The Little Tinkerer That Could

I remember when I got my first laptop when I was around 11. Given it was a standard ASUS laptop that was common at your local BestBuy or Walmart, it was a bit lackluster when it came to gaming. However, I was ecstatic and wanted to see what this baby could do. I remember early memories of playing Minecraft, Counter-strike, and Garry's Mod with my friends, exploring the possibilities of every server and trying out various things. After a while, I remember there was this one game I wanted to give a try and it was Black Ops. I remember enjoying it on the family ps3, but a copy that was available for my own device was amazing! I quickly made sure to save my allowance so I could purchase it when it was on sale.

After getting the game I was anxious to play it. After a few hours of installing it, I quickly launched it. There I saw the Treyarch logo along and was excited. I've played the campaign before so I decided to give multiplayer a try on my laptop. After loading into my first match that's when I noticed some issues. It looked a lot worse than I remember on my ps3. The textures were foggy, and the gameplay felt a bit laggier. I was still able to play a match or two but I was confused about this experience. After a few minutes of research, I discover the simple solution was to increase the graphics settings since by default they went with the lowest available. However, now I understood why they did that.

After making sure I had maxed out all of my settings I was ready to game. Finally, I can relive my console experience in the comfort of my bedroom. As soon as I got into a match, I realized my computer was taking a really long time to load as soon as I was done loading the map the match only had a few minutes left. The gameplay however definitely took a turn left as I wasn't playing a game anymore, I was playing an interactive PowerPoint with how the frames were moving. Worried, I was wondering what was going on with my laptop and then I heard it. Piercing through my headphones was the sound of my computer fan as it was trying to take as much air in to attempt to cool off my processors but it was too late. My keyboard felt like it was on fire and I quickly turned off my laptop.

After restarting it I noticed that my laptop as a whole was taking forever to load stuff with games that I could run comfortably was lagging just like that infamous Call of Duty match. Doing some research when I discovered the term "Thermal Throttling" and used it successfully on my laptop. Scared out of my mind since I didn't want to upset my parents that my laptop may be broken, I researched how to fix it. Luckily I was able to find a short guide on youtube explaining how to take apart my laptop and reapply thermal paste to assist it. After a secret Amazon order, I was able to get the tools I needed.

Now the video definitely made it a lot easier to repair, since it felt like taking apart the PC to find the processors took hours. Finally, after prying the laptop clean I found what I was looking for. I carefully cleaned up the processors and applied the thermal paste onto them in some ways to repair them. At this moment I really wasn't sure what I was doing, I just hoped for the best.

After putting the laptop back together I turned it on, closing my eyes since I couldn't bear looking at a broken laptop. To my surprise, it was running like its brand new! No more stutters after doing a simple google search, no more lag on Minecraft. I truly fixed my computer all by myself. To make sure that I didn't do this again I quickly refunded Black Ops stating that I had trouble running it. I then went on a spree on youtube videos to see what computer could run Call of Duty and that's where I discovered the world of PC gaming.

Since then I've been able to create a fine PC that can run almost every game that I feel like playing. Thankfully it can run Black Ops so I play the zombie mode with my friends. As much as I was scared from that initial experience, I'm thankful for it. Had my laptop wasn't on the brink of being on fire, I wouldn't have gotten into PC gaming. 

PC Pete