rather optimistic person, even though I’ve been trained to look for problems over the last 30 years. Still, I plan for the worst and hope for the best.

But, for about a week, between being sick and depressed, I just didn’t feel like doing anything and it was one of the lowest weeks of my life.

Finally, last week, I started feeling better and I came into my office and booted my computer. It came up, as it normally does, and I was copying some files into a new folder in preparation of writing them to a CD when my Mac suddenly froze up.

This is not something I expect from a Mac. Of the several I’ve owned since 1984, I’ve never seen one do what this one did.

I tried to shut it off, but eventually had to unplug the power cord when nothing else worked. I let it sit a few minutes and then I plugged it back in and hit the power button.

Nothing.

What!??!

I was ready to panic, but it was too early in the morning and I wasn’t awake enough to exert that much energy.

So, I sat back in my chair and started wondering what was wrong.

But, I didn’t have enough time to really deal with it, because I had a couple of appointments later in the day and I started preparing for them.

I pulled out my old iMac and at least I was able to check my email and write a couple of documents.

The next day, I started thinking about what I was going to do to get my computer up and going, again.

I wasn’t worried about losing anything, because the computer has two harddrives and I make regular backups, but I needed that computer working if I was going to get some vital work completed.

I tried a couple of things I knew, but they didn’t work.

Finally, late on Friday afternoon, I contacted Bob Nunn at Operator Headgap Systems in Memphis, TN.

Bob is a Mac genius and knows more about Macintosh hardware and software than anyone else I know. I’ve purchased a couple of refurbished Macs from him and some other peripherals and it was the last computer I bought from him that was having the trouble.

When I got him on the phone and started describing what happened, he told me step by step what I needed to do.

I’m not a hardware guy at all. I hate opening a computer’s case, but I love to dig around in the software.

He told me to unplug everything, open the case, remove the battery, press the CUDA switch, press the front power switch, replace the battery, let it sit for a few hours, and then plug it back in and try rebooting it.

Now, I didn’t even know a Mac had a CUDA switch, and I’ve been using them since about a week before the original Mac was introduced. (I was a computer salesman and bought one after participating in a demo before they were introduced.)

It was Sunday morning, before dawn, when I finally had the time to work on this. Frankly, I put it off all day Saturday, because I hate doing anything with computer hardware.

It took only a few minutes to do what he told me, and then I let the system sit a few hours while I worked on email on my older computer.

When I reached a point where I was ready to tackle it, I plugged in only the power cord, the monitor, and the keyboard and mouse.

I prepared myself for disappointment, because I’d never seen a computer that wouldn’t do anything come back to life after pressing a couple of buttons.

I pressed the power key on the keyboard and heard the familiar chime as the computer came back to life.

It took several minutes to start up, but when I came back with a fresh cup of coffee, there was my familiar login screen with a list of users I’d defined.

I clicked on my main account, entered the password, and everything loaded as expected. I had to reset the date and time and a couple of preferences, and it was working great.

After shutting it down, I plugged in the other cables and rebooted and it has been working flawlessly since then.

I was sure it was time to replace the power supply or maybe the motherboard, but Bob saved me a lot of time and money by knowing what was really wrong with it.

Is it any wonder that I buy my computers from him, now?

He told me that now and then he sees a Mac go completely crazy and the procedure he outlined is able to bring many of them back to life. After all the computers he has repaired and refurbished, he has learned some things that many of us never discover.

If you’re a Mac user, you may want to read his Bob’s Mac User Tips page. He has some great advice there.

I’m not one to waste money on buying new computers. I’ve been burned too many times in the past few decades by being an early adopter and living on the bleeding edge of technology. Now, I like to buy computers that are a couple of years old and still in great condition and I don’t use the current release of any operating systems, especially if they’re major version updates.

I’ll let someone else work through all the new-release bugs and I’ll get the system after the issues have been resolved and someone else has paid the price premium for buying the new computer.

With my last four Macs, the average useful life of the computer has been around ten years and I just don’t experience problems with them. Is there any wonder that I have refused to use a Windows computer for about 15 years.

Now, I’m feeling much better and my trusty old Macintosh is once again working flawlessly, as I’ve come to expect.

Life goes on.

If you are a fan of Macs and especially if you have some of the older models, you need to get to know Bob Nunn. He has some fantastic deals on used Macs and be sure to note that the prices on his site include shipping.

I am happy to personally recommend Bob and his business to you.

Act on your dream!

JD

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