Monday 24 August 2015

Keeping it simple

Today, I was reminded that, just because a problem is complicated, its solution doesn't have to be.

I have a very expensive MacPro, which I use for video editing, animating etc. Some months ago it started behaving strangely. The fan would power up and make so much noise that it sounded as though the computer was actually trying to take off! Shortly after this, the computer would crash and I would lose any unsaved work.

Needless to say, this is very frustrating and it's been costing me money.

I have spent hours since then, reading blogs, scouring forums and tech support pages trying to find out what the problem is and how to fix it. Suggestions have ranged from deleting everything on the system and re-installing (took over a day and achieved nothing) to updating the system software (achieved nothing) to gradually removing memory chips to see if that resolved the problem - it didn't!

In the meantime I am having to use my second system, which is way slower and very frustrating to use while my lovely MacPro sits there looking pretty but about as useful as a chocolate teapot.

Finally, this morning, I came across a post on an Indian website in which the author described a very similar problem to mine, which he solved by removing his graphics card, taking off the cover and hoovering the dust out of the fan housing with his mum's vacuum cleaner.

I swallowed my pride and my skepticism and did the same thing - except that I used my own vacuum cleaner; not my mum's, of course.

Five minutes later, my system is running perfectly and I can use it without wearing earplugs again.

It is surprising how often starting simple and gradually getting more complicated works better than the other way round