I woke up today a little past noon after about five hours of sleep. On most days, the first thing I do when I wake up is walk over to my PC and switch it on. And that was what I did.

But this time, pushing the power button didn't have the expected effect. No blinking lights. No familiar humming sounds of spinning fans. Nothing.

What the hell? Is it a power outage? Nope, that can't be. My monitor is on. Are the power cables loose? I unplugged and replugged everything then tried again. Nothing happened. I began to panic. Is the power supply dead? Nooooooooo!

When a computer's power supply dies, there's a good chance that it would take something else to hell with it. I know because I've seen one explode before--it totally fried the hard drive. I didn't see or hear any explosions this time, but maybe I missed it because I was sleepy.

I started to felt sick. My hard drives! I'd be in deep trouble if either of them died, because I've always been too lazy to back up my data. I thought about the amount of work I'd have to redo, and I almost threw up on the spot.

What now? Well, how about avoiding the problem? Sounds like a good plan. So I went for lunch. After stuffing myself with comfort food, I came back to find my PC still dead. I took a long nap, irrationally hoping that it was all just a bad dream.

After waking up into the same nightmare, I knew that I had no choice but to face reality. I hauled my machine to the nearest PC Express. A technician there plugged it in, and... it's alive! What the hell?

So the cheap made-in-China power supply is innocent after all. Who's the real culprit then? Maybe it's the AVR (automatic voltage regulator). Or maybe it's the power cord that connects the power supply to the AVR. So which one is it? Unfortunately, I left both of those at home--I only brought the case.

I thought about it and decided to buy a new power cord for 60 pesos. I could have bought both items and eliminated the possible need for a second trip to the shop, but I chose to gamble because a new AVR is much pricier.

Back at home, I was about to replace the power cord when I decided to try pushing the power button first. It worked! What... the... hell? So my PC was fine all along? Was it just bored and decided to trick me into taking it on a joyride? Bad PC!

Now, I'm sitting here with a shiny new extra power cord and still no clue as to what happened. But I really don't care anymore. I'm just relieved to have my life back to normal... and a little pissed that I wasted much of my afternoon over nothing.

Scary episodes like this remind me about how dependent I am on my PC and why backing up data regularly is a good idea. I think I'll start doing backups tomorrow next week soon.