Power, and Dust, and Raccoons, Oh, My!
May. 17th, 2025 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
billroperWe have been trying for a couple of weeks to catch the raccoon who has broken into our attic. Two separate traps on the roof did not help, so the animal control service removed those and replaced them with a single trap that blocked the entrance/exit that the raccoon had been using. When the raccoon came out last night, she went straight into the trap where she could be collected today.
Sadly, this was a lactating female raccoon, indicating a high chance of babies in the attic. We have not yet heard from the babies, who ought to be annoyed that Mama Raccoon did not come back last night, but this isn't dispositive. The guy from the service looked in the high attic today and did not find anything. He will look around again tomorrow. The trap remains in place to prevent anyone else from entering and to catch anything else that might be trying to leave.
Meanwhile, Julie's desktop computer which I cleaned all of the dust out of about a month ago started making more noise again and reportedly had a mild funny smell about it. I determined that the likely cause was the power supply, given where Julie had localized the noise to. I figured that I would be blowing out dust again at a minimum, so I went on Amazon and ordered an air gun that is designed to blow dust out of computers.
It is good that I mentioned this to Gretchen, as she had ordered one of these for me for my birthday. Happily, I was able to cancel my order. I *did* decide to order some case fans, because they are cheap and potentially useful. And then I thought it over and decided that the right thing to do is to replace the power supply.
I dug up specs for Julie's system and went on line at Micro Center and ordered a slightly larger (and semi-modular!) power supply. Mission BBQ had been good enough to send me an email offering me a free sandwich for my birthday, so I went down there and had dinner (sans Gretchen, whose stomach is bothering her) and from there to Micro Center, where I picked up the new power supply and headed home by way of Culver's so that I could pick up some dinner for everyone else. Sadly, they were out of the soup that Gretchen had hoped to get and the alternatives seemed like bad ideas.
When I got home, Julie brought her computer upstairs and I opened it up. At this point, Gretchen suggested that it was a good time to give me my birthday present. And this made sense, because there was a lot of dust. The gun blew it out in a giant puff or two.
I got the old power supply out. The new power supply went in, mostly easily, and only required three connections to be made. None of the modular cables were required right now, so they can be saved for later projects.
And when Julie took the computer downstairs and plugged it in, it powered up and was blissfully quiet. :)
Sadly, this was a lactating female raccoon, indicating a high chance of babies in the attic. We have not yet heard from the babies, who ought to be annoyed that Mama Raccoon did not come back last night, but this isn't dispositive. The guy from the service looked in the high attic today and did not find anything. He will look around again tomorrow. The trap remains in place to prevent anyone else from entering and to catch anything else that might be trying to leave.
Meanwhile, Julie's desktop computer which I cleaned all of the dust out of about a month ago started making more noise again and reportedly had a mild funny smell about it. I determined that the likely cause was the power supply, given where Julie had localized the noise to. I figured that I would be blowing out dust again at a minimum, so I went on Amazon and ordered an air gun that is designed to blow dust out of computers.
It is good that I mentioned this to Gretchen, as she had ordered one of these for me for my birthday. Happily, I was able to cancel my order. I *did* decide to order some case fans, because they are cheap and potentially useful. And then I thought it over and decided that the right thing to do is to replace the power supply.
I dug up specs for Julie's system and went on line at Micro Center and ordered a slightly larger (and semi-modular!) power supply. Mission BBQ had been good enough to send me an email offering me a free sandwich for my birthday, so I went down there and had dinner (sans Gretchen, whose stomach is bothering her) and from there to Micro Center, where I picked up the new power supply and headed home by way of Culver's so that I could pick up some dinner for everyone else. Sadly, they were out of the soup that Gretchen had hoped to get and the alternatives seemed like bad ideas.
When I got home, Julie brought her computer upstairs and I opened it up. At this point, Gretchen suggested that it was a good time to give me my birthday present. And this made sense, because there was a lot of dust. The gun blew it out in a giant puff or two.
I got the old power supply out. The new power supply went in, mostly easily, and only required three connections to be made. None of the modular cables were required right now, so they can be saved for later projects.
And when Julie took the computer downstairs and plugged it in, it powered up and was blissfully quiet. :)