[SWLUG] is usb failure a premonition of machine demise?

[Mark Summerfield]

Hi,

This morning my machine started up fine as usual.

I then put in the USB memory sticks I use for backups throughout the
day. I put them in one at a time, pausing between each one to allow
nautilus to start up and show it before putting in the next one. When
the fourth one went in the machine froze. No keyboard or mouse response
at all.

I pressed the on/off switch and the machine popped up the GNOME shut
down dialog and after 60s shut down. I then rebooted and discovered that
none of the USB ports was working---no mouse or keyboard. The machine is
old so I plugged in a PS/2 keyboard and that worked, but the USB ports
were "dead", and not even the network card was working. I rebooted and
tried the gentoo system rescue disk; that started fine, but still no
mouse and only the PS/2 keyboard.

Now, several hours later I've restarted the machine and everything works
fine!

I've never experienced this before. I think I bought the machine in
2006---d'you think this is a "foreshadowing" that the machine is likely
to fail permanently soon and should be replaced?

I spent this morning visiting various computer shops and was pretty
disappointed. I brought a Ubuntu live CD and did try it on one machine,
but it didn't recognize the graphics card, so I suspect that buying a
replacement won't be easy.

Any shops you'd recommend for getting a custom machine, or is it easy
nowadays to build one's own? Or is it easiest to just buy a Dell since
they can supply their machines with Ubuntu preinstalled?

-- 
Mark Summerfield, Qtrac Ltd, www.qtrac.eu
    C++, Python, Qt, PyQt - training and consultancy
        "Programming in Python 3 (Second Edition)" - ISBN 0321680561