Who wants fried RAM for dinner?

[Aimee Wilbury]

Basically, I got a new computer.

I had the previous one in the shop to finally repair broken USB ports. And we brought it home, plugged it in.... It froze at the BIOS screen. No beeps.

So we took it back to shop. He looked at it, reseating stuff and unplugging and plugging various things in. And he was stumped.

So anyways, this was a rent-to-own computer. And so the rent-to-own place gave us a newer one wth better specs for the same price we been paying!

Eventually, found out that a minor power surge (when I brought it home) fried the RAM, and the tech guy says its a good thing I upgraded and that I was the first person he met who did a backup before sending it in.

[direwolf-pgh]

thats quite a heart warming story.

[mooncusser]

[saltman]

Who told you the RAM was fried?

Why didn't they just check and then replace the RAM in the computer you had?

When you say send it in, do you mean that you take it to the rent-a-computer place and they send it to the tech guy who is at another location?

Who checked the seating of components and at what location?

How long is your term on a rent-a-computer and did they adjust the length of your term when you got the new one?

You haven't said it was a laptop but I am curious... was it a laptop or a desktop?

[jameskg]

of course the ram wasn't fried from a storm... that doesn't really happen... unless many other things fry, too. The guy likely reached in and zapped the motherboard (and maybe ram) with his hand from discharging static he forgot to drain off his hands.

As long as you didn't have to pay anything extra, I'd not worry about it. He blew up your stuff and gave new stuff.

[Aimee Wilbury]

The tech guy says he had it working in the shop before I came home and plugged it in.

Who told you the RAM was fried?

The tech guy. The people at the rent-to-own place misunderstood him and said the RAM wasn't seated properly, but that wasnt the cause.

Why didn't they just check and then replace the RAM in the computer you had?

That's what they did after figuring out the cause -- but by then I had already gotten a new computer, so they'll be renting it to another person. (I also told the tech guy to do secure deletion, which he did.) They did check the RAM when it first went out, but all he did was remove and swap the sticks, why he didn't try another one I don't know.

When you say send it in, do you mean that you take it to the rent-a-computer place and they send it to the tech guy who is at another location?

The tech guy is only across town, so first we took it to the rent-to-own place, they sent it over, but we picked it up and also took it back when it died.

Who checked the seating of components and at what location?

The tech guy and his assistant.

How long is your term on a rent-a-computer and did they adjust the length of your term when you got the new one?

The terms were a little longer than 2 years -- I got it in March 2007, and it ends in June 2009. What they did is give me the newer one for the same amount, and they didn't change the length.

You haven't said it was a laptop but I am curious... was it a laptop or a desktop?

Desktop. I tried a laptop once and it's bad for my neck and shoulders (Due to medications and stuff, I have physical limitations. I'll just say ibuprofen is very useful!)

[dementrium]

Tech people are trained to say things like "fried RAM" and such to cover their cluelessness (<-!?)

[mooncusser]

[Aimee Wilbury]

Well, he didn't actually say "fried RAM." He said something that confused my mom (can't remember the exact words) and I said "he means the RAM fried."

[jameskg]

Glad you finally got working, in any case!

Will it download and burn CDs?

[saltman]

Yes. Awesome. Have fun with the new computer. I was sensing something was afoul with the tech guys but it all seems in order.

a UPS is always a good thing to have. I need one myself.

[mooncusser]

Staples had some great deals last week on UPSs

[Aimee Wilbury]

It's only got one optical drive (DVD-RW) while my other had two, but there's three more drive bays (and two floppy drive bays).

One bad thing is that I lost my torrents (as I didn't have room to back them up on my 40gig portable drive), and I do have most om DVD but not the text files so I'll have to redownload them.

[Five]

a nice trick I use to keep the txt files & md5 is to add an "EXTRAS_TS" folder to the playable dvds I burn, put the artwork, md5, txt in there then it never gets lost

glad to hear you got an upgrade out of this !

[Black Dog]

Originally Posted by Five

a nice trick I use to keep the txt files & md5 is to add an "EXTRAS_TS" folder to the playable dvds I burn, put the artwork, md5, txt in there then it never gets lost

glad to hear you got an upgrade out of this !

I do the same thing

I also click on the post #. This opens a new window....then

file>save as>filename.mht

It saves as a single file webpage and provides a link to the original thread.