I was doing some recording at a friends house this weekend. Took my CPU there. All was good until my machine shut down and rebooted. I pulled up my system monitor and- my temps were out of control. 38C at idle. I usually run 31. Under load it was in the red zone as far as I'm concerned.
I went nuts looking for programs running in the backround, high load processes, fans not working, a small man in my machine with a torch. anything. I then decided to shut it down and scrap it for the moment.
As I moved the box to have a better look inside, I felt a strong breeze of hot air coming from that silver thing under my CPU.
I had the thing sitting on a heater vent. I was so convinced that I had a technical problem, I was blind to the obvious. The basics. So DUH for me.
When things go wrong, assume its something simple, and work your way from there. Now THATS some good advice.
JZ
Comments
Hi, It's so easy to be left looking foolish in the studio....
Hi,
It's so easy to be left looking foolish in the studio....
I'd just started tape opping in a medium size commercial studio, and I was still at the stage where the desk was just a sea of knobs, but I was making killer cups of tea.
Anyway, it's 11pm and we're settling in for a good night of mixing (had to be out 9am job done!), when suddenly the main and nearfield monitors go dead. Nothing soloed, channel mutes off, control room level control up, getting levels on the bridge, totally baffled. The engineer didn't know the studio, and I had my elementary knowledge of recording (at home, 2 mics, Radio Shack mixer, half-working R2R!!)
The engineer phones the manager, manager out of bed, phones maintenance guy (no in-house), we wait...I find out the joys of the patchbay... take a feed from the stereo bus straight to the Quad 405...got the nearfields going...we're mixing (on a small scale!)
Anyway, the maintenance guy arrives 2am in his pyjamas, big bag of tools...walks over to the desk...punches the "monitor mute" switch...main monitors CRASH back on....red faces all round. :d: We get down to some kinda serious speed-mixing session!
I've now learnt to check and double check, and think of the obvious, and never discount the incredible, and don't worry about pressing everything in sight before calling for help. Oh, and keep your elbows off the desk!
Lets hear some more,
Mark
Jeff, That is excellent advice and a great example of how so
Jeff,
That is excellent advice and a great example of how sometimes something so obvious can be overlooked in the heat of the moment. Thanks for that post. Very insightful. Any other stories like this out there? Let us in on your dumbest mistakes. Fats