After the awsome night that was World Unknown October, I was very happy to be invited back for the November gig. This time in a venue with walls all around, power that comes out of sockets and even sofas to relax. I was to perform in the ambient room this time around.
…. but it wasn’t to be
Setup was a bit late as there was another event using the space set aside for the ambient room. I had already installed a projector and screen in the main room for the other crew, and as soon as the ambient room space was available I rushed around erecting screens, installing projectors and running cables. Then, arranging my workspace with mixers, monitor etc, and finally turning on my laptop… which was stone cold dead.
Now, I’m not new to fiddling with this particular laptop. I’d already replaced the LCD panel after it had cracked a while back. After the last WU night I had to replace the keyboard due to water damage, and it was working fine.
I wasn’t going to take this lying down, and like any good geek I had all of my tools with me.
I disassembled the laptop and read through various online forums to attempt to diagnose the problem. It seemed that a possible culprit could have been an IO board, but removing that didn’t help. I checked the LCD connector but that was fine. Eventually I came upon a website that offered key combinations to enable various self test modes, and finally I came to the truth which was mainboard failure.
Twenty years ago I would have been devastated to have to abandon a gig due to kit failure, but was age comes wisdom. It was incredibly annoying and frustrating, but not the end of the world.
The night continued and a replacement VJ crew arrived at around 2am.