I have been having a wierd graphical glitch recently...

Purplish/pink lines appear behind stuff like buttons, stuff that is supposed to be clear.

Looks sort of like



I have gotten it before, but it usually clears up relatively quickly. It was starting to irritate me, and wouldn't go away when I restarted/shut down my computer, like it usually did. When opening up my case to check the cables, I realized just how dusty it was. I cleaned out some of it with a damp paper towel (the bottom of it, not the circuitry). Today, I got a can of compressed air (that stuff is fun!!) and used it to blow the dust out of my computer. I'm pretty sure at least a third of it ended up in my lungs, since it all just flew into the air, and I just kept breathing (as non suicidal people are likely to do).

The purple lines were gone for a few minutes after I booted up, then they came back. My fans were REALLY dusty, though. Cleaning them lowered the temperature of my computer by around 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Then I cleaned them again, and lowered it another 5-10. Then I remembered that the fan for my Radeon 9700 was *underneath* the card, so I blew that clean. (I discovered that if you blow compressed air at a fan, you can make it spin really really fast and make a cool noise. I did it with a case fan, though, not the Radeon fan). After I booted up, the purple lines were gone. I am hoping they stay gone, they have already been gone for around 2 hours.

I think it was a problem with heating, since it first developed a few days ago, during a really hot day.


Speaking of which... computers get hot. The other day, I had mentioned to Typy that when playing Tribes 1, my processer heats up from 45 degrees to 50 degrees Celsius. I had no idea how hot that was in Fahrenheit, the temperature I typically measure things in. Later on Saturday, he was over my house, and he asked, "How much is that in Fahrenheit, anyways? I couldn't figure it out". I came up with the brilliant idea... "Let's look at the thermometer!". I looked, and found out that 50 degrees C is over 120 F. Pretty dang hot. That was why I decided to clean my case.