Yes, that’s me pictured above. Two days ago my main desktop computer suddenly went supernova. I was about to start uploading the latest version of a project I’ve been working on, and both monitors flickered, then went dark. There was a sort of ominous click sound from the Mac Pro, and I was sitting there basically thinking, “Oh shit,” when the computer’s internal fan suddenly began running VERY loud in a way I’d never heard before.

Obviously not good.

So I held the power button for five seconds to force a shutdown. That worked. I waited a couple of minutes, pushed the power button hoping to hear the happy Mac startup chime, and nothing. The power LED came on, but nothing else happened. No hard drives spinning up. Silence. I was bereft. He’s dead, Jim.

Yes, I tried again, after waiting longer. Still dead.

Since this is a 2008 model Mac Pro, good luck finding someone who can repair it for a reasonable price, but I did speak to a guy who told me it sounded like something on the motherboard failed and overheated and set off the fan, and it would probably be cheaper to find a similar model on eBay.

That’s what I ended up doing. Got one that’s listed as “new” from a reputable seller, and it actually has almost twice the RAM and a bigger startup drive for a reasonable price. I’m pretty sure at this point that the internal hard drives in the dead Mac Pro are still OK, so I should be able to simply swap them into the replacement. So maybe it will be better in the long run, which is always nice if it happens.

This old warhorse lasted 12 years, so it had a good life. It was just its time to go.

In the meantime until the new box gets here, I’m using a MacBook Pro that’s almost as old as the computer that croaked, and it’s amazing how many things you don’t realize you’ve installed on your main computer until it dies and you don’t have them.

So that’s what I’ve been up to all day. What’s up with you?