Bad, bad. Now I have to wait until they give me a new CPU. The problem in this small country is, that they have to order it somewhere else and I will not get it before Wednesday next week. I'm glad to have keept my old PentiumII-300. Also I can be with you over the internet. Guitta

:( really sad. What exactly happened ? never heard of a CPU dying... was your PC still under warranty ?

No more warranty Eric. My computer is only 17 month old. What happend, apparently is that the "cooler" of the CPU was broken. I did not get any warning as it should be normally. The CPU was litterally "cooked". My tower is a metallic one from the Siemens Silver line and it was so hot these last days, I nearly could not touch it. Also my computer became very very slow for every thing. Yesterday evening, while working on something, the machine crashed and I never could switch it on again. The technician said that maybe the motherboard also is dead. He took the machine with him. You live in the same country and you know how hard it is here to get stuff like a motherboard in 24 hours. They always have to order it in Belgium, Germany or France:-(. I never heared either about a dead CPU. Thanks for asking for my problem. :-)Guitta

Hi Guitta, I am so sorry to hear about your CPU. I lost my hard-drive last year along with everything I had so I can understand what you must be going thru. I have become so paranoid about it happening again, that I purchased an external hard-drive with 120 gigs, so I now save everything there, just in case. This time, if my computer decides to croke, I still have all the things I have collected since I started using Poser and Vue. I hope you get your computer fixed soon, so hang in there. (: Genny

Thats rough. Hang in there and you will be back at full power in no time. :)

Hope you have it back soon. Was it not easier to drive to Liege or the like? And just buy it in a store? regards Myske

so you cooked your CPU ! wow !!! unfortunatelly I don't think that the motherboard will be still working... :(

"You live in the same country and you know how hard it is here to get stuff like a motherboard in 24 hours"... I know what you mean...sometimes I fell like this country is not in the middle of Europe but lost somewhere in Siberia !

Eric

and the BIG question is..... the name of the country!

The country is the Grand Duchy Of Luxembourg. It is so small that you will have problems to find it on a map:-). I'm french, but I live here. Guitta

Oh , Guitta its not that small. Andorra ,Liechtenstein or Monaco are less. I think its at least the size of New york city ;) And besides its one of the nicest countries in europe. regard Myske

I am truly sorry Guitta, good thing you do have a back up...Sharen

Oh no... what an awful thing!! I hope you have all your wonderful work backed up... sometimes I even take all my vue scene files and put them on an archive CD... I am so paranoid after loosing my hard drive once.. I back up everything, even the smallest free dowload...and of course all stages of my model work... It is so long and difficult to reload too... I hope you have a new "art" machine soon! Sympathy, Lyne

Thanks dear friends, I hope that my HD will be ok and only the CPU ane maybe the Motherboard and cooler broke. People don't work here saturday and sunday and monday morning. GRRRRRRR! have to wait.

Shame for you Guitta... Two month ago the same arrived to me , but fortunately I have two computers. It was the cooler which was broken (like yours). In my case it was entirely my fault since it happened during a hard disk removal. The positive effect is now I have a 850MHz for my childrens, before I had a PII 233. But the problem is the cost. Yves

Sorry to hear this. I surely hope this will be solved soon for you. Rynn

Poor Guitta! Waiting is the hardest thing in the world, with all those images roiling around in your head,and no machine. Arg!

The "funny" thing is that such breakdowns always happen just before a weekend or before Easter or Christmas. For computers as well as for washing machines, microwaves and whatever.. Atleast in my home. Guitta

Your home is not unique I fear I think its a standard. Has something to do with mr Murphey or so. For the pc we have lots of things for "incase" But we cannot do that for all the stuff. Only for the dishwasher,thats important. regards Myske

Sorry to hear this.. computers can be so much trouble. Sometimes I think mine crashes just to spite me :)

Definitely a serious problem and you have my sympathy because the same happened to me several years ago. I think that there should be a way to monitor the cpu fan operation with a little light or something cause if that fragile lousy little thing ever goes out - well - you're cooked for sure. Unlike a good relationship with a sweetheart, cpus can't stand the heat! Best wishes to you, wish I could just reach through the monitor and hand you an extra one. LNB

Never buy "brand" computers, here HP repairs take weeks or more (LOL I know that for sure because the HP helpdesk is only one digit different from my office number), Compaq, Pack'nHell etc weeks or months etc. A non brand PC (which is no worse) can be repaired with off the shelf parts, repairs in minutes because there are dozens of places where you can buy of the parts.

Sorry to hear about your CPU Guitta. Hope you get back up soon! I have been admiring your work from the very first time I started looking at 3d apps. However, I must give you some advice that has saved me from a similar fate: 1) Always monitor the temp of the pc. In my situation, I don't have air conditioning in the summer, so I always touch the case to see if it is too warm. A faint smell of burnt plastic and metal is always a good indication that the pc is too warm also. 2) Monitor fans. I never close my case and it is a self built job, but I always feel the case fans to make sure that I can feel the air blowing. 3) Use an air blower to blow out dust from inside the pc. One reason for fans, especially cpu fans, and power supplies to go out is dust. I blow out the dust from these items often, especially since where I live gets veeerrrry dusty. 4) When the pc gets warm, check the fan output. Pop the case and turn on the pc and make sure everything is working. Never continue to use a pc when it gets warmer than normal. (You should know what normal is for your situation). Call tech support if you have to. 5. Check the bios to make sure cpu fan/temperature monitoring is enabled. This is not always on by default and each motherboard has different options. If that is not available, some motherboards ship with cpu monitoring S/W that you can run from within windows. If it is a pre built system, ask your dealer for more info. I know it is too late for you, but hopefully, these ideas may help you in the future. It helped me, because I had a power supply go bad and I noticed it when I started smelling something burning around my pc. When I touched the case, it was verry warm, warmer than normal. Then I checked for air from the rear fans and felt none from the power supply. Luckily, I caught it before it was too late.

Thanks Douglas, I will follow your topics when I get my machine back. My husband and I are both smokers and this is maybe not the best for computers. We will start to paint the inside of our home and my office part in a few days and then: no more smoking inside, only on the balcony or the garden, except when we have smoking friends here. Friends should always feel free at our home:-) Thanks again. Guitta