barely fatal

My new PC is here, and it works. Now.

For some reason the nVidia drivers do not automatically adjust the fan speed on my graphics card. That means whenever I start up a game, the card overheats – and the PC crashes. After running a bunch of system tests (and asking Mr. Google) I found out that the card’s fan runs at 29% of its full capacity by default. And it’s configured to only spin up when the card reaches 100°C. Of course, it crashes at 90°. I have now learned how to use RivaTuner to automatically change the fan speed and everything’s okay, but it took me a night and a less experienced user would have had to return the card.

Free hint: if you want to play Cryis with all settings on “very high” in DirectX 10, you better don’t buy a new PC, but rather some kind of cluster. Or travel to the future and grab some gear there. Anyway, a “tweaked” DirectX 9 mode looks just as good and runs twice as fast, so I’ll stick to that. More details next week.

On another note, I caught me a flue again. I seem rather vulnerable to illness this year, maybe I should finally start listening to my mom (after 27 years) and eat more vegetables…

My new PC is now on its way to me. It took the shop three weeks to get all the stuff together. It took me

• - 3 emails to customer support, of which 1 was answered
• - 1 email to the head of customer relations, which was answered after 1 week
• - 4 emails to their call-back service, of which none were actually answered
• - 6 calls to the expensive hotline, of which 4 were actually answered, of which one gave me new information
• - 4 (negative) posts on websites which let you rate online shops
• - 1 complaint filed at the website of a trust service which granted the shop a certificate

I was also contacted by another disappointed customer who canceled his order shortly after. Actually I wanted to cancel today, too. Last night, I didn’t get through to the hotline despite my waiting 10 minutes (twice) and getting to “position 1″. So I got up early – on a Saturday! Me!!! – to call them at eight, right when they opened. The unfriendly operator treated me like I was stupid, then told me I couldn’t cancel ’cause the order was already on its way.

And really, I have the email, I even got another “We’re sorry” email from customer support. Obviously mailing the head of customer relations finally did the trick. Now, there’s just one thing. The two packages have to be complete – and everything must be intact and working. I hope for the best, like I do as a matter of principle! Ok, not on the job, but well, being pessimistic IS my job, basically …

but I have two items I would like to share with you.

1. The new Spock caught in the act(-ing).
2. And the latest Steam Hardware Survey. Did you know they record all that? I feel nekkid.

So here i am, enjoying 2 glorious days off work, sitting on my couch and cursing daytime TV cos there’s nothing good on. After having myself some lunch the post arrives carrying with it my car insurance documents, which are technically arriving 1 week and a half late.

I open the envelope and page through the many pages worth of documentation only to spot an interesting error… my first name is misspelled!

Now my name being misspelled is not exactly a new occurrence, happens quite often actually, but thats not the kind of thing you want to see on an insurance document.

On closer inspection i notice that my details are stamped on multiple sheets of paper and oddly enough its only misspelled once, on one particular document.

To my amusement the only place were my name is misspelled is in the “Certificate of insurance” document (which happens to be on sheet 9 of this particular bundle of papers).

So i take a closer look at the document to make sure no other mistakes have been made and then carry on reading the terms and conditions. I get to a section titled “What is not Covered(exclusions” and decide that this is always nice to be aware off so i read on.

Lo and behold what do i find in clause 7 of this section ?

“The Lead name on your Car insurance Policy must match the lead name on your Certificate of Insurance.”

So i phoned them up to correct the “mistake”.

Still … i cant help but wonder, was it deliberate or an honest mistake ?

I wont add the name of the company since that could cause complications for this site but lets just say its a fairly well known Insurance broker that operates over the internet.