Last night the dogs and I were sprawled in front of the TV. I was using my laptop wirelessly. It turned off. I pushed the power button, it glowed blue, then the computer turned off again. I thought perhaps I had missed the low battery message, so I took the machine upstairs and plugged it in. Before we went to bed, I tried again to turn it on. Again, the blue power light glowed and then powered off. So, I left it plugged in. I tried it this morning. The blue power light came on, the fan (with which I’ve had lots of problems) came on, but I had nothing on the screen. So, I am physically at the office with Adrienne be cause I cannot remote in without my laptop. I’m trying to decide whether it is more economical to get a new laptop or to try to have this one repaired.
A new one: This one is at least five years old, has only a Gig of RAM, the DVD/CD reader/burner is not reading some of the newer DVD’s (a problem because all our legal discovery comes on disk these days, so I take the computer to the jail so I can review materials with clients). The current laptop is pretty heavy for taking on planes and carrying around the courthouses and jails. I use an external hard drive for saving photos and most large documents. This one has the old version of Office.
Fix this one: It’s only five years old, a Gig of RAM is plenty for most applications, I could review the DVDs at the office and print out what I need to show the client. I’d have the documents, photos, and email particularly email) that I’ve saved to the hard drive, Office converts for the old version.
BUT if some really vital part is truly dead —
Guess I’ll go to the Dell site and get a ballpark price to replace this one, then talk to Ralph who can fix almost anything (I believe . . .)
Why did Santa kill my laptop — that was certainly not in the Christmas spirit.
Tom just got a new laptop. It worked better for me to get a new desktop and a new netbook. I got both the cute little netbook and a more powerful computer for the price of a new larger laptop.
I’d call that christmas gremlins, not Santa.
Carolyn- you’ll have to tell us how you like your netbook! I’ve been looking at those, wondering how they’d be for me for travel, and school. I’d prefer one of those for ease of travel, and they’re not much different in price than laptops of the same specs. I mostly worry how they hold up.
I’ll have it at Rose City if you make it up. Small enough to take to the dog show easily; it will fit in a grooming bag.
Five years is an eternity in laptop time. I say get a new one!
I went to the office and got on line — visited Dell and Toshiba. I don’t think I can change to an Apple because I work back and forth between my office PC and home. So, after much research (like a couple of hours), I went to Sam’s Club to see if they had a notebook that met my minimum requirements. Sure enough — so I now have an HP Pavilion with an Intel Dual Core processor, 4 G of Ram, 360 G hard drive, burns CDs, DVDs, and reads both as well as Blue Ray. With NM Gross Receipts Tax, it was just over $800. It has a remote so I can sit on the bed and watch movies (I guess) — that’s sort of weird with a 16″ screen — requires superman x-ray vision. Anyway, it’s light and has everything I need. I take my notebook to the jails to review discovery documents (now all on disk) with clients, and to Court so I can call up documents to cross examine witnesses. Of course, when I’m home, I use it to blog, update Cardiped.net, manipulate photos, work on the Bulletin, and remote into the office to bill hours. I have many programs to install (the first of which was Mozilla), and need to reinstall my email settings, and to add a remote program. We’re having a issue with the wireless router (sorry, Tom — I took a lot of your time with this issue).
So, Santa, if it was you — shame! But it’s fun to have lots of RAM and a ginormous video card!
Penni….Bruce says to cut to the CHASE and go to the Mac Store and get a Mac Pro. They are expensive but you will never have a problem. Get Office for Mac. (He has used PCs all his life and finally got fed up with them and went the route he should have gone originally.)
They are LIGHT! And Santa will never bother you or your laptop again.