That will teach me to complain…

And I thought Thursday was a bad day?

Yesterday, I got up, turned on the computer–and it wouldn’t boot. The first screen, with the Dell logo and the BIOS information, came on. There is a progress bar across the bottom, and that usually shoots across and then the next screen appears in about two seconds. This time, the bar stopped about 1/8 of the way–and that was it. The computer just sat there. Not a sound from the hard drive or a flicker from its indicator light.

I was so, so, so thankful that I now back up all my e-mail and data files onto flash drives every single night. I also have two other laptops, the older Dell and the new netbook. I booted them up. But still…this sucked. The newer Dell is my main computer, has the most memory and has all my important apps installed on it. *grump*

I turned the computer on and off several times, tried a couple of different boot CDs, popped the battery in and out. Nada. Not booting from CD was definitely a bad sign. That suggested a motherboard failure.

The warranty is ancient history, and I called my dad to get the name of his computer repair guy, Wayne (dad and Wayne are good friends because dad is always taking his computers to the shop), but dad didn’t answer his phone.

But before I got all panicky and started committing money for tech support, I wanted to exhaust every DIY option. Earlier this year, I upgraded the newer Dell’s memory, from 1GB to 2GB. The keyboard was damaged, and I ordered a replacement ($12 for refurbished), and when I did the sales rep said they were offering a deal on memory upgrades. I took it because I could really use the memory. With InDesign, Paint Shop Pro and video editing apps, I was maxing out 1GB. The modules arrived, straight from Dell, I installed them and up to now I hadn’t had a problem.

I thought of this because a couple of years ago I was having a weird problem with the older Dell. I’d be working along and suddenly it would just shut down–bang, black screen, dead. It would boot right back up, but laptops aren’t supposed to do that. I thought it might be the internal power supply. I went onto Dell’s forums to see if anyone else had the same problem with that model (yes) and if they had a solution. The solutions ranged from “replace the whole motherboard!” to someone who suggested, “remove the memory modules and hard drive and re-seat them.” There didn’t seem to be any logical reason for that to work. But…I had upgraded the older Dell’s memory. So I opened it up, took out the memory modules and then reseated them, and closed the covers. That solved it–the guerilla shut-downs never recurred.

With that in mind, I located the 1GB memory modules I’d replaced in the newer Dell, took the 2GB modules and put the old ones back in.

The computer booted. Everything fine, not a single hiccup, chugging away as happy as ever.

That was a great relief, but I still was annoyed to be knocked down to half the RAM I’d gotten used to. Last night, after I backed up everything and was done for the day, I tried swapping the modules around. I found one 1GB module that works and one that doesn’t. So now I have 1.49GB of RAM, which is better than 1GB but isn’t what I paid for. I still need to find the paperwork and see if the replacement modules are still covered by any kind of warranty (I suspect not). It’s not like I bought them from some shady discount place, I got them from Dell. Mind you, I am a loyal and for the most part very satisfied Dell customer–I’ve certainly had the best experience with Dell of any of the computer companies I’ve worked with.

All that took up an unplanned chunk of my morning and knocked me all off my routines for the day. Dad returned my phone call as I was cooking brunch. It turned out that he was out getting his computer from Wayne. He’d just had it in, and Wayne had put in a larger hard drive–and then dad’s computer completely locked up on him. Wayne replaced the hard drive he’d just installed! (When dad stopped in on Thursday he brought me his old hard drive. See, that’s what I keep trying to tell you–computer components follow me home! It’s not my fault! *g*) He was anxious to get his computer set up again and he wouldn’t even look at his cell phone to see if the updates I tried to do on Thursday had come through. He did say he was feeling better. I was exactly right about his going home on Thursday and taking a nap with his cat. 🙂

I was going to make something for yesterday’s brunch with milk I’d bought for Thanksgiving, but the milk had spoiled and I had to throw it out. I’m having bad luck with food this week.

But, today I am going over to the high school to see a matinee performance of “The Crucible.” I know one of the kids in it from the Ashby church, and this gang is good. They did “The Laramie Project” last spring and it was very enjoyable. I’ve read “The Crucible” but I’ve never seen it performed.