November 2, 2017 by Amy
Fan error? No. Demons.
beep beep
FAN ERROR
power down
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
My largest client issued me a new PC laptop when I started my contract in August, because they are good people who want me to be happy by giving me new gear. Or because they are a huge company with proprietary technology and valid concerns about confidentiality and security. But mostly because they are good people and they want me to be happy. I’m going with that.
What they did not know is that the laptop they issued me was apparently dropped on its head as a baby.
I’ve been struggling with this stupid machine from the beginning, although it’s not all the stupid machine’s fault. It turns out that I need to remove the “ability to work cross-platform on both Mac and PC” line from my resume, because when you’re away from Windows for 10-plus years the Microsoft people make a lot of changes and now you can’t find a damn thing any more. Nothing makes you feel more antiquated than trying to figure out a completely new computer system, except for that time when your kid pointed out that Laura Ingalls used chalkboards in her school, too, just like you, instead of the fancy smartboards in today’s classrooms.
This new computer started doing the double-beep, fan error, shut down sequence a couple weeks ago, when I tried to power up first thing in the morning. I didn’t even really notice it the first time, as I hit the power button and then focused on something else for the few minutes I knew it would take to boot. Then I realized that my distraction had been distracting me for a lot longer than usual, and that the laptop screen was still dark. I had heard the two beeps, but they hadn’t really registered. So I hit the power button again and watched intently. The red computer logo glowed on the screen and then:
beep beep
FAN ERROR (in white, ominous letters glowing against an otherwise black screen)
power down
What the *^$#@. Big sigh. Okay, well, today was gonna be a hair and make-up day after all, since now I had to actually go into the office and get some help. This meant I also had to put on pants. For someone who primarily works at home, this is a big deal. Pants are a big deal.
When I got into the office (wearing pants), my boss took me down to this cute little IT service desk one building away, where Apple Genius Bar types milled around helping folks as they walked in. (You know those people. Impossibly young and geeky, holding the power of all technology in their massive brains and wielding the power to repair or replace.) I signed myself in and dismissed my boss, as there was no reason for her hang out to see what was wrong with my virtually brand-new laptop. I only had to wait a few minutes before a young (that’s redundant…they’re all young) curly-haired guy asked me what was wrong, and then stared at me with no emotion as my computer booted up flawlessly despite my agitated pointing and yelling, “It wouldn’t do that earlier!”
He used canned air to blow out the fan, and told me that yeah, sometimes these things get fan errors and refuse to boot, and that I probably dislodged whatever piece of dust was causing it to hang up on the walk over. Or the drive from my house, I muttered ungratefully.
I remembered the time in college when my Ford Escort, adorably named the Gray Turd due to both its hatchback shape and my feelings about it, stalled on the highway. I got it over to the shoulder and tried to restart…nothing. So I called my mechanic father who came out and turned the key and smiled gently when the engine sputtered to life. He never did figure out what was wrong with the Gray Turd, even though he did finally get it to unexpectedly quit on him and then believed me when I told him it was possessed by demons and then we sold it after praying that it would stay running through the next owner’s test drive.
So, my laptop was like the Gray Turd. A big, fat, annoyingly inconvenient faker.
The IT guy told me to get some compressed air, which I promptly dismissed because I’m not buying a can of air to service a two-month old laptop, and to let him know if it happened again. “Oh, they’ll be back,” I said. “Who?” “The demons. Just wait.”
Last week, we (my laptop and I) reached the point where we’d get the double-beep and fan error message every time I powered the machine up. I thought I had an easy fix: just never turn the damn thing off. That’s how I’ve worked with my Macs for years. I reboot rarely, and they just keep purring along. The one time I did have a hard drive issue, the computer gave me enough warning before failing that I was able to finish up my business trip, fly home, buy an external drive and back up all of my files before the Apple guys swapped hard drives for free. So, yes, I am an Apple fangirl. Because they’ve earned my adoration. Back to the present day. I thought I’d outfox these new PC boot demons by never rebooting. This plan worked beautifully until my giant corporation pushed through a series of updates that forced restarts. As they are wont to do at the most inconvenient times. Security waits for no woman.
Monday of this week, it took 15 tries to boot up my work laptop. My efforts included walking around with it (hoping to dislodge the dust again), blowing in the fan vents (because I hadn’t bought the compressed air…don’t worry…I made sure to clear all the cracker crumbs out of my mouth before blowing because hey, I’m not a total idiot when it comes to technology), and some gentle, um, percussive maintenance. I also threw a few expletives at it, because I’ve learned from my husband that sometimes that works when fixing plumbing and electrical components. The morning of the 15 tries, I was done dealing with it. I was heading into the office for a 2 o’clock meeting anyway, so I got there early and visited my curly-haired friend in the IT office. This time, he didn’t even look at the computer. “Yeah, we’re gonna have to send that out.” Oh sure, now you accept the demon theory.
I knew I’d have to give it up to get it fixed, and hoped that he wasn’t going to issue the loaner to me that my boss recently used for two months. The loaner with the battery that was so completely shot the computer would shut down immediately if unplugged. Which pretty much renders it not mobile at all. No way did I want to go two months with that.
He said, “Let me get you a loaner…ooooo…turns out we’re all out of loaners for today. Um, can you come back tomorrow? Maybe we’ll have one for you then.” He told me that loaners are typically turned in first thing in the morning and instructed me to return around 8:30 or 9. I had an interview scheduled for 10 a.m., so that was perfect. I went home with my wonky laptop and prayed I wouldn’t need to reboot before swapping it for the loaner.
I returned this morning to a bustling office full of cheery IT people helping the desperate and disenfranchised, those poor souls with panic in their eyes who came in clutching their laptops and muttering phrases about demons and not being able to live this way. A short-haired gentleman stepped forward and asked if he could help me. I launched into my spiel and he replied that he’d get me a loaner, as they had a few returned now. I was really confused about his familiarity until he explained that he was the curly-haired dude from yesterday…he got his hair cut last night because some big corporate bosses are visiting and he thought he should be cleaned up. Blew. My. Mind. Dude looked totally different.
He was super nice, and we laughed about the loaner taking approximately 24.7 minutes to boot, and then puttering along for another 9 to load email. Still, at least it eventually boots, so no complaints. It’s like going back in time to the old days at my first job with the desktop that required hitting the power button upon getting to the office, then taking off my coat, stashing my bag, making a cup of coffee, and chatting with coworkers for a half hour while we all waited for our computers to boot up. How quaint. I love vintage.
He asked me how much of my work had I saved to the cloud. We use OneDrive there in Corporateland, and in my corporate IT training, which was copious, it was hammered home that we corporate minions were to save everything to OneDrive, that our corporate computers were not safe, and that we could be in real corporate trouble if we didn’t use OneDrive. I am a good doobie, other than the canned air thing, and so I have dutifully saved all my files to OneDrive. (It also allows me to share docs with my boss without mailing versions back and forth, so, you know, yay for productivity.) I told him everything was on OneDrive and he stared at me dubiously. “Everything?” “Yeah. Everything.” He turned my computer towards himself, minimized the open applications, and scrutinized the desktop. He looked in the My Documents folder. “You don’t have anything on this computer.” “No.” “Really? Huh.” I explained that I was just following orders from IT, and he laughed. “Yeah. No one does that. No one.” And then he stopped laughing and looked sad.
He asked about my email. “Well, I’ve been here a nanosecond and do one job, writing, so I just archive the emails I need to reference later and delete the rest.” “You archive them.” “Yeah.” “How do you do that?” I was starting to wonder if he had lost something when he cut the curls off. I turned the laptop back towards myself, pulled up email again, and pointed towards a rather large button in the toolbar with a file cabinet icon and the word “ARCHIVE” underneath. “I push that button…” and then moved my finger to the list of folders under the Inbox, “…and the emails go there, in the Archive folder.” He looked a little perplexed. “I don’t know if those are gonna transfer over.” “Really? Because the archive folder is within the file system attached to my email address, so no matter where I log in, they should be there, right?” “Um, I don’t know.”
We waited a hundred years for the loaner laptop to load and I logged in and started email and sure enough, there were all my archive emails, right there in the archive folder. He shrugged. “Well, that makes no sense.” Made perfect sense to me. Apparently “archive” means something entirely different to IT people than to normal people. However, I was now assured that I could access all my email files and all my documents and so I left my broken laptop with him and departed. He did assure me that since they didn’t need to move any of my crap off the broken laptop that this would be a straight warranty job and that I’d probably be issued a new computer, maybe as early as tomorrow. See? It pays to follow directions and save everything to the cloud, and not just because you’re worried that demons in the form of two beeps and a fan error may spell sudden death at any moment, rendering all of your work unreachable.
I’m also mighty impressed I knew more about the email archive folder than the IT dude. Maybe I should put that “cross-platform” line back in the ol’ resume.
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