PHEW!

And I seriously MEAN that … !

PHEW … !

I almost had a moment of brief panic, there.

No, tell a lie …

I DID have a moment of brief panic, there … !

Mostly where I gave Bruce — my much loved Mac Mini — a hoovering.

Well …

A clean out, I should say.

Basically … ?

I powered him down, disconnected the monitor, the external hard drive, the external optical drive, and the keyboard, and flash memory sticks.

Then used three expired iTunes cards and a palette knife to top the cover off, so I could give the air-vents a going over.

The problems seemingly started when I’d reassembled Bruce, reconnected everything, and powered up.

There was no Dong.

No start up sound, in other words.

And once I’d got into my user account?

The little loudspeaker icon in the menu bar — the volume control, in other words — was greyed out.

The system was UTTERLY silent. And a check through Bruce’s System Profiler — the software utility on every Mac, that tells you, me and the nearest Technical Support person what your Mac is capable of — showed me the Mini had no on-board audio capabilities.

Which I knew was drivel.

»»⩶««

Thankfully … ?

I’m ALSO glad I kept the original Install discs — the OS X version of the Restore discs that come with a Windoze PC.

I can’t swear to if a Windoze based PC has this — it should, if it doesn’t — But the install discs that come with every new Mac have a set of software routines on them called “Apple Hardware Test.”

All I have to do in this sort of situation … ?

Is pop the relevant disc into the DVD drive.

Restart my Mac.

And MAKE SURE I’M HOLDING DOWN THE D KEY WHILE BRUCE IS RESTARTING.

Right at the moment … ?

I’m RATHER grateful I kept those original Leopard install discs that Bruce came with.

You see, each version of the test … ?

Is specific to the model … !

Can you do me a HUGE favour, at this point … ?

Remind me NOT to lose them … !