Yesterday I was playing TF2, having a great time. I was talking to the person who runs TF2maps.net (he was on our server last night) and all of a sudden my computer just shut off. No messages, no nothing, just dead off. Obviously that's not good but I figured maybe I hit the switch on my power strip or something and turned it back on. Dead again in 10 seconds.
I opened my case to poke around. Reached my hand in a burnt myself on my heatsink. Noticed it was clogged with dust, not good. It had gotten so hot that it melted the sylicone 'skrews' that were holding a fan directly to the heatsink, which in turn fell on my graphics card and promptly stopped working. Not only that, but the fan on the side of my case was covered in dust and had also stopped working.
I cleaned off the side fan and fired up the machine again. I was able to play for probably another 30 minutes when my computer shut off again. That's where it sits now. Off, dead, silent for the first time in years. I need to pickup a can of air and a new fan for my heatsink. I am going to try and take care of it tonight but until I do, no more TF2 for me.
I still have internet access and a few laptops to do everything I need to do to keep everything running for the community, you just won't see me on the server.
