bytex64.net/blog

I'll admit, my laptop's pretty old. Not that it's useless. Some people confuse the two, but I argue that advancements in computer hardware over the last ten years serve only two major purposes: playing games and virtualizing servers. Since I don't do either of those with my laptop, I'm perfectly fine with an eight year old IBM Thinkpad T23. However, any machine that ages needs maintenance, and after getting a fan error from the BIOS after a spontaneous reboot, I decided it was high time to inspect the cooling system.

I have a copy of the T2x-series maintenance manual, so getting down to the fan was laid out in easy steps. Foolishly, I decided it wasn't necessary to take off the top bezel, and when yanking out the heatsink/fan, I ripped off one corner of an important looking transistor. Whoops. After dinner, I soldered the transistor back in, cleaned the fan, applied new thermal grease, reassembled everything, and it's now running fine. :)

I'm tellin' ya, man. They just don't make 'em like they used to. I do some pretty stupid shit with my laptop, and the T23 just takes it like a champ.

In other news, Alex's girlfriend found a use for all those little hard drive boxes I get when I build servers:

If you can't read the sign, it says "Fort Petite Chaton." :3