Thursday, May 7, 2009

Weekend Assignment #265: Darn Computer

You know, Karen always picks topics that seem to be written for me. Maybe I have contributed to her psychically, or something. 

Anyway, she wants to know a little bit about computer problems: 

Weekend Assignment #265: If you're a blogger, you almost certainly have a computer. If you have a computer, you've had computer problems. Did your monitor go dark? Hard drive get hacked? System go silent? Tell us a computer horror story!


I haven't had any major problems with computers, but I have had my share of issues. The most recent was with our last computer. I won't mention the brand name, but it rhymes with "Bell." We had the computer for just over a year, so the warranty was over, and all of a sudden, I couldn't turn it off. Yes, I said off. It was the weirdest thing. I played around with it for a while, then, of course, I couldn't turn it on. Not good. 

So, from work, I searched the forums on the "Bell" website. Luckily, many other people had the same problems and figured out the problem was with the power supply. After some more searching, I found out which kind, and how powerful, of power supply I should get. I bought it (65 bucks, not bad) and somehow managed to install it myself without killing me, or the computer.  It was a little irritating to see all the people complaining of the same problem, on the company's website no less, and they never said anything about it. Well, at least as far as I know, maybe they did after I fixed mine and I didn't see it. It seems a lot of companies do that, there is some magical number of failures they have to see before addressing it. Too bad we don't all know what that magic number is. 

We just got rid of that computer a few weeks ago. Well, we still have it, we just don't use it anymore. It became really slow, and annoying. You could turn it on, go have lunch, and it might be fully booted up by the time you are done. I'm pretty sure most of that had to due with the hard drive being very near capacity. The fact that it was quite old, in computer years, didn't help. This leads us to the extra credit. 

Extra Credit: Which has fewer problems, a PC or a Mac?

I don't know If I could answer that. We did just buy a Mac, but I can't say for sure which has less problems. It's a little early for that. I will say I love the Mac so far, even as I try to get used to the new ways of doing things. I know there are a lot of people who are very pro-mac and pro-PC. I don't think I qualify for either. I'll let you know if that changes. 

How about you? Any computer horror stories? Let's hear them! 

3 comments:

Karen Funk Blocher said...

Good luck with the Mac! Your "Bell" issues - well, the slow down, not the on/off issue - sound like what I'm going through now. I hope I'm wrong - can't afford a new computer!

Florinda said...

I actually didn't have too many issues with my "Bell," and I'm still using one at work. Since we have an IT guy to deal with that one, though, I don't get myself too wound up over it.

But my MacBook and I are still happy together :-).

Mike said...

Karen: Good luck with yours. I hope it's nothing major.

Florinda: The computer I had before the last one was problem free. If I remember correctly. :)