Plus the fact that the hard drive in my computer died, which is never a good thing. So between the computer not working, vacations and just being busy, I have slipped on my blogging. I'm now hoping to make Tuesday nights my official blog night. I am better when I have a scheduled time to do tasks than to just remember to do them. I know that I just won't unless it's scheduled.
I have a Dell computer. And while Dell makes great computers and products, anybody who has a Dell computer knows that when you have a problem, it can be an adventure getting help. I had a problem with my computer 2 months ago. It was making a grinding noise. It turned out to be some kind of cooling fan. I called Dell to tell them about my problem. After hours on the phone and me running all kinds of diagnostic tests and relaying the results, the fellow at Dell figured it was a bad fan motor. I believe I mentioned this to the Dell technician when I made the initial call but we still had to go through all the tests.
This new problem was even worse. Before, with the computer making noise, I could still use it (even though I was afraid that the computer could blow up at any time!). But now what was happening was that I was getting a blue screen with wording that would only make sense to a computer geek.
I knew I was in trouble when the Dell tech I spoke to referred to this problem as "The Blue Screen Of Death". This can't be good.
So I call Dell and make my self comfortable. I have a drink, a snack and something to read because I know I'm going to be there for a long time. (thank God for the extended warranty I just purchased in April.) You just can't call directly to the service department. You have to enter the service tag number and the product key which is about 100 numbers long. Then you get to hear the worse sounding music on hold that I have ever heard in my life. This is a high tech, state of the art, latest technology type company and they have music that sounds like the first sounds Thomas Edison heard when he invented the phonograph.
When you finally get someone, you have to constantly say "Pardon me" or "Excuse me" or even "What" because due to the distance of the location they are calling from or the heavy accents, it is not easy to understand what is being said.
With "The Blue Screen Of Death" there is no easy answers. So I know we are going to be running all kinds of diagnostic tests, taking the cover off the computer and plenty of restarts. A couple of the tests actually took so long that the Dell tech told me to call back when it was done.
The testing took over a couple of days because I wasn't able to call back Dell to around 8PM at night. And every time I called back, I spoke to someone new. However, I was impressed. By giving the new tech the service number, they were able to see how far the last tech I spoke too got. That was really helpful.
After all this time and testing the conclusion was that my hard drive was shot. (again I think we could all have figured this out from the very beginning) So a hard drive was sent overnight to a local service company who came out to the house to replace my hard drive in a couple of days. But we weren't done there. I had to call Dell once again to install Windows and all the software that originally came with my computer. I lost everything I had on my old hard drive but a this point I didn't care any more. (although I will be looking in to a flash drive for backup now)
More time on the phone with my drink, snack and something to read.
Thank God I had the extended warranty.
If you have any comments on this article, I would love to hear what you have to say!Feel free to comment below.
Thanks for reading!
Dan Tenchall
Great Lakes Mortgage Funding
For FREE Mortgage tips, Mortgage Calculators,must have articles and much more please visit my website!
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(586) 532-0600
dan@glmf.com
