(no subject)

[gwynhefar]

I am beginning to give serious credence to the idea that there is a technology-hating imp living in my apartment. No other explanation makes sense.

My replacement computer from Dell arrived yesterday, right before I left for work. When I got home, I set it up, connected everything the way you're supposed to, and turned it on. I got an AUTOEXEC.BAT Failure after the Alienware logo.

So I call Dell. This time I get a very nice technician named William who listens to my description of the problem and goes "What? That makes no sense." I find that I respond much better to customer service folk who admit when they don't know what's going on, rather than trying to pretend they do when they obviously don't. I like this guy already.

So we check a few settings, all of which are where they should be. Finally he says that while he's never seen this problem before on a customer machine, he thinks that reinstalling Windows will take care of it. So he leaves me to do that and promises to call back today after work.

Reinstalling Windows *does*, in fact, resolve the error issue. However, while I can now get into Windows, it refuses to acknowledge my network connection so I can't get online, and it frequently stalls on various tasks. In trying to get online I tried disabling and reenabling the network adapter, and it stalled on enabling. At another point, it stalled on shut down - spending 45 minutes on the "Windows is shutting down" screen before I gave up and manually turned it off.

So something is still wrong. Here's hoping William lives up to his first impression and proves to be more competent and reliable than the other Dell techs I've worked with. Meanwhile, I'm going to go search for imp-banishing rituals.

Comments

[luis-mw.livejournal.com]

here is a technology-hating imp living in my apartment.

It probably has 4 legs, soft fur, and makes a purring noise.

Computers distract you from important business of paying attention to cats.

[gwynraven.livejournal.com]

Heh - the cats aren't allowed in the bedroom where the computer is, and that's part of the reason :)