Today’s title is courtesy of Denora: thank you!
As much time as I have spent around computers of all sorts ever since the prepress industry moved from hot type to computerized cold type on mainframe and minicomputers in the late 1970s, this is something that has never, ever happened to me before today. I have had numerous monitors fail on me, of course, but never in flammable fashion.
I was preparing to do some updates to the operating system on our Snap Server. The updates were downloading and I was reading information and instructions for the update when the image on my screen blurred, contracted, expanded and then disappeared. As it disappeared, I heard a “pop” and white smoke started wisping out of the back of the monitor.
I immediately unplugged the power strip and thankfully the smoke started subsiding rather than proceeding into full-blown ignition and combustion. Shortly, all that was left was a slightly nasty burnt-plastic smell. It wasn’t even as bad of a smell as burnt popcorn in the microwave, so on the scale of emergencies this was maybe a 0.7. Didn’t even make it to a 1, let alone a 10.
I am somewhat afraid of electricity, and I also have a fear of accidentally setting something on fire and somehow having it torpedo my firefighter husband’s career. I could just see the headline: Firefighter’s wife sets Bill Kurtis’ office building on fire. This is a perfect Chicago headline, by the way. It blames fire or police for something, and also drops a name.
I spent the rest of the work day using an ancient 14″ monitor and suffering eyestrain. A new monitor should be arriving at work shortly after I do tomorrow. Not a moment too soon!
That was probably the most exciting thing that happened in my world today, sadly enough. Oh, except for the wonderfully nice weather. I got home in time to enjoy at least a little of it with the Rottweiler wrecking crew. Good thing, too, as rain is on the way tomorrow.
I can’t wait to see what might almost catch on fire tomorrow!
Denora says
I cannot tell you how much it amused me to see that title. Donald says a flux capacitor popped because something else went bad and overheated. He then went on to describe 8 different things that could have happened, but I was busy trying to not let my eyes glaze over to hear anything specific. (He also probably said “capacitor” but since I watched Back to the Future recently, I thought flux capacitor sounded much more techy.) 🙂
kathi says
Thank you for providing the title! And thanks to Donald for the explanation, even though I would be lost, too, after the first or second scenario. It’s history now and I have a nice new flat screen monitor in its place.
Debsy says
Eek! Scary. My monitors haven’t done anything that exciting. They just die. Wonder if exploding monitors and computers at work would force IT to upgrade us from the ancient hardware and software we’re using now. (Now I’ll be paranoid. LOL)
kathi says
You know, that wasn’t even one of our oldest monitors, it was only about 5 years old. The emergency backup monitor I used until my new one arrived this morning is probably about 10 years old. One of the monitors in the shop, and arguably the one with the most true color balance, is a Sony monitor that is about 7 or 8 years old. We are in recession mode here, as so many places are, probably as you are too… so combustion or explosion would definitely be the way to go if you want to be 100% certain of getting new stuff!