{"id":14850,"date":"2011-09-07T19:20:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-07T11:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=14850"},"modified":"2011-09-07T19:26:26","modified_gmt":"2011-09-07T11:26:26","slug":"i-ish-repairman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2011\/09\/07\/i-ish-repairman\/","title":{"rendered":"I ish Repairman!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of those funny things about being a computer enthusiast and also a computer engineer by training is that for a while, everyone around me concluded I was a 24\/7 tech support person! You name it, I did it. Sorting out virus issues. Swapping harddrives. Trying to restore a dying harddrive. Transplanting a system to another desktop case. Swapping motherboards around.<\/p>\n<p>I should add though that I enjoy working with computer hardware, and being able to to assemble my first PC from parts 15 years ago has turned into one of the most therapeutic hobbies I&#8217;ve got. It&#8217;s my equivalent of not being able to work on larger mechanical things, like cars (I have no clue on cars).<\/p>\n<p>The caveat though is that I&#8217;m <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2010\/01\/04\/computer-assembly-part-2\/\">most at ease fixing my own computers<\/a> rather than someone else&#8217;s. Two reasons. Firstly, it&#8217;s always risky working on computers I don&#8217;t own or have background info on. E.g. if the computer had already been demonstrating subtle nuances that&#8217;s indicative of imminent failure. Secondly, fixing someone else&#8217;s computer often means I end up having to provide further tech support for it. =(<\/p>\n<p>In any case; I haven&#8217;t tried working on notebooks yet as those things&#8217; innards are a lot more fragile, intricate and complex&#8230; until yesterday afternoon. I installed an Intel 320 series Solid State Drive into my desktop PC in May this year, and it worked so well I decided to do the same for my Dell XPS with an OCZ Vertex 2 SSD. Some of us are already aware that heat is a huge factor that determines the reliability and longevity of compact computer systems like notebooks, and the Dell had been getting real hot from stressed use.<\/p>\n<p>Thing though is that my Dell XPS doesn&#8217;t have a swappable hard drive bay, unlike other notebook models. Replacing a hard drive means removing removing the very large notebook chassis underplate.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_14858\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14858\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-14858\" title=\"blog-2011-rivervale-P1030505-ssd-upgrade\" src=\"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/blog-2011-rivervale-P1030505-ssd-upgrade.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/blog-2011-rivervale-P1030505-ssd-upgrade.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/blog-2011-rivervale-P1030505-ssd-upgrade-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-14858\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Base of the Dell XPS exposed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Thankfully, the swap itself was pretty easy and I didn&#8217;t need to poke around the insides too much. A short 10 minute operation later, the SSD-equipped Dell now is a lot more responsive, and best of all, runs a lot cooler now. =)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of those funny things about being a computer enthusiast and also a computer engineer by training is that for a while, everyone around me concluded I was a 24\/7 tech support person! You name it, I did it. Sorting<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-read-more\"><a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2011\/09\/07\/i-ish-repairman\/\">Read More<span class=\"cleanwp-sr-only\">  I ish Repairman!<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-home","category-toys-technology","wpcat-6-id","wpcat-16-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}