Orphaned by My Motherboard

           

            On Thursday both of my classes were cancelled, and it was a convenient coincidence for me because that’s the day my computer decided to die. For the last few months it has periodically crashed, displaying a black screen and asking me to press F-1 to save configuration changes. In the last few weeks the crashes had gotten more and more frequent, but I was always able to get the system going again. I had a feeling though that at some point it was going stop communicating with itself and that’s why I had backed up most of my files in anticipation of the digital fall of the tower of Hewlett-Packard. On this morning the crashes came in waves of about ten minutes, so I made a decision that since I had the day off, I would spend however long it took of it to get my system running smoothly again, even if I had to purchase another computer.

            The first thing I did was to take my computer to Tony, at Mobil Computers down the street. He concluded that my computer was crashing because I didn’t have enough RAM. He tried to find a memory card that was compatible with my computer, but he didn’t have one. So I copied my journal onto my flash drive, just in case I’d have to sit somewhere for a while, wrapped my computer in a baby blue blanket, slipped it into two large cloth shopping bags from No Frills, hung the handles from my right handlebar and very slowly rode to Modcom at College and Spadina. The guy there agreed that it was probably a RAM problem but told me that he didn’t have an upgrade either. He suggested that I try HiTech Direct down the street. I recognized the man that was in charge there as the guy that sold me my laptop at Modcom a few years ago. When I asked about it he told me that Modcom and Hitech Direct are owned by the same company. He said they would have to do a diagnostic on my computer and that there would be a charge of $30.00 for that. When I frowned in response to that he added that the diagnostic fee would be waived if they fix my problem. I asked if I’d be charged if they couldn’t fix my problem and he said I wouldn’t. This puzzled me because it seemed to me that the fee kind of cancels itself out at either end. He explained that I would be charged the fee if they came up with a solution and I chose to opt out of it. He told me that the diagnostic would take about two hours, so I went looking for a place with wi-fi to sit for a while. I didn’t have to look for long because I found a place called “Grasshopper” just two doors east. The very perky and friendly waitress that greeted me was a young woman with long pigtails and who was wearing, under a sweater, something similar to a Catholic schoolgirl’s uniform. It wasn’t until I heard her speaking Chinese to the cook that I realized she was probably half Chinese and I could actually see it in her face. Otherwise I could have thought that she was Anglo Saxon. I sat there nursing a coffee for about two hours, sometimes writing and sometimes going online. Grasshopper is a trendy vegetarian restaurant with a fairly wide selection but what I saw most people order was the vegeburger platter with sesame fries.

            My laptop was plugged into the outlet under the table to my right and when a young woman who’d been sitting there got up to leave, her foot pulled the cord out. When I plugged back in and tried to restart, I got a message that said, “No operating system”. Man, did I ever feel lucky at that moment. I envisioned myself walking into Hi Tech Direct with my laptop and telling them that I have something else for them to do. But I took out the flash drive and re-inserted the plug and after I restarted everything was fine.

            After about two hours I left my stuff at the table and went back to Hitech Direct to see what was going on. I was told that they’d tried upgrading the RAM but the problem had persisted. He said that the problem is the motherboard and it would be cheaper to get another computer than a new motherboard. They decided though to try changing the power supply and told me that they’d have to do another diagnostic, and that would take another two hours. So I went back to Grasshopper where the cute waitress read my mind and poured me another cup of coffee.

            After I finished typing a journal entry, I went back to Hi Tech Direct. The salesperson handed me the phone and I spoke to the manager, who was with my computer over at Modcom. He confirmed that it’s definitely the motherboard that had died. I was an orphan. I went back to Grasshopper, packed up my stuff, settled the bill and then started looking at Hi Tech Direct’s deals on refurbished computers. I didn’t want to downgrade, so I settled on another HP, somewhat taller and faster than mine for $199.99. I had to ride to the bank to get $200.00, which left me with $300.00, which is just short of what I’ve been saving to pay for half of half a course. After tax I paid $226.00 to keep computing. I packed up the new system, and because it was bigger, it was a tight fit in the bags and more awkward to carry home on my handlebar. Then I rode back to H Tech Direct and got my old computer because I still needed to transfer some files. But once I got it home I couldn’t get Windows to open at all. The manager at Hi Tech Direct had showed me a device one can hook up to an old hard drive to turn it into an external hard drive both for storage and to have access to the old files. It’s just a little over $20.00, so that looks like it’ll be my next purchase when I have an extra $20.00 because it sounds like a very practical appliance to have.

            I spent the next few hours just getting everything on the new system back towards what I’m used to. I opted for Google Chrome over Firefox because I figured it would help coordinate all of my other Google applications like Gmail, YouTube, Blogspot, etcetera. I downloaded an upgrade of Bit Torrent and then restarted some downloads I’d lost. I had to get new passwords for both Gmail and Yahoo because when my computer remembers things, I forget them.