Laptop Monstrosity

Let me describe to you how i'm able to even get on this site at all, my computer's tale of zombification.

Several years ago, my grandma bought me a laptop as a present.  She gave me a price limit and let me wander through stores both online and in person.  Eventually i found one that i just couldn't keep my eyes off of (a special, limited edition HP) and decided that it was the one i had to have, regardless of price.  It was 50 over the limit she had set but with a little persuasion she said yes, but that i couldn't get any accessories (which was fine with me because i hadn't planned on that in the first place).

When i got it, i was utterly manic over having my own computer.  You see, the only computer i'd been able to remotely call my own before then was a humongous dinosaur of a processor that had trouble running Ski-Free (the game where the abominable snowman always eats you after you ski a certain distance down).  I had discovered porn with that computer but was always extremely paranoid about leaving history and such for my parents to later find, so my activities involving such things were always very limited.  So, when i finally had access to the internet without processing limitation nor parental supervision, i became a complete and total porn addict within days.  No site remained unvisited by me in those few months, no movie unwatched, no porn unfapped.

That's when i found out about viruses, trojans, etc.  I knew about avast, however, and had installed it previously on both my parents' computer and my laptop.  Of course, being the free version, it was only a matter of time before something broke through and killed my computer.  I was in shock when it happened and immediately started learning everything i could (using my parents' computer) about rebooting and recovering memory on a corrupt drive.  I learned the simplest and most surefire way to save the hard drive was to simply reset the laptop to factory settings using either a disk or a separate hard drive that some (now all) computers come with.  I knew i would lose my precious collection of information but decided that i'd rather know my hard drive was completely clean than save a few pictures and movies.

So i began anew, this time much more cautious about what sites i visited and downloaded from.  My computer lasted much longer on this second round, more than a year went by without any particularly nasty viruses finding my computer.  I can't remember exactly what i downloaded, but i do know it was my first experience being trolled.  There was some random file that supposedly had 'the most amazing shite you'll ever see' inside it.  I was skeptical but either the uploader or his fellow trolls left comments like 'awesome,' 'i'll never watch another porn again,' 'my penis has found his soul mate.'  So i downloaded it and unzipped it and tried to play the extremely small file that had come out of a much larger zipped version.  Avast had just enough time to tell me that i had several trojans and a worm on my computer before it restarted itself and displayed a blue screen.

That time i wasn't so sure about the factory reset working.  By then i was much more tech-savvy and knew that my system files (on both hard drives) had likely been completely destroyed.  I tried it anyways and much to my surprise, it worked.  My computer didn't seem to care one bit that it had been skull-fucked by my sheer retardation.  After that i decided that my computer must either be extremely lucky or the reincarnation of superman, so i decided that this next time i used it i wouldn't be so cautious.  Afterwards, my computer didn't seem to care what virus i got: i even went without avast for a few months and didn't have any negative effects aside from a few random things (like the on-screen keyboard always being displayed at startup no matter how many times i told it not to).  I thought my laptop had reached some state of mechanical nirvana due to overdoses of porn and viruses.

Then it started breaking down physically.  It was always my fault: balancing it on the arm of a chair and it would fall off, busting part of the casing; hurling myself onto my bed when i was tired and forgetting that my computer was there until i heard a crack when my face made contact with it; but most erroneously of all, letting it overheat once too often.

You see, where i lived at the time it got EXTREMELY hot.  I don't mean above 100 Fahrenheit as a record, i mean above 120 regularly in the summer.  That along with my dad being incredibly cheap meant our house stayed around 85 degrees in the summer at the coolest.  I used to be careful about it, but since i now thought my computer had superpowers, i didn't care how hot the casing got, even if it hurt to put my hand on it.  It was only after several months of gaining a callous where my left hand rested on the keyboard due to the heat that my computer finally broke under the pressure.

I pressed the power button one day, eager to expand my collection of porn, only for my computer to turn on and let the fan run for two seconds, and then turn into a brick.  The fan would shut off, the display wouldn't light up, and my caps and number lock lights would flash at me.  I had no idea what it meant so i looked it up on a friend's laptop and found that many HP's had the same problem, right down to the cause and the symptoms.  HP, however, didn't seem to care about the issue.  Some of the posts i had read about it were more than 5 years old and never had been resolved.  The solution seemed to be buy a new motherboard, but since my computer was so special (at least in my eyes), i wouldn't entertain the notion of replacing hardware.  I decided to try and resolve the issue in my own way.

I had read about one man who had left his computer sitting, undisturbed, for months on end only to turn it on whimsically to find that the computer acted like nothing had happened to it.  Of course, next time he shut it off, it wouldn't turn on again.  I theorized that some of the components on the motherboard must have either fused together or been separated due to heat, so i thought the most likely way to get it to work again would be to somehow reverse the effect of the heat.

I first tried simply bending the computer slightly where i knew the motherboard was located while turning it on, using different angles after every failed attempt.  After that failed, i decided to turn it on and let it run for and hour before bending it out of the hope that the heat would make the connections of the motherboard more malleable.  To my utter delight, it worked!  I had my computer back, even if it was irreversibly damaged.

You see, if my laptop's interior ever gets above a certain temperature, it will shut off.  I enjoy playing games with it, though, so i had to find another solution to widen the operable temperature range.  I decided that, since bending worked to turn it on, perhaps keeping it bent in such a way would extend it's life.  Once again, my caveman tactics worked.  I could once again abuse the video card as well as the internet with my computer.  All i had to do was put my laptop's edges on two objects (like books, or currently, bricks) and place an extremely heavy object directly above the motherboard.  Still, it cannot compare with the god-like state it was in before its guts melted.  It probably has 60-70% of the performance capability that it used to.

You know what's truly horrifying, though?  It's starting to operate better.  Only within the last two months, i haven't needed to bend it in order to turn it on.  I tested it with video-games and suddenly i can play them at full quality without the frame-rate chugging.  It even seems to prefer not being weighed down in the middle anymore.

I'm not sure what my laptop is doing to itself, but i thank my noodly, marinara drenched god that i bought it.