Those damnd mice don’t like me

Tags: Blog, computer

Had a very interesting incident on Monday morning - Gem woke me up saying “Lee, the media box won’t turn on” so I got up to have a look and sure enough I push the power button and nothing happens and I thought just great what has gone wrong. So after checking the power etc. was all in the back I took it out of the cabinent and opened the case to find one thing I wasn’t expecting at all…

There was mouse poop everywhere! And worse of all there was some on the motherboard along with some obvious friend components on the motherboard. My first thought was “how the hell did it get in there?” and the only place even slightly feasible is a spare pci card slot on the back of the case (for those not in the “know” the gap would be around 2cm wide by 10cm high). That said it seems like the mouse has been in there a few times as around the power supply in the more open area there was heaps of poop - far more then enough for one visit.

So Ive now replaced the motherboard (somehow don’t think warranty covers mouse damage) which was only 6 months or so old and hopefully all back to smooth sailing again. I also setup a trap on the night to catch the mice (yes I feel bad about it but when they start costing money its not good), infact 3 traps - two cool new silver plastic ones (goes with the decor ) and some fancy mortein one that catches them inside. I also closed the gap on the back of the case with a proper cover for the spare slot.
Just as I was going to bed I heard one go off which caught a decent size mouse (photo for this post may not be accurate photograph of actual mouse) and then reset it to find another in the morning - so looks like I might just be getting on top of the problem!