another round with dell customer support
i bought my dell laptop about a year ago. after a few months from receiving my new laptop, i stated getting very random BSDs. some would say "the system has encountered an uncorrectable hardware error" while others would say "paging error occurred". the thing is, there wasn't a pattern to these errors. they would happen while i wasn't doing anything at all and letting my system idle. they would happen when i was browsing or working in Word. originally, i thought it was my wireless mouse. i stopped using my mouse, but it still kept happening (my mouse now goes along with my work laptop, since there's nothing wrong with it). i didn't have the time (or really desire) to call up dell customer support and see what's wrong with my system. instead, i waited until april of this year to give them a call. i did and they ran a series of hardware diagnostic tests and a system scan. i worked with 2 different people at dell and the second one decided to try and fix the problem by wiping my system clean and restoring the system defaults as it arrived to me from dell. i completed the rest of the semester and still ran into the same issue.
i started getting fliers in the mail recently saying that my warranty was set to expire soon and if i wanted to renew my warranty. i knew i needed to take advantage of still having a warranty, so i called this morning. when i first called, i was sent to their hardware support department. my lovely indian tech support lady ran through the same diagnostic tests and scans and since everything came back as OK, she transferred me to their software support department. i've been working with amar for the last hour or so. he's completely baffled as to why i'm getting these screens. he is leaning towards the hypothesis that they're happening in part because i don't have any anti-virus software running on my laptop (yes, i know...bad, michelle!). now, apparently software and hardware warranties are different and the warranty i had on my laptop was hardware only. after explaining that i only had enough money for the one-time fix fee of $129, he talked to his manager and came back with a deal of $60-off the year-long fee, making it $179. okay, fine, i'll take it, especially since he can't guarantee that what he's doing now will essentially FIX the problem.
with perfect timing, my computer gave a BSD while he was running a virus scan on my computer. neither of us caught the error code on the screen before it restarted. i asked him why can't i send in my computer for someone to look over and actually take apart my system, put it back together and see first-hand what the problem might be. amar restated his original thought which was that these BSDs are actually the result of a virus on my computer and NOT by a hardware error (we ran the system diagnostic again after the latest BSD). we'll see what happens. he ran a full system virus scan and deleted what came up as a "threat" and updated a few settings on my computer. he said this will help, but he still can't guarantee this will stop all BSDs.
apparently, this same guy has a liking of powerpuff girls. my desktop is a stylized picture of blossom, from that show. he told me he's disappointed that cartoon network doesn't play this show anymore. i told him that cartoon network moved all their classic cartoons and older cartoon shows to their other network, boomerang, which i think is only available via satellite. he also shared with me his interest in johnny bravo and ed, edd, and eddy. :P nerds are the same wherever you go...
+_+_+
in other news, marshall and i ran our regular 2 miles yesterday morning and completed another round of lunges. i decided that instead of swimming this morning, i would go for a bike ride. i would follow my normal route along the los gatos creek trail from my place, to vasona, back to willow glen and then home. round trip it's about 9 miles or so. unfortunately, the run yesterday and the lunges really did a number on my legs. i got to vasona, but i couldn't really imagine being able to make it to willow glen before collapsing or at least taking another hour from my morning. i had to get home at some point to work. i decided vasona was enough and i went home. my legs and butt are still sore and stiff. i actually was thinking yesterday i could go for a swim this afternoon, but i don't think that's going to happen.
+_+_+
lastly, i'm getting a haircut today. even though it won't be as short as i want it to be, at least it'll give some shape to my hair which is getting longer than i've had in ages.
in any case
i started getting fliers in the mail recently saying that my warranty was set to expire soon and if i wanted to renew my warranty. i knew i needed to take advantage of still having a warranty, so i called this morning. when i first called, i was sent to their hardware support department. my lovely indian tech support lady ran through the same diagnostic tests and scans and since everything came back as OK, she transferred me to their software support department. i've been working with amar for the last hour or so. he's completely baffled as to why i'm getting these screens. he is leaning towards the hypothesis that they're happening in part because i don't have any anti-virus software running on my laptop (yes, i know...bad, michelle!). now, apparently software and hardware warranties are different and the warranty i had on my laptop was hardware only. after explaining that i only had enough money for the one-time fix fee of $129, he talked to his manager and came back with a deal of $60-off the year-long fee, making it $179. okay, fine, i'll take it, especially since he can't guarantee that what he's doing now will essentially FIX the problem.
with perfect timing, my computer gave a BSD while he was running a virus scan on my computer. neither of us caught the error code on the screen before it restarted. i asked him why can't i send in my computer for someone to look over and actually take apart my system, put it back together and see first-hand what the problem might be. amar restated his original thought which was that these BSDs are actually the result of a virus on my computer and NOT by a hardware error (we ran the system diagnostic again after the latest BSD). we'll see what happens. he ran a full system virus scan and deleted what came up as a "threat" and updated a few settings on my computer. he said this will help, but he still can't guarantee this will stop all BSDs.
apparently, this same guy has a liking of powerpuff girls. my desktop is a stylized picture of blossom, from that show. he told me he's disappointed that cartoon network doesn't play this show anymore. i told him that cartoon network moved all their classic cartoons and older cartoon shows to their other network, boomerang, which i think is only available via satellite. he also shared with me his interest in johnny bravo and ed, edd, and eddy. :P nerds are the same wherever you go...
+_+_+
in other news, marshall and i ran our regular 2 miles yesterday morning and completed another round of lunges. i decided that instead of swimming this morning, i would go for a bike ride. i would follow my normal route along the los gatos creek trail from my place, to vasona, back to willow glen and then home. round trip it's about 9 miles or so. unfortunately, the run yesterday and the lunges really did a number on my legs. i got to vasona, but i couldn't really imagine being able to make it to willow glen before collapsing or at least taking another hour from my morning. i had to get home at some point to work. i decided vasona was enough and i went home. my legs and butt are still sore and stiff. i actually was thinking yesterday i could go for a swim this afternoon, but i don't think that's going to happen.
+_+_+
lastly, i'm getting a haircut today. even though it won't be as short as i want it to be, at least it'll give some shape to my hair which is getting longer than i've had in ages.
in any case