Computer Hell

[DanStokes]

Now I remember why I hate PCs. As I mentioned before, the only laptop I had to bring with me as I take care of Mom was a little Dell - some antique POS I bought from a car guy in Wilmington. It worked fine until I tried to use it. (To be fair I was trying to use it as an internet terminal after I told the seller I was just going to use it for Innovate software.)

Anyhow, the damn thing started throwing the Blue Screen of Death (is that why they call IBM "Big Blue?). I took it to a pretty well established computer shop here in Florida and the guy really made a good faith effort to get it back on line, starting with the cheapest fix first. This became a "get it working, take it home and use it, have it freeze up, take it back" sort of deal.

Today was the last straw. So I took it back and traded it in on a used IBM laptop he had in the store. Actually, he had several used PC laptops and I chose the one one that looked the least like the one that kept locking up. Please tell me if an IBM Thinkpad T60 is any good. Anyhow, this seems to be working OK for now.


Still, PCs are a mystery to me.

Dan

[Monk]

Re: Computer Hell

Our company computers were Thinkpads
for several year and worked fine.

As cheap as laptops are Dan, have you
looked around for one?

I recently purchased a $299 special that I
use only for my financial stuff....bank, brokerage etc
.........that way little chance of virus crap.

[SuperBuickGuy]

Re: Computer Hell

Office Max is your friend when it comes to getting a decent, cheap laptop. I have a Gateway I bought a couple years ago new, out the door, end of model year clearance for 399 that is my de facto home computer....

IBM thinkpads.... now would be a bad time to mention that I just took my wife thinkpad to my computer guru?

[squirrel]

Re: Computer Hell

as long as the fan keeps working....but if you get the old 192 error on boot up, at least you'll know what the problem is.

acer aspire one netbook, $248 at walmart. Sure can't buy a macbook anything new for a price like that, and the little aspire works good.

[98ciHemi]

Re: Computer Hell

Going on two years of ownership of this HP laptop, and no serious problems. Been a PC user for 10 years (more than half my life- wow) and never had the blue screen of death. Well, never had one that I didn't cause.

[milner351]

Re: Computer Hell

TIMELY!

Dan
I took after Squirrel and built my last desktop - I got a kit from tigerdirect - Jim probably builds them from scratch with a soldering gun!

I have been struggling with an OLD Dell laptop that is old enough to only have one usb - and it's usb 1.0.
I figured it was better to spend $10 on a usb wireless adaptor - than to spend $xxx on a newer laptop.
This was before I discovered it was USB 1.0, and - after taking forever to download the software plugged into the ethernet cable - and getting it installed, and upgrading to comcasts newest norton antivirus software and internet exploerer 8...... I got the wireless working.

S L O W! >

Thanks to the usb 1.0, I can get a pcmcia usb2.0 card for another $30 or so -- is it worth it? This will be a shop laptop - i have wireless at the shop now thanks to a great new tenant who's willing to let me hop on his network.... is the old laptop worth it? Or do I spend <$500 to upgrade to a newer one that can also be our travel DVD player for Lee? OR - do I take the plunge into mac and get a $1529 refurb macbook pro? (can't really afford that after buying a new welder)
???

[Tazracing]

Re: Computer Hell

Now I remember why I hate PCs. As I mentioned before, the only laptop I had to bring with me as I take care of Mom was a little Dell - some antique POS I bought from a car guy in Wilmington. It worked fine until I tried to use it. (To be fair I was trying to use it as an internet terminal after I told the seller I was just going to use it for Innovate software.)

Anyhow, the damn thing started throwing the Blue Screen of Death (is that why they call IBM "Big Blue?). I took it to a pretty well established computer shop here in Florida and the guy really made a good faith effort to get it back on line, starting with the cheapest fix first. This became a "get it working, take it home and use it, have it freeze up, take it back" sort of deal.

Today was the last straw. So I took it back and traded it in on a used IBM laptop he had in the store. Actually, he had several used PC laptops and I chose the one one that looked the least like the one that kept locking up. Please tell me if an IBM Thinkpad T60 is any good. Anyhow, this seems to be working OK for now.


Still, PCs are a mystery to me.

Dan

most blue screens of death are a memory ussie(i.e. ram failing) new memory 90% of the time fixes it..

[BigBlockMopar]

Re: Computer Hell

most blue screens of death are a memory issue ...

Correct! It reminds you of the mistake you made when you bought the thing and didn't go for that shiny Mac next to it at the time of purchase... :P ;D

[Tom Slick]

Re: Computer Hell

Stinkpads are pretty decent machines. XP is pretty well behaved on anything with less than 2gb of RAM. If it has that or more, Win7 is very good.

Most blue screens are a thing of the past. ;D

[squirrel]

Re: Computer Hell

I occasionally get the "bomb" on my old Mac....

[BigBlockMopar]

Re: Computer Hell

Modern Macs are bomb-free these days.
If you're real lucky you can a genuine Kernel Panic instead

[squirrel]

Re: Computer Hell

Modern windows computers are blue screen free these days.

They all have their faults, some folks are willing to pay more to try to reduce the headache. I'm not one of them.

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: Computer Hell

Hard drive failures and a buggy NVIDA graphic card drivers are the only things I recall getting the Blue Screen of death for since XP came out, two laptops ago.

[DanStokes]

Re: Computer Hell

Uh, yah. Whatever you guys say. That's why I love my MAC - I don't have to know ANY of this stuff. Just for perspective, I've been using MACs since 1983 (started with an SE - not even an SE30) and have never had a MAC freeze. Sometimes the internet connection freezes but that's not the computers fault. So I happliy pay the MAC premium.

Anyhow, the IBM is a done deal and is chugging along for now. It's a TON faster than the old Dell. I'm guessing it's a generation or two newer, too. So I'll keep chugging for now.

Thanks for the input, whatever language it's in.

Dan

[hoofhearted]

Re: Computer Hell

Computers are like women. You can treat them nice, push the right buttons and they still freeze up on you and sometimes give you a virus.