Just an amusing side note WRT cMP reliability. We had a house fire about a week ago, and lost pretty much everything- the fire, smoke, and water damage was pretty comprehensive. My wife and I are fine, and all our pets made it out as well- quite miraculous. When I was able to access the scene to see what might be salvageable, I found that when the ceiling collapsed in my office, it formed a crude sort of drywall tent over most of my computer gear. That protected it from most of the direct heat (but unfortunately, not the smoke, steam, water, and chopped fiberglass blown-in insulation from the attic).
My Thinkpad and a couple of random windows boxen (in rackmount cases) are profoundly dead. My Macbook Pro boots and pathetically limps along, but half the screen backlight is dead and the touchpad melted, so it will have to be put down (G'bye, old paint). But the 2010 cMP? After a couple of hours with flux remover, Q-tips, and Kimwipes, shop air to blow out the soot and insulation, and some TLC: the thing booted right up and works great. All the fans even work. I was downright gobsmacked. I'm typing on it now, as it has been my daily driver since new. All ~10TB of internal disk, mostly SSD, made it through- didn't lose a byte. (On edit: but now I note that the internal speaker sounds kinda scratchy. Gee, wonder why?)
It's nice to have a touch of normality amongst all the upheaval. The thing is ugly (I couldn't get all the carbon off the case), and literally smells like hell, but works just the way it always has. A trashcan MP would have melted just like the other plastic wonders (and my monitors and eSATA peripherals and on and on). When I build our new network once we find a new home, I'll be renaming this machine Timex.
So for those of you who wonder why some of us still have a irrational love for these aging machines: here's one unusual and amusing reason. And be safe out there!
My Thinkpad and a couple of random windows boxen (in rackmount cases) are profoundly dead. My Macbook Pro boots and pathetically limps along, but half the screen backlight is dead and the touchpad melted, so it will have to be put down (G'bye, old paint). But the 2010 cMP? After a couple of hours with flux remover, Q-tips, and Kimwipes, shop air to blow out the soot and insulation, and some TLC: the thing booted right up and works great. All the fans even work. I was downright gobsmacked. I'm typing on it now, as it has been my daily driver since new. All ~10TB of internal disk, mostly SSD, made it through- didn't lose a byte. (On edit: but now I note that the internal speaker sounds kinda scratchy. Gee, wonder why?)
It's nice to have a touch of normality amongst all the upheaval. The thing is ugly (I couldn't get all the carbon off the case), and literally smells like hell, but works just the way it always has. A trashcan MP would have melted just like the other plastic wonders (and my monitors and eSATA peripherals and on and on). When I build our new network once we find a new home, I'll be renaming this machine Timex.
So for those of you who wonder why some of us still have a irrational love for these aging machines: here's one unusual and amusing reason. And be safe out there!
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