Help desk pilot fish gets a trouble ticket from a user who says her PC suffered a “thermal event” the day before, just before she went home — and now the computer won’t boot.

“When I checked on the computer, the built-in system diagnostics had finished running and there were no indications of any problems — all was in the normal range,” says fish.

“The computer was to the left of the user’s foot space. Then I noticed that there was a small space heater to the left of the computer, situated where, if the heater was turned on, the heat would be pulled into the computer’s cooling vents while the computer was trying to cool itself.

“I left the user a note, asking her to position the heater so the heat wouldn’t go directly into the computer.”

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