The Importance of Troubleshooting...

Hey all,
If you read my blog at all, then there's a pretty good chance you make at least some of your living by interacting in some way with a computer.

And if you've spent any time with a computer as a working professional, then you know how maddening they can be to work with. I'm a gear head. I build my own workstations, and even I spend a significant portion of time "under the hood". This is time spent NOT WORKING, but fixing stuff...

Case in point, over the last month the main computer monitor of my dual screen set up has been acting really flaky. As it would warm up, it would blink on and off. It started out as an occasional flicker, but has progressed to a nearly constant on for a couple seconds, off for a couple seconds light show. Like I said. Maddening.

I tried my normal "jiggle the handle" approach to fixing things: made sure the DVI cables were attached properly, double checked the power cable, even double checked my video card and reloaded graphics drivers.

I was pretty much set on ordering a new monitor. Until, on a whim, I swapped the cables on my dual monitor setup. The monitor which had been acting fine was now flickering, and the monitor which had been flickering was now solid.

Instead of dropping $200 on a decent monitor, I bought a $7.50 cable.

And now I'm back to work...