Another PC?

       It did not take long when I was approached to fix another unit. A speedster by year 2004's standards. An IBM Netvista 8305 with a P4 processor and packing 256 megabytes of memory. Though it wasn't  the first time this old dude conked out. It was a long story that it landed on my hands and I was able to repair it about a year ago. As I had expected, something is bound to get wrong with it.

      Given the trigger happy youngsters whose hunger for online games are not to be taken for granted, who else should I be pointing my finger to? The primary problem they had was that of not being able to connect to the internet. It's a problem alright. But it's a big issue for me personally. That is if the only reason for them for wanting to go onto that wonderful realm called cyberspace was because of War Craft or some other online games. Incidentally, the first time I scan checked their hard drive, one "cold" it caught came from a game folder called Frozen Throne.  This aside from the many other careless downloading both from the internet and from a number of input devices. And as I had always reminded anyone, with regards to handling essential machines like it, about what bizarre situations viruses can do to you. For these kids, it would be their worst nightmare ever.

        Anyway, a soft spot somewhere tells me to just go and try fix it. Besides I reckon it is always best to provide after-service support. Be it with a fee or for free.  

        To begin with, I figured I don't need to do any invasive procedure anymore on the patient. Did some software checks, deleted temporary files and cookies, removed a few unwanted programs (all of them are games by the way and, all the while,  seeing the kids about squirming in their seats watching me burn their pet programs in ashes), and reinstalled the operating system. On each and every step I did, tried to reconnect to the internet and failed all the time. This made me decide to resort to reformatting the 40 gigabyte hard drive. Now I can see the same kids around turn pale thinking maybe now all their files and games going into a kinda permanent, dishonorable discharge. Never to be seen again. "See, I told you so!", I seem to say. Proceeding, I inserted the disc into the drive and began formatting. Next, reinstalled everything else. 

       Then for the moment of truth, I clicked on the browser. Voila! Still pale and almost grief-stricken, the lads now appears to be able to muster enough courage to put up a little bit of smile on their faces. Well, it only took me to finish two bottles of ice-cold Red Horse beer that afternoon. A couple more in the evening to sort of celebrate the day.