After returning from the recent Machine Learning Summer School in Australia, my itching to become a Mac user has gotten even stronger*. For a start, there were many Mac Powerbook users at the Summer School (presenters and attendees alike). And, let’s face it, the Powerbooks are cool… 
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Since it’s probably kind of obvious that I have been spending much time diagnosing and ensuring some stability in my Windows PC, I may as well mention that I have also been looking to get my hands on a cheap Mac system to play with. In fact, I was close to spending some money on a second-hand Mac Mini until the buyer backed out at the last minute. 
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The problems (as I wrote here, here and here) I have been having lately with my PC at home seem to be finally over! Finger crossed…
My theory is that when I removed a faulty harddisk recently – the time when all subsequent instability issues seemed to have started – I had inadvertently left hanging a ground(ing) cable that was secured to the PC casing using the one of screws which secures the same harddisk. This naturally can lead to unexpected fluctuations in my system, or even burn out key components in the worst case. Two incidents seem to back this up. Two days ago, I tripped the power at my unit as I was merely plugging in the power cord of the PC. Secondly, I noticed quite by chance that the ground lead of the front panel Firewire port was touching the metal case. I have since unplugged the Firewire cable from the motherboard just in case. It just goes to show that when tinkering inside your PC, don’t leave anything hanging!!
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In the process of trying to get to the bottom of my intermittent “hanging” problems, happen to come across this useful link: Power Supply Wattage Calculator. This should allow you to have a ball-park figure of how big the Power Supply Unit needs to be if you are into building your own system.
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Recent problems with my PC running Windows XP – well, maybe not strictly an OS-related issue but also some hardware faults there as well – have once again driven me to ponder migrating to Linux once and for all. In fact, I had another error last night after a recent total reinstall due to harddisk failure: “rasapi32.dll is not a valid image…”
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