Seeing the thread from another poster about how things snowballed, I decided it was time to tell my story about something that happened a couple of months ago to me. Remember, this all takes place over a 3 -4 week time span.
As some of you know, I've been in IT for nearly 20 years. Around '98 or so, I got my first POS table saw, and that hooked me on woodworking as a hobby. Other than playing an occasional game, working on a certification, or doing something for someone else, I really don't mess with computers at home much anymore. Computer stuff as a hobby just isn't as fun for me, especially since I do 40 - 60 hours a week of it for work.
Anyway, I decided to add a second hard drive to my main computer (Dell Inspiron - nearly 4 years old). I wanted to mirror the drives in case of hardware failure. So, after adding the 2nd drive, the motherboard fried as soon as I booted up. I wasn't surprised, since the onboard audio had been flaky for a while. I decided that I would just go ahead and for the first time in several years, roll my own computer.
Fast forward a week: I recycled an old Cooler Master case that I had bought years ago, and replaced the guts with all new parts, with the exception of my DVD burner. Eight core processor, 8GB RAM, 1GB DDR5 video card, SATA III SSD boot drive, all new cooling fans, new motherboard and power supply. I took the hard drives from the dead Dell and was going to put them in this machine for data storage, since the SSD drive is only 64GB. Machine installs Windows 7 Pro x64 in no time. The machine takes longer to do the power on tests than it does to boot the OS (after POST, Windows 7 is at a logon screen in 8 - 10 seconds!).
I put the "new" computer in my Bush office style pressed wood desk that is several years old that I got pretty cheap off CL. Machine is running like a top, so I decide to stress test a little and play Need for Speed World. Game plays at the highest settings without a single stutter. However, after about 20 minutes of play, the computer is screaming like a banshee! She overheated and threw up a BSOD. Fortunately, the hardware is fine, but I did have some corruption that caused me to reload the OS last week.
Now hold on...here's where it gets interesting. I decided to "build" a new desk like a table I saw in one of those home mags. Desktop made out of solid core doors, with a frame made from steel pipe. Sounds easy enough, and shouldn't be too expensive. So, the boys and I go to HD and buy the materials. BTW: SWMBO is out of town at this time, and comes home to see me putting the desk together with my older son.
After a few mods to the desk, and a couple of more trips to HD, I've got the desk built. The wife then decides that we will take the aircraft carrier of a desk out of my older son's room and replace it with her desk. She would then take my old desk (and we scrap the credenza type return) and upgrade her desk, since her desk was a $15 thrift store find. I offer to take part from the credenza and reinforce the desk, since it had developed quite a sag over the years.
So, the old desk from my son's room gets moved to a storage unit the youth at the church have for an upcoming yard sale, and her old desk goes to his room. The reinforced desk is looking better than ever, except that now my wife is having trouble opening the drawers, since there was no hardware on the desk originally. We just happened to have spare pulls that looked great mocked up on the front, so I proceed to mount them.
****!!! I got the first pull looking perfect on the drawer front, but the guy that I got the desk from had used the wrong screws to attach the drawer front, and when I reattached it, I blew through the front. Not a big deal, since the disassembled/scrapped credenza had spare drawers and fronts. So, I recycled a front with no problem. Top drawer looks perfect.
Even with my drawer pull jig, I managed to mis-measure for the 2nd drawer and had the pull off center by 1/2 inch.
When I went to look at my other spare drawer front, I found that it wasn't the same size. So, I wound up reusing the first one that I screwed up. I was able to repair it enough that the blow through was hardly noticeable. I got the 3rd pull mounted to the CPU door with no problem.
Once SWMBO looks at the desk, she doesn't like what she sees. Even though I mounted the pulls centered on the fronts, the are visually off center due to the structure of the desk. So, I tell her go to one of the office stores with my truck, and pick out a desk that she likes. So, as she goes to the store, my older son decided that even with the screw ups, he like this desk better than the one he just got. SOOOO, in the course of 3 days, he has 3 different desks in his room. The 2nd desk he had (wife's first one) also goes to the yard sale.
Wife gets home with her desk, which I admit fits her style better, and we assemble it over about 8 hours (big desk, and I was trying not to FUBAR anything else). So, desk #3 for her is finished, but I still don't have storage for my desk. It's basically an L shaped table top.
I take a quick trip to a 2nd hand store up the street from work during my lunch break on Monday, and find a wardrobe just like what she's been needing for years, instead of the needed storage for my desk. A deal is made, and I bring home the wardrobe. It goes in the study, and the desk that had gone unused for a while with the kids' old computer on it goes to the yard sale. Their old computer gets re-purposed and goes in the entertainment center for a media center PC. Oh yeah, I also had a rolling computer cart that was being used for storage...so a total of 4 desks made it from my house to the yard sale!
I had to take the older son to a karate tournament about 90 miles north of me during all this, and had been thinking about how to rack mount some of the Cisco gear I have for self training. I had pretty much come to the conclusion that I was going to have to find a used filing cabinet or 2, and build a rack for the Cisco stuff. However, plans changed when I was out of town with my son...
I found on CL a 48U 2 post rack for $50 at a flea market in Birmingham, AL. The guy said that the rack and anything physically attached to it was all one price. So, I buy the rack. Comes to find out, it had 2 10/100 unmanged switches (D-Link and Netgear), a Linksys switch/router combo, cable management attachments, and a VoIP (Voice over IP) system attached. Long story short, the VoIP worked, and I sold it on eBay for more than I got the whole setup for.
Now, I have a rack, and no storage under my desk. I considered cutting up the rack and using it as the frame for the cabinet I was going to build. Instead, I bought a shelf for it after very careful measurements, and was able to fit my Dell laser MFP on it. I put the battery back up in the very bottom of the rack, and the Cisco gear on top of that. It's very stable.
I finally found 2 "ice boxes" an another local flea market, and after a few trips to Target and Office Depot, SWMBO and I finally get my storage set up.
In the end, I should've just bought some used cubicle furniture for my desk. Would've been easier and a whole heckuva lot cheaper. Gotta remember to go with my initial gut feeling on stuff like this. At least my son and wife have desks they like, and I have a computer that does all I want, and is guaranteed not to overheat inside a sealed compartment.
And people wonder why I say my alter ego is Clark Griswold.
As some of you know, I've been in IT for nearly 20 years. Around '98 or so, I got my first POS table saw, and that hooked me on woodworking as a hobby. Other than playing an occasional game, working on a certification, or doing something for someone else, I really don't mess with computers at home much anymore. Computer stuff as a hobby just isn't as fun for me, especially since I do 40 - 60 hours a week of it for work.
Anyway, I decided to add a second hard drive to my main computer (Dell Inspiron - nearly 4 years old). I wanted to mirror the drives in case of hardware failure. So, after adding the 2nd drive, the motherboard fried as soon as I booted up. I wasn't surprised, since the onboard audio had been flaky for a while. I decided that I would just go ahead and for the first time in several years, roll my own computer.
Fast forward a week: I recycled an old Cooler Master case that I had bought years ago, and replaced the guts with all new parts, with the exception of my DVD burner. Eight core processor, 8GB RAM, 1GB DDR5 video card, SATA III SSD boot drive, all new cooling fans, new motherboard and power supply. I took the hard drives from the dead Dell and was going to put them in this machine for data storage, since the SSD drive is only 64GB. Machine installs Windows 7 Pro x64 in no time. The machine takes longer to do the power on tests than it does to boot the OS (after POST, Windows 7 is at a logon screen in 8 - 10 seconds!).
I put the "new" computer in my Bush office style pressed wood desk that is several years old that I got pretty cheap off CL. Machine is running like a top, so I decide to stress test a little and play Need for Speed World. Game plays at the highest settings without a single stutter. However, after about 20 minutes of play, the computer is screaming like a banshee! She overheated and threw up a BSOD. Fortunately, the hardware is fine, but I did have some corruption that caused me to reload the OS last week.
Now hold on...here's where it gets interesting. I decided to "build" a new desk like a table I saw in one of those home mags. Desktop made out of solid core doors, with a frame made from steel pipe. Sounds easy enough, and shouldn't be too expensive. So, the boys and I go to HD and buy the materials. BTW: SWMBO is out of town at this time, and comes home to see me putting the desk together with my older son.
After a few mods to the desk, and a couple of more trips to HD, I've got the desk built. The wife then decides that we will take the aircraft carrier of a desk out of my older son's room and replace it with her desk. She would then take my old desk (and we scrap the credenza type return) and upgrade her desk, since her desk was a $15 thrift store find. I offer to take part from the credenza and reinforce the desk, since it had developed quite a sag over the years.
So, the old desk from my son's room gets moved to a storage unit the youth at the church have for an upcoming yard sale, and her old desk goes to his room. The reinforced desk is looking better than ever, except that now my wife is having trouble opening the drawers, since there was no hardware on the desk originally. We just happened to have spare pulls that looked great mocked up on the front, so I proceed to mount them.
****!!! I got the first pull looking perfect on the drawer front, but the guy that I got the desk from had used the wrong screws to attach the drawer front, and when I reattached it, I blew through the front. Not a big deal, since the disassembled/scrapped credenza had spare drawers and fronts. So, I recycled a front with no problem. Top drawer looks perfect.
Even with my drawer pull jig, I managed to mis-measure for the 2nd drawer and had the pull off center by 1/2 inch.
When I went to look at my other spare drawer front, I found that it wasn't the same size. So, I wound up reusing the first one that I screwed up. I was able to repair it enough that the blow through was hardly noticeable. I got the 3rd pull mounted to the CPU door with no problem.Once SWMBO looks at the desk, she doesn't like what she sees. Even though I mounted the pulls centered on the fronts, the are visually off center due to the structure of the desk. So, I tell her go to one of the office stores with my truck, and pick out a desk that she likes. So, as she goes to the store, my older son decided that even with the screw ups, he like this desk better than the one he just got. SOOOO, in the course of 3 days, he has 3 different desks in his room. The 2nd desk he had (wife's first one) also goes to the yard sale.
Wife gets home with her desk, which I admit fits her style better, and we assemble it over about 8 hours (big desk, and I was trying not to FUBAR anything else). So, desk #3 for her is finished, but I still don't have storage for my desk. It's basically an L shaped table top.
I take a quick trip to a 2nd hand store up the street from work during my lunch break on Monday, and find a wardrobe just like what she's been needing for years, instead of the needed storage for my desk. A deal is made, and I bring home the wardrobe. It goes in the study, and the desk that had gone unused for a while with the kids' old computer on it goes to the yard sale. Their old computer gets re-purposed and goes in the entertainment center for a media center PC. Oh yeah, I also had a rolling computer cart that was being used for storage...so a total of 4 desks made it from my house to the yard sale!
I had to take the older son to a karate tournament about 90 miles north of me during all this, and had been thinking about how to rack mount some of the Cisco gear I have for self training. I had pretty much come to the conclusion that I was going to have to find a used filing cabinet or 2, and build a rack for the Cisco stuff. However, plans changed when I was out of town with my son...
I found on CL a 48U 2 post rack for $50 at a flea market in Birmingham, AL. The guy said that the rack and anything physically attached to it was all one price. So, I buy the rack. Comes to find out, it had 2 10/100 unmanged switches (D-Link and Netgear), a Linksys switch/router combo, cable management attachments, and a VoIP (Voice over IP) system attached. Long story short, the VoIP worked, and I sold it on eBay for more than I got the whole setup for.
Now, I have a rack, and no storage under my desk. I considered cutting up the rack and using it as the frame for the cabinet I was going to build. Instead, I bought a shelf for it after very careful measurements, and was able to fit my Dell laser MFP on it. I put the battery back up in the very bottom of the rack, and the Cisco gear on top of that. It's very stable.
I finally found 2 "ice boxes" an another local flea market, and after a few trips to Target and Office Depot, SWMBO and I finally get my storage set up.
In the end, I should've just bought some used cubicle furniture for my desk. Would've been easier and a whole heckuva lot cheaper. Gotta remember to go with my initial gut feeling on stuff like this. At least my son and wife have desks they like, and I have a computer that does all I want, and is guaranteed not to overheat inside a sealed compartment.
And people wonder why I say my alter ego is Clark Griswold.