Feasted on a very traditional T-day dinner of faux bird, mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy, cranberry sauce, and cherry pie. Stuffed to my eyeballs, yep. Hobkin even got a bit of the cranberry sauce, which he was quite enthusiastic about.
After dinner, I embarked upon my great Doctor Who burn. Visit to the post office to commence today or tomorrow.
I think cyber_pagan‘s hypothesis is right regarding the cause of my spontaneously shutting down laptop issue. The thing turned itself off twice when I was working on it yesterday. This strange behavior started after I began my “I need to act like a professional writer, dammit” kick and commenced locking myself away in the library every day and doing writing jags for ten+ hours straight. I think I’m overworking my poor system. The fan comes on regularly–too often?–but I’m wondering if it’s not able to keep the CPU cool enough. Plus, the library is a much smaller room, with little ventilation when I have the door closed, which I usually do when I’m writing. I’m thinking of lugging the flatscreen monitor and a keyboard upstairs, and hooking them to my laptop. That ought to ease the heat output . . . I think. Plus it’ll be a nicer station to work on–bigger keyboard and monitor. Err, except I don’t have a USB mouse, which would make functionality awkward. Damn, I need a docking station!
I wonder how well those lapdesk thingies work–the ones that are supposed to help distribute heat.
Maybe it would help the thing stay cool if I scheduled a few 10-minute breaks throughout the day, letting it hibernate and cool off for a bit? That would be annoying, as I really don’t like taking breaks, but I suppose it’s better than giving myself minor heart attacks when my computer suddenly turns itself off.
Writing Stuff
Heard back from Faeries, the French ‘zine that reprinted a translation of “The Storyteller’s Wife.” They said they sent my contrib. copies a couple weeks ago, and are puzzled why I haven’t received them yet. And they need a BIC/SWIFT number, which is some sort of international bank ID, along with my bank/account information in order to do an electronic transfer of my payment. Unfortunately, I have no idea what my BIC/SWIFT number is. I probably need to call my bank to find out. Sigh.
New Words: 800 on “Rue and Ruin.” One scene down, one to go. It’s possible that I may be able to get to zero draft on this one today. Maybe.
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Those laptop desk thingies work WONDERFULLY. DH got me one for Christmas last year and it has been a lifesaver – or at least, a lapsaver 🙂 I highly recommend them for overheating issues.
I put one on my Christmas list this year because my lap came perilously close to melting this summer, although I didn’t know at the time that I’d also want it to save my laptop from overheating too. I really hope Santa leaves one in my stocking.
What make and model is your lapdesk thingy?
What make and model laptop do you have?
It’s an HP Pavilion . . .uh . . . *turns laptop upside down and peers at stickers* ZE2000.
I bought it this year in March, so its still under warranty. If the problem continues, and especially if it worsens, I’m going to contact the HP techs and see about sending it in. But I really don’t want to do that if I can avoid it, because the prospect of being without my system for many days makes me break out in a cold sweat. And I’d need to take out the hard drive, which I’m not sure how to do, because apparently it’s HP’s standard procedure to reformat all hard drives that come in with systems in need of repair or maintenance, regardless of whether the problem involves the drive or not. Pretty stupid. I’m glad I read that tidbit of data in the HP forums/feedback I was perusing yesterday. Seems their support people don’t always inform people of this fact, and one poor bugger who had an adapter plug problem was rather aghast to discover his computer totally wiped when it got back from being repaired. I think it would trigger a killing rage in me to discover my hard drive cleaned off without warning like that.
Yeah, they’re pretty bad about that. I think they figure it’s easier just to replace the HD/reformat the whole thing.
Have you considered a desktop system as a fileserver, and networking the lot together? That way, you could have your laptop as your main system, but be able to backup to the desktop, and have a backup system.
We have a lot of HP’s at work since we switched to Dell’s. I’ll ask around and see if we have docking stations.
Actually, my laptop is networked to two desktop machines. For a while, I used my hubby’s machine as a backup system. But he summarily filled up both his hard drives, and I can no longer even save so much as a measily MS Word file to his computer without him having to clear something off. I’d use the other desktop, but we rarely have it on, and it’s looking like we’ll need to reformat it soon.
Recently, I’ve been using my USB flash drive as my primary backup device, which works fine, but there’s not enough space on it to store anything but my writing data. My photos and music files (and GOD, my email!) are mostly backed up onto the second desktop, but there’s also a lot which I haven’t copied over since I haven’t done a full data backup in a little while. The fact that my primary backup medium is a small, easily misplacable stick makes me a little twitchy. At least it’s a sturdy thing. Last year my hubby got me a SanDisk Cruzer Titanium for Christmas, which apparently can withstand being driven over. I haven’t tried that (and I’m not going to if I can help it!), but I’m less concerned about incidental knocks and drops destroying my data.
As to the BIC/IBAN thing: do you have telebanking set up? If so (and probably even if not) your bank’s web site might give that information (what the BIC is and how to figure our your IBAN).
Yep, we do. I went out to my bank’s website and scoured the thing yesterday, looking for the BIC info, but if that information is there, it’s hidden really well.
have you seen the new Dr Who teaser that just aired in the UK last week or so? It’s a snippet from the new season that starts in December.
Bit Torrents rule!!!
No, I haven’t! I shall have to prod the hubby to get with the downloading.
my primary work computer is a laptop which i move from docking station in the office to docking station at home. there are a few burbles in the home setup, but it is still very nice. i have a full size monitor, keyboard and mouse, yet can be portable when i get the urge.
At my old day job, my work computer was also a laptop w/docking station, and I’d take my laptop home every night. It was nice setup, but alas, that went away with the job. Sigh.
While the laptop problems are most distressing, it can be considered most impressive that you’re writing so much it’s exhausting your computer.
At least it impresses me. I’m not anywhere near that good about it!
Silver lining, check! Hee.
Eugie, how can I get ahold of a copy of that magazine?! I would just die to have a copy of The Storyteller’s Wife en francaise!
Erm, well, I think that may depend on how strong your French is. Here’s the website link to the issue in question. It’s #19, Oct. 2005 of Faeries. The price is 9 euros, but I’m a bit baffled by the website. I can’t find ordering information.
Oh! I just had a thought. You could probably also email the editor. I’ll pop off a note to you with his email addy as soon as I post this.
Oh, merci beaucoup! Actually, my French is not that strong. I suppose that I can email him in English?
Oh, yes, most definitely! My correspondence with him has all been in English and he’s absolutely fluent.
Oh, lovely. I shall have to look into it. Many thanks! :dies of happiness:
Laptop Issues
Can you have the system tell you what is the processor’s temperature? I would guess that there is some way, even if it requires the download of a utility or two. My initial Googling hits upon this site:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/143
And if it’s an Intel motherboard:
http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/active.htm
Were it my machine, I’d spend a couple of days checking the temperature, just to see if it’s running too hot. Well, a couple of days if it never gets too hot. If it is getting too hot, well, then you’ve got your answer. 🙂
PJI
Re: Laptop Issues
Ooo, that’s an excellent idea! I did wonder how one measured CPU temperature. I envisioned a tech with a tiny thermometer thingy hunched over the guts of my laptop, and it did not make me happy. It never occurred to me that there would be software utilities that could do it. Sweet. I’ll have to hunt around and see which one(s) I want to download and try. Thanks!
If you are sitting with the laptop on your lap, put it on a desk with a couple of raisers…then blow a fan underneath it. That should help with heat dissipation, if that’s really the issue.
But, for the sake of both your wrists and your eyes, you should take a break every couple of hours anyway.
In the library, it’s on a desk. But I don’t think it’s a heat issue anymore. It shut itself off within ten or so minutes of startup this morning, when it shouldn’t have had time to accumulate enough heat to trigger a CPU shutdown. Back to the drawing board . . .
It sounds to me like you have either a bad ‘hibernate/shutdown’ switch (the little switch that shuts the computer off when you close the lid) or a bad motherboard.
I will say that the one time I had to send an HP laptop in on warranty service, I got it back in a week and it worked fine after that. But my problem was just a broken hard drive.