In which the kittens help me diagnose my faulty desktop
A week or so ago now my desktop crashed. I was about to play some post-work videogames on my TV via steam remote play so it was especially annoying. I eventually determined that the fault was with the PSU, which was thankfully still under warranty.
![Back of my PC on its side, with graphics card and wifi card (currently redundant) in the expansion slots](/img/kittentechsupport/desktop-back-750px.jpg)
I had some long post here but it didn’t actually have any point. I’m not an expert PC repairer, although I’m not a complete novice either, so either way I have nothing to say of note even for the reference of my future self.1 Such is life.
I did, however, have some expert help - by which I mean my kittens came to investigate what on earth I was doing:
![Otto on my computer chair, surveying my work](/img/kittentechsupport/Otto-750px.jpg)
Otto is very polite, he just wants to know what you’re doing but he is happy to observe from a relative distance.
![Odette looking at the case door](/img/kittentechsupport/Odette-750px.jpg)
Odette is more inquisitive and had to be persuaded not to actually inspect the hardware. I did have to kick them both out when it came to cleaning and trouble-shooting though, as it was just too dangerous and distracting. It sure was filthy in there.
![The internals. I wish I could blame the poor cable management on the non-modular power supply but actually I just suck at that](/img/kittentechsupport/dusty500px.jpg)
That said I wonder how much of that dust was load-bearing, or more seriously I don’t think it had gotten to the point of actually affecting performance. It was nice to clean though.
![I took everything, save the motherboard, out for cleaning](/img/kittentechsupport/empty-500px.jpg)
Everything worked when I got a replacement, so there you go. Anyway I need to share more pictures of Count Otto and Pirate Queen Odette here. They are truly Good Cats (who are also absolute criminals but that is for another day).
![My ‘sleepy assistant’ Odette](/img/kittentechsupport/Odette-sleep.jpg)
Look I just love them ok?
![Otto is best boy](/img/kittentechsupport/Otto-500px.jpg)
Well ok there is one thing: the power pin on the motherboard connector should be 5V from ground, I had to look that up.↩︎