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Called MicroCenter, and unfortunately my instinct was correct, it's Bad News: preliminary diagnosis is that it's Griff's analog board AND his power board, which with labor would cost $450.18 to fix. Previous consensus with Mum has been that once a repair cost got to be more than 1/2 of replacement value (and there are some $600 closeout iMacs left at MC according to the tech, besides eMacs are only $799 anyway), it's time to pull the plug. We'll hash out the details during the week, but unless a miracle occurs and they decide it's only a loose wire after all, I suspect Saturday we'll be going over to MC to collect the body...
I did have the presence of mind to ask about sticking Griff's HD into an external case (since there's no way in hell I can swing a G4 tower for it to go in as a secondary drive): tech says these are $80 which isn't so unreasonable, so I think a portion of the "Griff's medical fund" could ethically be applied to that use. The real question is, would the donors of the other $310 (currently) be OK with the idea of my applying that towards a successor to him? I have to talk the whole thing over with Mum, meanwhile I'll retrieve the donor-list from PayPal and start asking individually. Oh, wait, I can't get my damned email, can I, oh, hell... Well, I'll figure SOMETHING out.
I suppose another consideration here is the issue of organ donation. I will have to look up the anatomical diagrams next time I'm at the library, but I do know offhand that Griff's CD-ROM drive is in working order, and he's also got a 128MB RAMchip that I added to him Back In The Day; brokering these off via eBay may go some ways further towards the costs of adopting a replacement.
Replacement. God, I don't want to be sitting here thinking about 'replacement'. He's been a good little machine, and he was meant to be handed down to Mum in the event of our being able to afford a successor to him for me; now she has to limp along with this POS IIci into the indefinite future, and I am computerless altogether until some sort of arrangements can be arrived at (I don't consider the IIci a 'computer' for my purposes, it has no USB port for one thing so I can't hook up the printer). But 'computerless' is not a state I can remain in for any length of time under ordinary conditions, and with a manuscript all but ready to send out it will quickly drive me even crazier...
I would like to thank once more all the kind donors to the apparently doomed cause of Griff's welfare; one probably ought to have expected that Moore's Law would surface to bite us all in the collective butt when it came to mending a 4-Y-O computer, but hope does spring eternal. (And here I was worrying about the tube being the expensive repair, when it turns out to be two $150ish boards that are the real problem...) Now, if only I could get at my email... {sigh}
Oh, and the other contribution to the increasing fragility of my mental state, over the weekend? Saturday we managed to lock both sets of keys in the car. $40 to the Helpful Mechanics, $3 for a couple of emergency keys, $6.50 to self-medicate with ice cream afterwards. This is about the point where I would consider taking to drink if I was any good at it...
Tomorrow is the local event in the Howard Dean Sleepless Summer tour, which will hopefully take my mind off my own troubles for a little while. Of course, the way MY luck has been going lately, I will arrive there just in time to see the man assassinated right before my eyes, so perhaps I should stay in bed...
I did have the presence of mind to ask about sticking Griff's HD into an external case (since there's no way in hell I can swing a G4 tower for it to go in as a secondary drive): tech says these are $80 which isn't so unreasonable, so I think a portion of the "Griff's medical fund" could ethically be applied to that use. The real question is, would the donors of the other $310 (currently) be OK with the idea of my applying that towards a successor to him? I have to talk the whole thing over with Mum, meanwhile I'll retrieve the donor-list from PayPal and start asking individually. Oh, wait, I can't get my damned email, can I, oh, hell... Well, I'll figure SOMETHING out.
I suppose another consideration here is the issue of organ donation. I will have to look up the anatomical diagrams next time I'm at the library, but I do know offhand that Griff's CD-ROM drive is in working order, and he's also got a 128MB RAMchip that I added to him Back In The Day; brokering these off via eBay may go some ways further towards the costs of adopting a replacement.
Replacement. God, I don't want to be sitting here thinking about 'replacement'. He's been a good little machine, and he was meant to be handed down to Mum in the event of our being able to afford a successor to him for me; now she has to limp along with this POS IIci into the indefinite future, and I am computerless altogether until some sort of arrangements can be arrived at (I don't consider the IIci a 'computer' for my purposes, it has no USB port for one thing so I can't hook up the printer). But 'computerless' is not a state I can remain in for any length of time under ordinary conditions, and with a manuscript all but ready to send out it will quickly drive me even crazier...
I would like to thank once more all the kind donors to the apparently doomed cause of Griff's welfare; one probably ought to have expected that Moore's Law would surface to bite us all in the collective butt when it came to mending a 4-Y-O computer, but hope does spring eternal. (And here I was worrying about the tube being the expensive repair, when it turns out to be two $150ish boards that are the real problem...) Now, if only I could get at my email... {sigh}
Oh, and the other contribution to the increasing fragility of my mental state, over the weekend? Saturday we managed to lock both sets of keys in the car. $40 to the Helpful Mechanics, $3 for a couple of emergency keys, $6.50 to self-medicate with ice cream afterwards. This is about the point where I would consider taking to drink if I was any good at it...
Tomorrow is the local event in the Howard Dean Sleepless Summer tour, which will hopefully take my mind off my own troubles for a little while. Of course, the way MY luck has been going lately, I will arrive there just in time to see the man assassinated right before my eyes, so perhaps I should stay in bed...