Don't throw away a good PC

Many moons back, I bumped into a friend who was sending some old PCs to be recycled and he gave me two to play with from the boot of his car.

I installed Linux on one - a first generation Intel Pentium 4 machine and it's working OK now. It's motherboard is rather finicky though, it seems to be only compatible with ROSA, a Mandriva Minux-based distribution from Russia.

The second PC had been dropped whilst my friend was passing over a wall to the neighbour, or something like that, and it emitted an alert sound like a police siren when switched on and as a result, would not boot up.

I put this one aside from months but last night I decided to take a closer look at it.

Its motherboard hss an AMD Athlon 2800+ processor and an ABIT gaming motherboard with a cylindrical blower fan atop the processor's heat sink and I noticed the fan was not turning when the PC was powered up.

At first, I thought that the fan was thermostatically controlled and would kick once the processor gets hot enough but upon closer inspection, I noticed thatrgere was no power connected to this fan.

After connecting this fan to the PC's power supply, the alarm stopped and the PC worked normally.When I block the fan from turning, the siren sound comes back and the PC shuts down.

So this is a protective measure which shuts the motherboard down to prevent the processor from overheating. Remember, this is a gaming motherboard optimised for high performance graphics and multimedia, and AMD tends to make processors which cater to the PC gamer market.

I then booted up the PC from a CD, as there is no hard drive in it yet and it ran.

Anyway, this now is is a working platform to play with, thanks to my friend.

However, it's a pity how many people these days dispose of still perfectly workable PCs just because its Windows OS is infected by a virus, is corrupted, it runs an earlier version of Windows, they've got some new PC or something like that, when more often than not, any PC can be repaired, refurbished and restored.

Of course, time could be limited for those who know how to fix PCs, whilst  unfortunately for the less savvy, the guy at the shop will tell you to buy a new PC, rather than fix the old one. Instead, you should go to a PC service & repair shop, not a retail shop.

Anyway, without further ado, click on the link below to see a short video clip of the problem and resolution. Pardon me for the poor lighting and please note that towards the end, what you see in the screen is from the PC referred to here, not the one standing idly to its left.

Cheers

Charles

An art and science of making that personalised cuppa

“Let's meet up for coffee,” is a familiar refrain we often hear today as an invitation to meet to discuss business, work or just chat in the many international and domestic branded franchised chain cafés dotting the major cities and towns across Malaysia and much of Asia.


The operations of many of these popular coffee outlets are based upon industrial supply chain, distribution, production processes, delivery practices and standardised products, to optimise on purchasing costs and high labour costs in the brands' home countries.

As a result these outlets and their end products regarded by some to have a rather standardised, cookie cutter look, fell and taste which lacks individuality and the personalised touch.

However, the Coffee Ritual café, formerly located on Jalan 14/20, Section 14, Petaling Jaya is unique, with its display of coffee making paraphernalia, bags of coffee beans from around the world, coffee-themed paintings by a local artist on its walls and its its unique colour scheme and décor.

One also can't help miss the rather ritualistic manner in which cups of what it calls “single origin gourmet coffees” are individually brewed  manually by its manager Chung Yeh Chin on its front counter using equipment which look more at home in school science lab.