What is the "chime of death"? Is it the broken-glass sound?

Same thing happens with me. I can use a bit of gear every day and it is fine. But after it is not used for a few days, weeks, months it has a problem. It seems counter-intuitive because I always imagine that use would take a harder toll on anything than just sitting there!

I have an LC475 on the way, hopefully it will run without problems. I also got mine for the ][ card.