racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Is it just me or are my gadgets deciding to overheat at the same time?

The car

Last week, I noticed my car’s temperature meter getting higher than usual. It usually maxes out at 90 degrees Centigrade when idle, but that time it was reaching up to 100 and even 110. My observation was that when the car was running, the temperature lowers, and when the car is idling (say at intersections or during heavy traffic), the needle goes up.

I checked the auxiliary fan and my guess proved to be correct. It wasn’t working. That meant the radiator gets a cooling-down effect from the onrush of air while the car runs, but there was no fan to help regulate the temperature while stationary.

The last straw was when we went for a checkup at our family doctor’s (a 1.5 hour travel from Quezon City to Manila) in moderate to heavy traffic. I had to keep an eye on the needle just to make sure it doesn’t readline (which is really, really bad for the engine as the pistons tend to bend when overheated).

So I had the fan’s motor replaced that afternoon. Cost me an arm and a leg. Okay, not really an arm and a leg, but an unexpected expense nonetheless. At any rate, what can one expect from a 10-year old car? But still, it’s a Toyota (and with a 4A-FE engine at that, which should be reliable as heck), so I expected it to be less of a hassle to maintain than other brand vehicles would be.

The laptop

The Compaq Presario V2000 laptop I bought last year had been exhibiting signs of wear externally. Its outer finish is a bit faded, particularly on the palm rest. Blame it on acidic sweat (and also sub-par paint/finishing on Compaq’s part). It still ran like a charm, though–that was until last week. I noticed that a “thermal throttling” warning had been popping up constantly, throttling down my CPU clock speed so it won’t overheat. I had a throttling utility installed after all (since being a Celeron-M it doesn’t throttle by itself via SpeedStep).

These days laptop fans aren’t on constantly, and they just turn on when increased CPU load causes the microprocessor to heat up. But I noticed a while back that my fan had not been running smoothly than usual, and that there were clunks whenever it was turning.

I realized my fan had stopped running altogether when the CPU thermal warning was constantly popping up after about 10 minutes into the laptop’s use. I turned off the throttling utility and the laptop would automatically turn off without notice–this I believe is the internal protection mechanism that the CPU uses so it doesn’t burn up when things get too hot.

I thought of opening up the machine myself to check, but I decided against it because I knew I still had a few weeks warranty left. but then I checked the receipt and realized I bought the laptop last July 3, 2006. Holey moley! That meant I had only up to July 3rd (that’s Tuesday this week) to have the laptop serviced before warranty lapsed.

I called the shop I bought it from (Complink in Megamall), but they said they still had to schedule pick-up, and lead time might be two to three weeks. I wasn’t not going to wait a month before getting my laptop back. I’m okay with parting with it for that duration (since I have the PowerBook to work/play on), but I was thinking all that transporting, storage and handlin might do harm to the computer. And they were quite vague on the handling of warranty–they said that the distributor might consider the date of pick up as the reckoning date, so in case they picked up my laptop after Tuesday it would have already been past warranty coverage.

Good thing the folks over at MSI-ECS (an authorized service center and dealer of HP/Compaq and other brands like Acer, Lenovo, etc., which Complink referred to me) were accommodating enough to say if I dropped by Monday they can give the diagnosis within a day’s time, and even fix the computer by that time if they had parts.

So I brought the Presario this noontime, and I was told I could most likely get it back within the week. I did ask for some cosmetic fixes, and they said they would have to seek HP’s authorization on that one, just to make sure it can still be considered under warranty’s coverage. I might have to wait a bit longer (which is okay with me).

So moral of the story: when buying gadgets and devices with steep price tags, be sure you have warranty. For all I know, it could be the Presario’s motherboard or CPU that was problematic, and not just the fan. That would cost a ton.

As for the car, well, it’s a car. Every car owner should be prepared to shell a few bucks for emergency maintenance. But I think I had better talk about this and other driving/auto maintenance tips over at Study Driving.

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