How a Technoretarded Spanko fixes a computer

I still can't believe it...

My computer started acting up a month ago or so by requiring more and more tries before it would successfully boot. We have been waiting on tax money to fix it, so we have been keeping it turned on to avoid a premature failure.

So today the tax money came in, and the monitor failed. Since the monitor failed we had to turn the machine off in the process of replacing it.

So we trotted down to Best Buy, got a new monitor, hooked it up--and could not boot after a dozen tries.

Now this week has sucked so far and this was the last straw for me so I sat staring at the TV while D tried to start the thing about a dozen times. He pointed out a clicking noise the machine was making before showing the blue screen of death.

It started to annoy me. Suddenly the idea popped in my head that maybe the CPU needed a spanking. No joke.

Actually I just wanted to shake things up in there because it suddenly occurred to me what the Dell dingbats probably did when they fixed it the last time. The sound has not been working (a loose audio card, maybe). Now the clicking and intermittent booting? Seems like they left a few screws loose to match the loose screws in their heads (Who, me? Have a grudge against Hell--er Dell. Nah!).

I figured rattling things around a bit when the clicking was happening might shake something into place long enough to boot the thing.

I was shocked as hell when it actually worked!

Damn.

I am fed up though. It is time I took a computer repair course (well once D gets employed). It is really getting under my skin that I have become so dependent on a piece of machinery that I can't make basic repairs to (besides component hookups and therapeutic spankings).