Well, the laptop is boxed up and ready to start it’s journy to Dell’s repair depot in Tennesee.
It sounds stupid … but I really feel like a part of me is missing … I mean, hell, it’s just a stupid computer. A hunk of metal, plastic, & silicon. I’ve got more of ’em lying around here (using one of them now).
Oh well, maybe it will be good for me. 🙂 <yeah, right>
I don’t want to imagine what it would be like if Ginny’s computer malfunctioned for more than a day or so.
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The fans on my Dell Inspiron 8100 started acting wonky today … so I ran the diagnostics and was informed that the fans were failing.
I called Dell service. Held for 10 minutes and then found out it was the corporate support line, so I called back and waited another 10 minutes.
I described the problem to the tech (pleasant guy named John, who was definitely in America) and he said that the fans probably needed to be replaced. Unfortunately, my service contract is “Rapid Response Depot”… and the turnaround time is about 2 weeks.
Now I don’t know about you … but I certainly can’t be without my computer for 2 weeks.
The online service manual have instructions on how to replace the fans … but there’s no part number, and John couldn’t find one as a “Customer Replicable Part” … so the only option I currently have is to send it in.
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Well, it’s not really a Tivo function as such … it’s just the Tivo Home Media Option (HMO) … but I’m running a server application on the linux box called JavaHMO.
This lets me server pieces of dynamic information to the Tivo music and picture displays.
So, in addition to the standard HMO music and pictures, we have some Shoutcast auido streams, the current weather, movie schedules, games (I haven’t figured out to get the tic-tac-toe game to work yet), even screen shots of the PC desktop (although that doesn’t work, because it’s running on the linux system).
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Earlier in the week I had decided that the port replicator for my laptop had died. It would power on, start to boot the laptop, and then power off.
Today I decided to try and make it work again … I had already assumed it was a lost cause, so I figured I couldn’t break it any worse.
Now, however, it’s working.
It didn’t at first … exhibited the same behavior as before.
However, this time I tried to boot the laptop in the APR with the laptop lid open … lo and behold, it boots normally.
So I start plugging devices in … and they are all working. I plug the monitor in and close the lid, and the monitor springs to life.
I’m confused.
I think computers were placed on this world just to screw with my brain.
… for computers!
New drive arrived from Dell today … Airborne was supposed to get an “Adult Signature” before delivering it.
I guess the driver is an adult … as he must have been the one who signed for it. The drive was shoved between the storm and front door.
Oh well, good thing for Airborne I’m an honest person. I could have just as easily pocked the drive and claimed I didn’t receive it.
The drive installed easy enough, and passed diagnostics … but that’s when things got very interesting…
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What a day it was today …
Around 6:30 this morning I THOUGHT I heard the phone ringing … but it wasn’t ringing upstairs, so I figured it was on our 2nd line (which happens to be a Vonage Voice over IP line), so I knew it was probably a wrong number (only Steve knows the VoIP number anyway).
Well, woke up to get my coffee and noticed that we had a message on the answering machine … I listened to it and it was indeed Steve calling to tell me that he my system was totally inaccessable.
I hadn’t done anything to the Covad DSL service I figured something was wrong with the Dell server.
Went downstairs and didn’t see anything wrong with the server … but I did notice my Dell laptop was reporting that it couldn’t find a hard drive.
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