(no subject)

[hatman]

Found a few surprises on Dell's support website.

Surprise #1: I got a super extended service contract when I bought this thing, and, according to their records, there's still six months on it. So, if stuff keeps going wrong, and I decide I have the patience to try working with the support department, they're actually still supposed to help me. I may contact them about the line on the screen, if nothing else.

Surprise #2: There are some useful self-help support walkthroughs on their support website.

Surprise #3: BIOS includes some HDD diagnostic tools.

So I rebooted, intending to activate BIOS diagnostics.

The instructions given for laptops didn't work. But it booted cleanly to Windows.

I tried a copule more times with the same result. No diagnostics, clean boot-up.

Tried the instructions for desktops. Diagnostics kicked in. Said everything checked out fine. Clean boot-up. Cleaner than it's been. I even got all the icons in the system tray.

Weird.

Not sure what to do now. I guess I'll let things go and see how they work out. Maybe Ghosting somehow resolved the problem, whatever it was.

If not, I know where to look now.

So... things are better. I'm kind of wondering if I should cancel the replacement order. I mean, it would be a much better system, and this one still has a few issues, but... can I really justify...? I dunno. I'll think about it.

(Of course, cancelling the order would probably give this thing an excuse to stop playing nice...)

I guess I'll see how the next few days go.

Comments

[kb91.livejournal.com]

When I was in college, my roommate and I both wore those gas-perm contact lenses. They did well for us for the most part, but they would act up from time to time, usually when it was least convenient. We discovered, however, that the exact moment we gave up trying to figure out what was wrong with them and picked up the contact case to take them out, all pain would cease. Thus, we decided that they were alive, messing with us, and were crying out, "No, not the case! Anything but the case! We'll be good, we promise!" when thus threatened with replacement.

Obviously your computer is a descendent. *g*

Good luck!!