(no subject)

[gwynhefar]

Ok, so hopefully my computer problems are fixed. Although the Dell support guy didn't exactly fill me with confidence at first when he tried to suggest that the freezing was due to malware and send me to a fee-based malware support line. Not that it *couldn't* be malware, but I am usually pretty careful with my machine (I have a firewall, I run virusscan and Spybot frequently, etc.) and it seemed suspicious to me that I only had problems with freezing immediately after installing a new video card.

I managed to convince him to at least check the video drivers to make sure everything was working properly before I wasted my money on the malware support line, and when the computer froze in Safe Mode he finally admitted it might not be malware. So we uninstalled the video driver and then downloaded a new version from the website and installed that one.

So far it's been about an hour and a half with no freezing, which is longer than I got any other time since I first installed the new video card, so I've got my fingers crossed. I won't really consider the problem resolved until I make it a few days with no issues, but for now, things look good.

Comments

Re: I remember talking with Tom Brewer one time ...

[gwynraven.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately not. Although reinstalling the driver did seem to make it last much longer before it froze again, it eventually did. So back on the phone to Dell tonight. I'm not saying it's *not* malware, but when the problem seems to be connected to a piece of hardware, I'd like someone who is at least willing to check other options before making me pay for a service that may or may not fix the problem. I seem to remember that Windows has an event log program - I'm going to suggest to the guy tonight that we at least check to see if any errors occurred right before freezing. You're right - it would be nice if the tech support guys didn't automatically assume we were all idiots.