Dead System Saga - Episode 3 Transit glitch

 Yesterday, the new workstation was due to be dropped off by the courier. Uncertain as to who holds liability for the machine, I was worried about it being lost in limbo and SCAN then declaring that it wasn't their problem. My fears appeared to have been realised as the courier's tracker noted that he, "Dave", was running late after the end of the expected delivery window (11:30-12:30). The hours passed, and the status did not budge. After five hours of waiting, I decided to call Scan to see if they knew what had happened. The agent was unsure but said their tracking page showed the delivery was still on the van. I left him to investigate and then, ten minutes later, received an email that confirmed that, in fact, the system had been delivered at the beginning of the delivery window. A glitch!

So what's next? The system must be verified before it is marked as received. Someone must photograph the bits and verify serial numbers, as I can see RMA as a potential target for passing off faulty stuff. Hopefully, the system will be in the hands of an engineer who can qualify the problem and do all the necessary rebuilding before it comes back repaired or, given the apparent damage to the motherboard, rebuilt.

Luna Lander

The lander's construction progressed slowly. It seemed slow for a relatively small vehicle that had yet to be plastered with tiny details.

Nothing is outrageously wrong or bad. Sometimes, a design drifts away from you as you make minor tweaks. I wasn't going for a yellow thing; it just looks nice and bright in that colour. I will go for a more sophisticated scheme: two-tone greys with some stipes and technical decals. 

The cargo canister was built years ago using Fluent Power Tools. It's alright but not great. I may rebuild it this morning.

What to do:

• I might make significant changes to the proportions, such as making the legs bigger and chunkier.
• Cargo container isn't a perfect match, although it's reasonably well built.
• Internals within the cockpit area
• Surface details and decals. Lamps/clasps/ladder rungs, those sorts of things.
• Colour scheme.
• Clean-up and decide whether I want to sell it.

D.O.A.

 The new system arrived. I unpacked it, plugged in the necessaries and turned it on. POST! No display. I repeated the steps a few times but nothing. I tested with the motherboard's built-in VGA. Success! So why is the GPU not running. I tried to coax it back via BIOS settings but it wasn't obvious there was a selector.

I called up support and took a closer look inside the machine..

Oh shit!!!

The first thing I noticed was some small plastic fragments sitting inside the 5090's top fan bay. I carefully fished them out. I called support. They verified that the likely cause was damage in transit. It was suggested that I might attempt to remove and reinstall the GPU. As I went through the required steps, I noticed that the thumb lever for releasing the GPU appeared to be missing. This is likely what the small broken-off pieces are. There's also some twisting on the GPU's backplate, although it seemed to have still been firmly attached.

So, yeah. SHIT.

In a classic case of Bolting the stable door. The base unit was repackaged and sent back today.

pink and squishy on the inside.

Still Fragile! 

Scan.co.uk won't cover any damage done during the return transit if it isn't sent back in the same highly protected state it came in (ha, bloody ha), so I purchased additional packaging tape.

The courier was alone and not equipped with a hand tractor (one of those two-wheeled trolleys) which is, excuse my corse language FUCKING INSANE. I couldn't bear watching him drag the box to the lorry.

So, I'm not a happy camper. All said and done, we just watched a shocking and profoundly worrying geopolitical shift that makes my computer woes look a tad trivial. 

Onwards and upwards (until the U.S. occupation forces arrive in Nuuk)

Luna Lander

I know; I'm a bit mad on landers. I'll sell it on Blender Market if it, and the accompanying landing pad scene is good enough.