When installing the heatsink/fan assembly of an Intel CPU designed for the LGA 775 socket, do not twist the fastening pins of the cooling unit to seat them. Just use a flat-headed screwdriver to push them straight down. Twisting them is only done to remove the cooling unit!

After a surprisingly short period of time, I found out what happened to my car when it broke down a couple of days ago.

As it turned out, the thermostat which regulates the cooling system went bad. What happened was that the thermostat erroneously decided to start reading MAXTEMP (which would mean that the engine block was about to melt down); it dutifully sent these messages to the microprocessor controlling the engine. The CPU erroneously decided that the cooling system had fouled up in some unspecified manner and commanded the water pump to start feeding coolant to an overflow bottle …

A couple of weeks back I took my car in for 55,000 mile maintenance, during which it was discovered that the water pump was starting to leak, which necessitated a couple of extra hours of work on the part of the car dealership to replace. I figured that everything was hunky-dory with my car, and indeed for a couple of weeks it was.

Earlier tonight after getting off from a whiz-bang day at work, I noticed that the 'check engine' light had blinked on somewhen after I got on the Beltway headed south to go home. I didn't think …