So…What's been going on? Well, quite a bit, so lemme just fill in some blanks of time with some info and stuff.
The job with SeaWorld, unfortunately has ended. See, about a month ago, my back started doing it's normal "I'm going to shut down now, enjoy life" deal. I started having to use my cane more and more at work, until it eventually got to the point where I was working with it next to me. Luckily the supervisors that were there were kind enough to try to work with me on it, and kept me on stuff that wasn't stressful for my back. Unfortunately, standing and walking around, even in small areas, was making it worse as well. I went to the HR department about a month prior to this happening, and was attempting to get conditional FMLA approval so that I could get some time off to recover some. Unfortunately being seasonal meant that I wasn't eligible for that at all. So, the next best thing they could do was get my VA doc to fill out a "fit for work" form, stating my limitations for working.
The VA doc put in limitations that were well beyond what I expected her to put me on (that of no pushing/pulling/lifting anything over 10 pounds, no running, no jumping, no climbing, must have change in position every 30 minutes [meaning I can't stand, sit, walk, for more than 30 minutes at a time]). I then ended up not being able to do anything in the area basically due to those limitations. Positions were 1 hour at a time for where we were at. Even then, if you were at the start of the rotation, you still had 2-3 hours before you could stop, sit, and relax. The higher supervisors tried whatever tactics they could to possibly put me in another position employment wise, but they couldn't make any connections for me within the park operations department. They gave me a little under a month then from that point to apply for other positions within the company, and they'd try to push me into the position faster, but with no "extra credit" so to say as being already with the company.
Looking through the employment stuff, I did apply for their IT position, but was declined (possibly because I have no PBX experience ... I mean I know it's the packard bell exchange system for their phone system on property, but I've not worked with it directly). All the other positions required 50 pound or more lifting capabilities. So basically I got fired because I'm broken LOL. No, sorry, wasn't "fired" ... I "tendered my resignation" by not getting a new position within the company. Before that happened though, I went ahead and printed off the last of my complementary tickets so that I can take the kids to the park for Halloween. Supposedly their Halloween event is pretty nice for kids.
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Relationship front of things? Could. Not. Be. Better!
My girlfriend's moved in, as are her 3 kids. So, now we have an almost literal "Brady Bunch" here with 3 kids from each side of the relationship... only it isn't 3 boys and 3 girls ... it's 2 boys and 4 girls. Kids all are having a blast together, no big arguments that haven't been quickly squelched, nor any bloody fist fights.
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Gaming front:
After working on my girlfriend's computers some, and doing some research, I thought that part of my problem with my gaming rig, was in fact the battery backup itself. I hadn't turned on the computer in like forever, so imagine my surprise when it powered on just fine, no noise squelching out from it's bellows! Thinking something MUST be wrong, I still went around and tried to get stuff all straightened out. Nothing seemed to be wrong. So, I decided to play around a bit. Did some League of Legends, did some Binding of Isaac, some Realm of the Mad God... then when I thought everything was going great... I went ahead and brought on Firefall ... Unfortunate things happened then...
The computer just up and shut down... no blue screen. Complete power off. Wouldn't come back on. I was furious...seeing as I had only JUST gotten the log on screen loaded before it went POOF. I waited a while, and did some other things around the house and spent time with my girlfriend more. I eventually went back to it, and it booted up like nothing was wrong. Tried again to load Firefall right off the get-go, and was welcomed to the new wiped world with open arms. I started plugging away, getting used to the MONTHS of changes that were put in while my computer was "offline". I eventually got to a 'stopping point' in my missions that I could go do some exploring. I explored far and wide, got to see more area that I hadn't seen before. Got to .... POOF ... off went the system... "well F....." was the thought in my head. I figured that maybe it was just over-heating seeing as I had the computer in the bedroom (that is the last room in this house to get the AC) and it was getting hotter in the room with the computer on.
So, I tended to play on and off only simple games, League of Legends didn't put much stress on it so I didn't worry too much about it overheating. But I'd still turn off the computer when I wasn't on it. I wanted to get us some more room in the bedroom, so I decided to move the desk and computer back out to the living room. That took a while, and a bit of pain. Computer out here, hooked up, all good, play some more games (still no Firefall due to fear of it just shutting down on me again), enjoy the times. Until I started hearing a "tick" that bordered on the level of sound that was the "whine" I heard from it before I stopped using it. Gradually it started getting worse, until one night, while playing Isaac, it started the whine again... I was pissed... and already dealing with a headache from being sick (thanks kids in school LOL)...so I shut it off.
This went on for about a week or two... until 5 days ago .... when I decided to play some Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands ... I started a fresh game, no biggie to me, so that I could get used to the controls again, and experience it again. I got through the beginning parts of getting into the palace, when I started seeing "artifacts" as I'll call them ... the graphics started messing up in different areas... specific textures were off. I got a little upset, but it was still playable (told myself I'll just repair the install when I get out). Then, it started getting worse and worse ... Thinking that my GPU was taking a dump, I got ready to shut it down, when the computer gracefully shut itself down like it's done before.
I unplugged it, waited a bit, plugged back in, powered on... no errors ... looked at the temperatures of everything ... CPU was around 48C (it was off for a bit, and I have a pretty kickin cooler on it) ... GPU, I looked, and it was around 60C ... well, that's about normal for after a reboot and if it did in fact overheat. Went on playing minor games again for a bit before wanting to get further in PoP:TFS, and I cranked it back up. Graphics glitches weren't there (I hadn't remembered to check files through steam), and it was smooth... got to the point where the big Ifrit guy shows his head to the player, and suddenly...
POP!!! POP!!!
Yep, two distinct pops were heard, computer shut down, and I hopped up quickly to see if there was physical smoke coming from something (hey, if I saw it, I'd know for certain). Nothing produced visible smoke, but I did start smelling the LOVELY melted/fried electrical equipment smell. Of course, when I hopped up quickly, the power plug was swiftly pulled from the case with vigor (took out some of my LEGO when I did that LOL). After a bit, I didn't see anything, and I figured the stuff was discharged, as no lights were on (at least discharged enough to put hand in there and see if I feel anything super hot, I mean something popped). Video card wasn't as hot as I'd have expected for running that game on highest settings. HDD's were warm, but nothing out of the ordinary. CPU cooler fins were cool to the touch (love copper). PSU? Oh yea, there's the heat ... couldn't touch it long before it forcing my hand away.
So yea, PSU was bad... go figure. Had a spare here, that was more wattage than the one that just popped. it was a bit smaller than the original one too, so I actually took down the back of the case, re-built it around the new power supply, and even re-worked the back panel so that my "fan grille" was similar to the one on the side, instead of looking half-arsed. All said and done, I am still a little fearful of popping on Firefall or PoP:TFS right now, or any other graphical game.
I then decided to try it's limits so to say, and see what else is wrong. Popped in Trine for a test run (got it on one of the humble bundles, never played it) ... got in and ..... blue screen??? oh my ... well, at least we're not shutting off instantly. Blue screen dumps memory and reboots. Get a dump file reader... supposedly ntfs.sys failed or something... basically it couldn't write to the HDD from memory for some reason. Do some digging and research, try the fixes that I found... to no avail, as the check disk utility doesn't want to run for some reason on the C drive (which is my 1.5TB) doesn't want to scan properly. It gives some vague explanation about why it can't run, but boots into windows too quick and I didn't have a camera handy to take a quick snap. Tried some other "fixes" including system file checker utility to possibly fix something, but nothing was found wrong. I went to try to do update...
Wait... Security center is off? ... turn on ... WHAT? you can't turn on? ....
So, here I sit, now with AVG on it ... windows defender supposedly isn't even installed anymore (go go virus programmers that will uninstall the crappy stuff anyway), Scanned, with AdAware as well, cleaned up a lot of things, but still have to dig around, and maybe even go look up what the virus' do that I had on the system... Perhaps that'll give me a heads-up as to what I need to do to fix it. Not sure if all this will make it better... but I certainly don't want to have to re-install Win7, and all this other stuff that I have installed already ...
Oh... and my friend (that had gotten me this vid-card in the first place)... did some researching on his own, and found that the vid card I have, has a minimum wattage requirement of 450 ... guess how much my PSU that blew up was? ... 450 ... so right there yes ... but with 3 HDD, a DVD Burner, and 3 fans? ... yea, not exactly allowing for any surges/dips ... even though it's on a battery backup ... This may have caused some of the problems, but meh. The virus' probably have more to do with my current problems...
