Tuesday, November 04, 2003

I thought my computer had given up the ghost this morning.

A year ago I started having problems with it - the monitor would be showing these horizontal lines, the keyboard was locked up, the only solution was to turn off the whole thing and turn it back on. We sent it to Dell since it was under warranty still and it came back nicely fixed - it was the video card, they said.

So this morning I had the same problem. I rebooted the machine 6 times while My Boss (aka MB) talked to an IT guy at HQ who helped last year. I also unplugged everything to look inside - we were considering replacing the video card as a fix. But there is no obvious video card in this machine.

So while MB called Dell to ask them about it, I replugged in everything to give it another try...reboot successful and it’s been working fine since. Then MB comes to me and says, “Dell thinks it’s your monitor and they want you to unplug it and replug it....Wait, it’s working?”

ME: Uh huh. But if I have the problem again, I’ll try that.

MB: We have monitors if that’s the problem.

ME: I just need to make it work until January, right?

We’re supposed to get the new computers in January.

MB: Yep.

Today is the dreaded payroll day. The software we use is only loaded on 2 computers in this office - mine and MB’s. Although tomorrow we’re going to load it on a back-up computer.