About to shoot my computer!

[WTA]

About a month ago the hard drive in my dell desktop died and it really screwed us up with the business. I can't even say how ticked I was over that. I was able to recover much of the data myself but lost all my pictures and emails from the last two years.
I have had this computer a little over 2 years so I didn't figure it was under warranty anymore and last week I was going to destroy the hard drive and junk the rest. Then out of the blue the Dell warranty department called and asked if I wanted to extend my warranty.

That was awfully suspicious calling like that right after it died and I was about to trash it. I asked them though if it was still under warranty and they said yes until the end of December so I got them to send me a new hard drive and I fixed it last Monday. I installed the new drive and got everything reinstalled and all was great till this morning. I turned it on about 7 AM and it shut itself off about halfway through the boot up. It also had a orange flashing light. The power supply fan was making a god awful noise too. I shut it off and tried to restart it about a dozen times and it kept doing the same thing.

I finally called Dell again and can you believe it I got an American on the phone. He was super helpful and we went through the diagnostic routine. We talked for close to an hour checking things. It sounded like we had it narrowed down to a power supply going bad. The service rep said to leave it on for an hour and he'd call back then we would check one more thing.

I stepped outside for 2 seconds and missed his call. That was stupid! I called them back and got some foreigner that wanted me to go through all the same stuff again and a whole bunch of stupid stuff that had no relation whatsoever to the problem. He kept trying to blame it on a software problem when I told him it was the power supply. I told him the best I could in my finest Indian accent anyway. I finally gave up on that one. I called again and asked for the person I talked to the first time and got another foreigner who said he could not put me through to him but he could help.
More of the same junk again. This one I hung up on when he refused to listen to me. He told me to unplug the power supply and I did then plugged it back in and turned it on. It worked so he said it must be fixed and I'll close the case now.
Wrong. It wasn't fixed. I looked at the pins on that plug and they were fine. Plus a loose plug won't make the fan sound like a Chevy with a blown cylinder.

I tried calling again and asking for the first guy again and this guy was so bad with his English I hung up after his first couple sentences.

I am so fed up! I think I'm just going to take it out back and use it for target practice. I wasted 2/3 of my day talking to foreigners when I had a ton of work I could have been doing in the shop.
I'm building my next computer myself!

Why is it so hard to talk to a nice American when things break?

 

[sandman2234]

Need some shells?
David from jax

 

[WTA]

Maybe some advice on which type or caliber to be most effective and put it down quickly.
I was thinking about a 50 cal at close range. I have an M2 coming in next week I think to reparkerize and you know I'm going to have to test fire that one!

 

[KubotaSteve]

You can still get files off your old hard drive if it hasn't been damaged too bad, so don't destroy it. I lost some sectors on mine once and was able to hook it up as a slave drive and get all the important files off of it. If you have a business, you may want to look into getting a portable back-up hard drive or something.

 

[Bird]

My old Dell is 6 years old, and I've spent a few hours on the phone in the past with Dell's tech support, so I can well understand your frustration. I'm not going to build my own computer, but I hope to buy my next one from someone who provides live human support locally; not via telephone.

And since you were able to log onto Tractorbynet, I assume you have a second computer handy???

 

[WTA]

No, I'm on the one that is acting up right now. I was just poking around inside it with the power on. Sounds smart huh?
Anyway, I was thinking about a problem GM has had for years with cold solder joints and got to thinking mine meses up worst when it's cold. The power supply fan making racket and shutting off unexpectedly.
I went all over the mother board with a probe wiggling connections and didn't find anything so I started wiggling around the power supply. Didn't find anything loose there. Then I just touched the side of the power supply and it shut off. There sure is something loose inside it. I'm not going to open that up.
Another foreigner at Dell, this one actually very nice and helpfull, just called me back about the problem and he asked me to check a few things but we couldn't duplicate the problem again so he said he'd call back tomorrow morning so I can turn it on while we talk. I just discovered this after we had hung up the phone so maybe that will tell him something that can help fix it.

I really don't mind talking to a person in another country as long as they know what they are talking about and they are fluent in my language. I liked that last guy. I sure hate it though when I buy a supposedly american made product and then have to talk to someone I can't understand in another country when it breaks. I've lived in 3 different countries in my life and visited more countries than most people have read about. I used to be very understanding and tolerant of language barriers untill this outsourcing technical services junk started. The public schools around here forcing my kid to learn spanish and not even offering other foreign languages helped turn me too. That should be illegal in MY country.
We had a house full of foreigners last Saturday night. 20 or so of them. We're hosting an exchange student from Germany and we had a party here for all the other ones in the area. I'm really not anti foreigner.

 

[randy41]

when i first got a dell laptop some years back after a while it would overheat and then turn itself off. so i sent it back to dell to get it fixed. they misplaced it. i posted about it on the dell forum and a dell employee that oversees the forum arranged for me to get a new one to replace the one they lost...this is the laptop i use now. so you may want to try that forum. i was polite and did not post anything negative. just asked for help.
in addition to that i sent a letter to Michael Dell expressing my disappointment in the quality of their product and how I feel like I should contact the BBB. i received a phone call from someone from his office but by then i had received the replacement.
when i sent the first one back i kept the HD. it is the HD i have been using and i took out the one that came with this laptop and use it for backup.

 

[RobertN]

A friend had a small business(wrote a software engineering journal). He replaced HD's yearly. The price of the drive was small compared to loss of data from an older HD crashing.

Can you RAID your system? If so, you could mirror raid it, so you always have an exact copy HD in the system.

 

[AMP762]

I had that problem once,so being as I'm smarter then the average bear I sent an e-mail,damned if the guy didn't write the same way he talked.

 

[LarryD]

The ony brand name computer I've ever owned was a state of the art 386 w/math coprocessor..that was a while back.

I used to keep up with all the technology and built most of my machines. The last few years I quite keeping up with the tech stuff so now I rely on some "gamers" to keep me going. There are some kids that opened an Internet gaming cafe in town and they keep the doors open selling parts and service, at very reasonable rates (ie..cheaper than Best Buy). They are pretty sharp and know all the latest upgrades.

Is there such a business near you, might be a local source that could provide you a reliable service.

 

[Bird]

I really don't mind talking to a person in another country as long as they know what they are talking about and they are fluent in my language.

I certainly agree, but wait until you get as old as I am and as hard of hearing as I am (I wear two hearing aids) and it's tough to talk on the phone with someone with an accent that I don't understand. Foreign exchange students?? About 14 years ago, our younger daughter had an exchange student from Finland for a year. Well, they've stayed in touch over the years and now that girl, along with her 8 year old son, and a boyfriend will be here for two weeks, including Christmas and New Years this year.

 

[WTA]

I agreed to take in an exchange student because I really miss going to all the foreign countries. I haven't been out of the country in nearly 10 years now and am having major withdrawals. I'f I hadn't got in the way of a couple bullets right before 9-11 I'd be over playing in the sand right now. I really miss it.
I spent most of my time in the Orient but got to see the majority of Europe and even antartica a couple times too.

These exchange students are a lot of fun to be around. We'll probably do it again next year but I'm telling the organization to send us a girl I think next time. We have a teenage boy of our own and I can barely afford feeding him. Two teenage boys in the house require a padlock on the fridge.
In talking with all of them at the party this weekend I discovered all of them but the girls from Taiwan ride horses. There is a girl from France coming back to ride this weekend. She should have a ball riding western style on my warmblood and not having to be so proper for a change. She said that is the worst part of riding in France. It's all so proper. My horse is an all around fireball of a horse and he works using a combination of English and Western commands so she should be able to handle him. I hope.

I just got an external harddrive in the mail today. It's a little bigger than my computers drive. I already copied my whole drive to it. It was easier than just copying the files I had created to it. I don't care, It's go the room. I figured from now on I can just publish my changes to it. That will be even faster.

My wife called Dell and talked to a supervisor about this. He was very helpfull. I guess he was Indian too but I really don't care as long as he isn't reading from a script and can help. He promised he would take care of it and I believe him. I wouldn't even have a problem if I could just talk to people that speak my language well like he does. They have good people there, just maybe not enough to handle all of the calls they get. I do understand how hard it is trying to weed through all the bull and help the ones that need it.

Oh, I'm only about 40 years old but 10 years working in Navy ships engine rooms and close to 20 years as a small arms specialist have taken it's toll on me. I got one ear at about 50% and the other at maybe 70. It sucks. But on the bright side if my wife is whining about some meaningless junk and I don't want to listen to it, I don't have to. I have really good selective hearing.
A few months ago I was way too close to an explosion and didn't think I would get my hearing back at all after that one. I was completely deaf for a week and it took 2 months before the ringing stopped. I'm sure that knocked a few more percentage points off my ears.

 

[bearhawk]

If you run a business with your computer you really should have a backup plan in place. It doesn't have to be elaborate. But you need to follow it.

At the very least backup important files to a usb external drive every week.

Any server we use will have a mirrored system volume, and a raid 5 data volume. I don't expect you to do this for a home business, but backup, backup, and then make a backup of that.

Because it's not IF your hard drive crashes, it's WHEN.

Jim

 

[RobertN]

If you run a business with your computer you really should have a backup plan in place. It doesn't have to be elaborate. But you need to follow it.

At the very least backup important files to a usb external drive every week.

Any server we use will have a mirrored system volume, and a raid 5 data volume. I don't expect you to do this for a home business, but backup, backup, and then make a backup of that.

Because it's not IF your hard drive crashes, it's WHEN.

Jim

I would agree, especially if you want to RAID a system. 500GB HD's are getting pretty cheap. There are some 1TB(Terabyte) green/energy star rate hard drives available now for just about $350.

Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST31000340NS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

 

[ToddW]

SNIP....

Then I just touched the side of the power supply and it shut off. There sure is something loose inside it. I'm not going to open that up.

A good plan!

A computer power supply is typically a switching power supply (or more properly switched-mode power supply) that at one stage will have a high voltage, high frequency component just waiting to bite you.

Really no user serviceable parts inside on those

/Todd

 

[Rara Avis]

If you run a business with your computer you really should have a backup plan in place. It doesn't have to be elaborate. But you need to follow it.

At the very least backup important files to a usb external drive every week.

Any server we use will have a mirrored system volume, and a raid 5 data volume. I don't expect you to do this for a home business, but backup, backup, and then make a backup of that.

Because it's not IF your hard drive crashes, it's WHEN.

Jim

The appropriate backup plan is to save in such a fashion that you can reconstruct by hand anything that has not been saved...Which is why when I was developing Oracle database systems, we had the ability to recover to the carriage return level on the critical systems...

 

[cp1969]

My computer at work would do the same thing...halfway through boot up, it would shut itself off.

The problem was the power supply. Easy fix.

 

[keving]

I don't want to start a Mac vs. PC debate but I've been using Macs for years with no problems. The newest OS has an integrated backup. I haven't upgraded yet, but I think they are on the right track since so many of our precious memories are now digital. A $100 USB drive should be plenty to back up our most important stuff. I take a ton of photos and they are backed up on DVD and hard drives. Macs are so easy to use and I have never had any technical issues. Not sure where Apple's support is because I have never had the need to contact them. I have also never purchased any of there Apple Care support. I'm now sure that I will have a failure....

 

[MossRoad]

If you are using a computer for your business, as others have said, you need an adequate backup plan.

First, organize your files in subfolders.
Use folders, with subfolders, with subfolders, with subfolders. It is amazing how many people keep important things scattered all over their computer and on their desktop. With everything in a neat, orderly system, it is much easier to back up your files quickly and efficiently and less likely that you will miss backing up some critical data.

Second, back up your files to a second physical device.
Copy your files to a second, physical hard drive on a regular basis. Having the data in two physical places saves your bacon. Having the second hard drive inside the same computer is convenient... until the computer is destroyed or stolen. Mirrored hard drives work O.K., but if the controller barfs garbage it can barf garbage across both drives. Many of the USB drives come with backup software to automate this task. If not, force yourself to do a manual copy to the second device on a regular basis. This leads to point three.

Third, back up your files to CD or DVD and store them off site.
This is so easy to do, takes only minutes and will save your bacon's bacon in a catastrophy. Off site storage can be a seperate building like an unattached garage, a box in a family member's basement or a safety deposit box at a bank. For that matter, make two copies and keep one at home and one off site.

Fourth, test your backups.
What good is a backup CD or DVD if it is garbage and does not work? Always test your backup media in another PC to make sure it is readable. Many CDs written on one PC end up being unreadable on a different PC.

Fifth, have a backup computer.
For a small business, it just makes sense to have two, identical computers with identical data on them. If one dies, just use the other one while the dead one gets repaired. It is cheap insurance.

Sixth, make a GHOST image of your hard drive.
A product like GHOST is a lifesaver AND a time saver. All you have to do is make a GHOST image of the hard drive at regular intervals, like whenever you add software or make major changes to the machine, and store that GHOST image on a DVD. If your hard drive dies, just install a new hard drive, boot off the GHOST disk and restore in about 5 minutes. Then copy your date back from your data backup disks and you are back up and running faster than it took you to drive over to Best Buy and pick up that new hard drive.

Seventh, keep your software disks in a safe, organized place.
Many times people will start to rebuild a PC only to find that they have lost the factory restore disks, their operating system disks, their license keys and their third party software disks.

Look, you can redundancy yourself into the poor house with mirrors, RAID, tape backup, duplicate hardware offsite, etc...

As a business owner, you need to evaluate how much catastrophic data loss will cost your business and how much you can afford to lose. The steps I mention above are CHEAP!!! A decent USB external hard drive is a couple hundred bucks at most. A copy of GHOST is $70.00. Blank DVDs can be had for FREE after rebates. So for less than $300 bucks you can rest in peace. A second PC is a luxury to some small businesses, but, again, may be necessary if you cannot afford down time.

Finally, if you are a geek, start looking into VMware or Microsoft Virtual PC. Making a virtual machine image allows you to take that image to any PC or Mac and run it in a virtual environment. So if your PC croaks, you can run over to Mom's house, fire up virtual PC on her machine, load it from your DVD and your are running in 10 minutes.

 

[MossRoad]

I don't want to start a Mac vs. PC debate but I've been using Macs for years with no problems. The newest OS has an integrated backup. I haven't upgraded yet, but I think they are on the right track since so many of our precious memories are now digital. A $100 USB drive should be plenty to back up our most important stuff. I take a ton of photos and they are backed up on DVD and hard drives. Macs are so easy to use and I have never had any technical issues. Not sure where Apple's support is because I have never had the need to contact them. I have also never purchased any of there Apple Care support. I'm now sure that I will have a failure....

We have several hundred PCs and 30-40 Macs. The macs have just as many hardware failures as the PCs. Hard drives, power supplies, monitors, combo drives all wear out just like PCs when used in a commercial environment.