Sunday, November 05, 2006

Honorary "Ludite"

This weekend I have been seriously thinking about becoming a card-carrying "Luddite". Here is what has happened this week:
1. Wednesday: I finally got around to processing a service call on my laptop computer. The only problem was it needed 'jumper-cables' to get started. Even with a fully charged battery, it wanted the power cord plugged in before it would boot-up. After trying a new battery and running diagnostics on the device, Dell sent a new motherboard to arrive on Thursday (in the possession on an on-site technician).
2. Thursday: The tech arrived and changed the motherboard. When I was checking everything out afterward, we discovered many new problems when it was on it's port replicator (docking station). Another call to Dell .. new motherboard and port replicator enroute.
3. Friday: Return of the Dell tech, with new parts in hand. After short visit, all appears to be working fine!
4. Saturday: Just before leaving town, my Pocket PC device locked up, which normally requires a simple restart to fix. For some reason, this reset resulted in the SD card getting completely wiped clean. I only store about 50% of my applications on the card, including the PPC backups. As such, I am limping along the rest of the weekend with limited data (oh, well ... I have a backup on my office machine)
5. Saturday evening & Sunday afternoon: Laptop computer stability has dropped to zilch! It was either experiencing BSDs, lock-ups or rebooting on it's own. WinDiag and Dell Diagnostics (which revealed no problems on Wednesday) revealed memory problems. Another call to Dell and motherboard number three, with memory as well, will be shipped and I should expect them on Tuesday.
 
Three motherboards in four business days!?! If this doesn't resolve it, Dell is offering a complete system exchange (Dell's 'Lemon Law' policy). Thank goodness for Dell CompleteCare policy!
share on: facebook

No comments: