The saga of my laptop trouble continues...  (Links to 1, 2, 3, 3.5, 4, 5, 4.5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)  Here is episode 11...

-----Original Message-----
From: Ole Eichhorn [mailto:ole@aperio.com]
Sent: Monday, April 11, 200510:44 AM
Subject: episode 11 - as the laptop turns

It’s Monday, so it’s time for a new episode of ATLT.

Okay, so I have my new spiffy Compaq nc8230.  I’ve been using it daily – this is being typed on it – and it works great.  I’m one happy camper.  The story appears to have a happy ending, which I understand makes it somewhat less interesting to you, but better for me :)  I’ll try to have a full-on disaster next time.

You will remember there were a few hanging chads.  First, I was still in possession of my old laptop, and my old new laptop, as well as my new new laptop.  I finally convinced HP to pick up the old laptops.  I am pleased to report that HP did pick them up, so I am now down to one laptop.  So HP are not quite as bad as I thought they were.  They’re even planning to “recondition” my old laptop – which still has a questionable display – so perhaps it won’t be junked, and of course my old new laptop was brand new.

P.S. I highly recommend a utility called killdisk.  This zeros your entire hard drive.  It doesn’t merely erase all the partitions and files, it writes zeros to every sector several times.  This way nobody can recover old ScanScope source code and other valuable tidbits from my old drives :)

Next, I did need a new port replicator, since my new laptop is incompatible with my old one.  I bought a new one and have sold the old one on eBay.  Net loss $100 so not bad.  Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for this story, the new replicator arrived dead.  Well actually it sort of worked but not really; in particular, it could not drive my 21” Viewsonic display without a blizzard of snow.  So I had to place a trouble call, they mailed me a new one no questions asked, and I mailed the defective one back.  The new one works perfectly and score another point for HP service.

Finally, there is still the matter of laptop memory.  You’ll remember since you’ve been taking careful notes that my old laptop had 1GB of memory.  Well the new one has “only” 512MB, so HP did agree to send me a new 1GB chip.  The chip duly arrived, but unfortunately for me and fortunately for this story, the chip was the wrong kind.  It looked like it should fit, but there was this little notch that just quite didn’t line up.  Turns out it was 3.0CL memory and I need 2.5CL memory.  EVERYONE knows what CL means, right?  I don’t.  All I know is that the little notch didn’t line up, so now I have to get another chip from HP and return the old one.  This project is single-handedly keeping UPS delivery in business.

So that’s the news, as always, stay tuned for more…

Ole

Continue to episode 12...