A business customer calls, wanting to get a new (second) laptop working on his wireless network. He also wants all the outlook emails transferred over to the new laptop.

I say ok, & the whole process is not too difficult.

I get the usual wrestling to getting a wireless network running (requiring a few reboots of the laptop & router).

The outlook email files are split into 2 folders within “documents & settings”… & the copy over the network take over 30 minutes. I also mistakenly did a “move” instead of a copy, so once the move is complete, the old laptop stops receiving emails… so spend more time copying the files back again.

While the copy takes place I’m asked to look into an intermittent shutdown problem with a PC. At first glance, it looks like a power supply problem. the customer say he got windows error reports after the sudden power loss, which vaguely say there is a problem with the video card. I initially dismiss this as random act of the power fluctuation.

As I investigate, I see the problem is getting worse. I install a spare power supply and: the problem keeps happening. I carefully look at everything until I notice the video card (nvidia mx4000) has a bulging capacitor… an obvious sign for anyone less blind than I am 🙁 . Anyway I dig into my box of video cards & pull out an agp video card and … it doesn’t fit into the agp slot… the slot has a “tab” which stops my “older” agp cards from fitting (probably because of a voltage difference).

I don’t have a card that fits, so I promise to return tomorrow with a working card.

I cannibalise a home pc for the correct card (its just 1 month old) & install it, & finally everything is working fine