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State of the Laptop
Jan. 30th, 2007 03:52 pmThis is coming to you from Morden, again, and I can't begin to tell you how much that doesn't thrill me.
When last heard from, I was going to get ahold of the name of my grandparents' tech guy, give him a call, and see if he could help with Anna's keyboard. Well, we got ahold of the grandparents, and their tech guy has a day job now. They had someone else come out to their house- someone random from the phone book, I gather. It cost them $100 just for the guy to walk in the door, and Grandpa wasn't too impressed by him.
So much for that. So I said, okay, let's call my aunt and uncle who live near San Francisco. They're easily the most tech-savvy members of the family; Grandma only calls me for her tech support needs because I'm not long-distance. Anyway, they're both incredibly bright programmers who have laptops. I didn't figure they'd know exactly how to fix it, since they're more on the software end than the hardware one, but I figured they'd have some clues.
They do, and said clues aren't good. First, my uncle said that the problem I'm having could be caused by any number of things. Second, he said that while replacing the keyboard might do the trick, it's not something he'd do himself. That he's tried replacing hard drives and such in laptops, and has ended up with a mess. Apparently, under that sporadically working keyboard, it's a mess down there. Cables and ribbons and stuff. Now, I was already put off by Gateway's instructions for do-it-yourself laptop keyboard swapping, involving as it did a.) opening the case, b.) prying large chunks of the computer apart, and c.) the necessity of using something called a "grounding glove", which must be anchored to a non-metallic surface at all times...Think it was non-metallic. That'd make more sense.
Anyway, I was like, ...yeah, if he doesn't recommend it, I'm sure as hell not gonna try it. So. Bust on that. Aunt and uncle are doing good, though, which was good to hear.
Next we took a look at the computer repair places in the phone book. I was sort of hoping one would jump out at me, in the sense of "I remember that place, they're good" or "I think that's the place x friend took their laptop, and they fixed it." No such luck. Ended up calling the Fresno State bookstore, because their computer department used to do repairs. The computer people weren't working on the weekend, but the person we talked to said she thought they could at least tell me what was wrong with the computer, if not actually fix it. So Mom called them on Monday. They don't do repairs, but "you could try CompUSA or Best Buy."
Yeah. I took Anna to CompUSA a while ago, when I broke the SysRq key. I'm pretty sure that they super-glued it, and their manner when I dropped the compute off and picked it up, didn't fill me with confidence. So I'm not sure how I feel about them maybe taking apart the case- okay, yes I do. I don't feel good about it at all.
Which kind of leaves Best Buy.
( Except... )
When last heard from, I was going to get ahold of the name of my grandparents' tech guy, give him a call, and see if he could help with Anna's keyboard. Well, we got ahold of the grandparents, and their tech guy has a day job now. They had someone else come out to their house- someone random from the phone book, I gather. It cost them $100 just for the guy to walk in the door, and Grandpa wasn't too impressed by him.
So much for that. So I said, okay, let's call my aunt and uncle who live near San Francisco. They're easily the most tech-savvy members of the family; Grandma only calls me for her tech support needs because I'm not long-distance. Anyway, they're both incredibly bright programmers who have laptops. I didn't figure they'd know exactly how to fix it, since they're more on the software end than the hardware one, but I figured they'd have some clues.
They do, and said clues aren't good. First, my uncle said that the problem I'm having could be caused by any number of things. Second, he said that while replacing the keyboard might do the trick, it's not something he'd do himself. That he's tried replacing hard drives and such in laptops, and has ended up with a mess. Apparently, under that sporadically working keyboard, it's a mess down there. Cables and ribbons and stuff. Now, I was already put off by Gateway's instructions for do-it-yourself laptop keyboard swapping, involving as it did a.) opening the case, b.) prying large chunks of the computer apart, and c.) the necessity of using something called a "grounding glove", which must be anchored to a non-metallic surface at all times...Think it was non-metallic. That'd make more sense.
Anyway, I was like, ...yeah, if he doesn't recommend it, I'm sure as hell not gonna try it. So. Bust on that. Aunt and uncle are doing good, though, which was good to hear.
Next we took a look at the computer repair places in the phone book. I was sort of hoping one would jump out at me, in the sense of "I remember that place, they're good" or "I think that's the place x friend took their laptop, and they fixed it." No such luck. Ended up calling the Fresno State bookstore, because their computer department used to do repairs. The computer people weren't working on the weekend, but the person we talked to said she thought they could at least tell me what was wrong with the computer, if not actually fix it. So Mom called them on Monday. They don't do repairs, but "you could try CompUSA or Best Buy."
Yeah. I took Anna to CompUSA a while ago, when I broke the SysRq key. I'm pretty sure that they super-glued it, and their manner when I dropped the compute off and picked it up, didn't fill me with confidence. So I'm not sure how I feel about them maybe taking apart the case- okay, yes I do. I don't feel good about it at all.
Which kind of leaves Best Buy.
( Except... )
