Ah, so I replaced the dying northbridge fan on b5. And it's still shutting down. Lo, I discover this morning that one of the power supply fans is dead. It's a standard part, I even have several of them, I'll replace it maybe tonight. For the moment, leaving the case open gives it enough air flow to live.
My end-of-period lights are mounted in the gym. The 120V versions on the wall work just fine. I goofed something in the 16-to-12VDC regulators, though, that keeps the ones behind the backboard glass from working. I'd set up to start working last night after the frosh finished practice, but realized I'd left a tool and two plugs at home. When I got back from retrieving them, I found the custodial staff replacing the three burnt-out lights, just in time for today's first (girls) game. One of the guys, who's as acrophobic as I am, gets to the top of that blasted scaffold, reaches up to take out the dead bulb... and it lights up. "It takes forever to get up there, for nothing!" It seems he has the same effect on lighting as I have on dead computers. They work when I walk into the room.
My iBook seems to be back to normal again. Thank God for tons of cheap disk hanging on my desktop, and for FireWire target disk mode. (Remember, kids... it even works on desktop machines!)
Tonight, it's herd-riding over operations at the girls game, then tomorrow my basketball season finally starts. Thursday football, Friday basketball again... someday, I might rest.