The laptop is dead. Long live the laptop.

[mijan]

So, I got home last night from watching Megaman with coldfireserge and my wife, and booted up my laptop.  I'd taken some pictures of myself wearing (and please don't laugh) but several outfits meant to evoke the stylings of Chris Pine.  The lovely folks over at the jim_and_bones  community decided to have a "Dress like Chris Pine" contest, which I found too funny to resist.  So I assembled four outfits (because overkill is fun), took some pics, and had them ready to submit... and suddenly, my computer screen decided that vertical stripes were slimming. 

Oh yeah.

After a minute of nothing but vertical stripes, I turned off the computer, and was treated to the black screen of death.  That's right, we went right past the blue screen stage, and this bitch was DEAD. 

With the help of the kind and generous coldfireserge , we re-snapped the pictures, uploaded them , and submitted them to the website *just* in time, and then... I got about the business of what to do with the dead laptop.

I called up popefelix , who is known aboard the USS Macchiato as the ship's cyber-psychotherapist (he talks to the computers and makes them happy), but at the end of the night, the declaration was not much more hopeful than a resounding, "It's dead, Jim."  We can get the thing to turn on at this point, but nothing is responsive.  No mouse, no keyboard... even plugging in a separate mouse or keyboard has no effect.

So, it's time for me to face the harsh truth.  Bob isn't quite dead, but he's in a coma, and he's not waking up.  I adopted him back in 2006, so that's pretty good for a laptop, considering how much I've abused the poor thing.  I've dragged it everywhere with me, on planes, in cars, in luggage, to coffee shops, on Army assignments... using it for the valuable endeavors of self improvement and the fine art of motorcycle maintenance writing fanfic.  Time for me to look at my finances (medical bills have been a bitch this year) and buy a new laptop.

Until then... no more fanfic.  *whimpers*  I had so much reading and writing to do!  I'll be online at work, but more work and less play.  Alas... maybe I'll get out of the house and do some stuff.

Comments

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

I have a "spare" MacBook from 2006 that works well, but no e of us are using these days. Leg me k ow if you want to borrow it for the next few months? I cant send it till Wednesday if you do, though.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Wow... you'd really let me borrow it? Wow. Thank you. I don't really know how to use Mac's, but I'm sure I could figure it out. Is it safe to ship those things?

I'll consider it. If I can afford a new laptop right away, if I find something in my price range, then I'll be fine. But if it'll be a couple of months before I can get my hands on a new one, I might take you up on it. But... wow... thank you for that offer.

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

Yes - nobody needs it for the met few months - I think I need it back by march but we aren't traveling much before then so the desktop is what eryone uses anyway. Email me Wednesday or catch me then on gtalk?

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Okay! ♥

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

Oh, and also, ere's a photo of The Defeat of Voldemort from NoaTW in the new Movie Magic Magazine! I don't have a copy yet, though.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Wow, really? GAH! You know, I never ended up getting a copy of Movie Magic Magazine from that July with the picture I sent you. Oh well... not the end of the world. Would have been a fun souvenir. But... I'll have to keep an eye out for this one! Dude, Infinitus was SO EPIC.

OMG, I need to pull out my old icon from the very first time I ever dueled with Beth as Harry vs. Voldemort. The Witching Hour... so long ago. Wow.

[hippiegal22.livejournal.com]

It's amazing how if ANYTHING happens to your computer it feels as if a good chuck of your life isn't functioning.

Or maybe my life is just that sad. *wink*

[mijan.livejournal.com]

No, I totally get that. I'm a fandom geek, and it felt like my life was suddenly stuck in "pause."

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

I've got a little Netbook named Sprocket that I do most of my writing on. He can take a USB mouse and keyboard.

I bought a copy of MS Word 2010 for him, and have two extra codes that came with the software. Let me know if you want one?

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I might hit you up for the program code. I'll have to see what I end up doing - buying a new laptop immediately, attempting to fix Bob, or... something. *sigh* Thank you, though. ♥

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

Yay, I can be broke and still support writing!

[vampireanneke.livejournal.com]

That is an interesting idea. The cyper psychologist. I mean the computers do have intellegence, and can talk, you would think it would need to be able to talk to someone. Could be an interesting story, because I'm sure a ship has alot to say.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

LOL... unfortunately, the computer has to be responsive, not comatose, in order for the cyber-psychotherapist to do his job. :p

[ruisseau.livejournal.com]

You may have been disappointed by the laptop news, but I was glad to see you AND to see so much progress done on the Put Plastic on the Windows job! <3

[mijan.livejournal.com]

LOL - I was happy to help with the window insulation. I can come by tonight with a hair dryer, too, and finish helping with that. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the laptop. I tried to boot it up this morning, just in case it revived itself overnight, but no luck. Still dead. *sigh*

[ruisseau.livejournal.com]

We'd be happy to see you this evening with a hair dryer. :)

I'd offer you dinner, too!

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

We got a good deal on a refurbished Dell from Laptop Squad, and they're also a decent parts and repair shop. They're not on 12th Street anymore, though, I think they're at 80-somethingth and Wornall.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I could look into that. Thanks for the tip! :D

[nightshadow-t2.livejournal.com]

If you need it I have a extra subscription for Kaspersky Pro or whatever they call their virus program thing. And one thing in your favor is the sale season is coming up, so they're going to start slashing prices at various times for the next month or so. One of the sales this weekend was 200 off a 500 dollar computer. I think that one was at Circuit city. It was a desktop, but there'll be laptops. It's how I found mine. And there's always the Navy Exchange. They actually have an online store now, though finding it is a pain.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

One thing at a time, but I'll keep that in mind. What sorts of computers are on sale?

[nightshadow-t2.livejournal.com]

Depends on which stores. Give me a price range and the particulars (memory requirements, harddrive space, brand if applicable, preferred core [I prefer AMD over Intel personally.] etc.) of what you're looking for and I bet I can find you a good deal. It really all depends on where you look and what you're looking for. Newegg.com is good too.

Normally the ones in the stores that get the best sale reduction are the models that are going out because new ones are coming in. there's nothing wrong with them, normally. They're just not the best anymore. Occasionally they'll have an awesome sale on one of the new incoming models. But when they do that, they limit the number at each store as well as online I think.

There's this Toshiba for 350 without tax and comes with the option to upgrade the memory to 4GB for a fee. There were also some refurbished Compaqs, but this is only 20 more than the cheapest of those. These are the non-sale prices though. Hmm. here's a listing of sales for Office Depot. Laptops are down the page a bit. Newegg has this selection at the moment. I organized them by price.

[elfsausage.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear Bob is not likely to recover, m'dear. I hope you didn't lose all your stories & stuff when he died?

And I hope you have GREAT fun finding a new computer to bring home. Computer shopping is the most fun shopping there is :-)

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I'm not much one who likes shopping. I can USE computers, but I'm not really savvy. I always try to take a computer-savvy friend with me when I go.

I don't think I'll lose my files. The hard drive is still working... but I can't access it the regular way. *sigh*

[foxestacado.livejournal.com]

The blue vertical lines could be that your graphics card died. That happens to me approximately once a year, LOL. Now, the cost of repairs and service might be worth just getting a new laptop. Good luck with everything.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Aaah! Highly useful information! I shall look into this promptly.

However, what happens if the screen starts working again, but I can't INTERACT at all? No cursor/mouse movement? No response to the keyboard?

[foxestacado.livejournal.com]

Ummm...hmm...no cursor/mouse movement and no response from keyboard COULD be something else, like a connection problem between these parts and your screen. Could still be a graphics card issue (since the graphics card is responsible for what you see on your screen). Now, I'm not sure of the specs of your laptop, you could have integrated graphics. In that case...that could be responsible for everything. I don't know how much it would cost to repair that. BUT, in these cases, your harddrive should still salvageable, since it's a different compartment, unrelated to these things.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm not worried that the hard drive is dead (yet), but I should still act quickly to make sure nothing worse happens.

[nightshadow-t2.livejournal.com]

Could always try Puppy Linux. it's an OS that boots from a disc and apparently it's supposed to be able to help fix other computers that die....if you know what you're doing. I don't. I just studied it for a week or so and didn't crash my computer, so I'm counting it a win.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

My computer-guru friend tried that last night. No dice.

[dazi-li.livejournal.com]

Oh God, I'm so very sorry. D: That's something I don't wish on my worst enemies. When my first laptop died, I held my knees and rocked for three hours.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

I'm coping with it. Just... frustrated.

[anruiukimi.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hadn't realized you had lost the originals! I still have those ones you sent me, I could have sent them back to you. :/

'tis the season for laptop sales if you aren't looking for a gaming beast, however...it's like when my parent's TV died ON Black Friday. Bought a new one a few hours later. xD;

Edit: http://bfads.net/ This will tell you all the Black Friday and that weekend ads. :)

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Doesn't matter - they only posted ONE of all the pics I submitted. And I didn't even get to choose the one, because of the cluster-fuck of my laptop dying. *sigh* It's okay.

Thanks for the link!