I miss my laptop computer...

Yesterday I was sitting on the couch in the living room, communing with the parrot and doing some work on my laptop. Just business as usual, until all of a sudden the screen dimmed, then a couple of minutes later, went totally dark.

I’m not an expert, but I figured that was bad. VERY bad.

I tried rebooting the computer a couple of times, and could see by peering really closely at the screen that the graphics were coming up and the computer itself was working, but I could barely see anything, and what I could see didn’t include the cursor.

Curses!

I use my laptop a LOT. It’s much easier for me to sit on the couch and find a comfortable spot than to sit in an office chair and work at the desktop computer. I use the PC when I’m working with heavy-duty programs like Photoshop, or otherwise fiddling with graphics files and websites. But for writing, game playing, surfing the web/shopping, and email, give me a laptop and that extra comfort!

My first move on the road to repairs was to contact my free technical support, a.k.a. Oldest Son. He was not exactly encouraging. Fixing a laptop is not a do-it-yourself venture for the faint of heart, and especially not for the non-technically oriented. The latter definitely ruled me out.

That meant the next move was to find someone who could repair it. In case you’ve never tried getting a laptop repaired, let me clue you in… it’s easier said than done. And most certainly not cheap!

I called a local repair shop and was told repairing a laptop monitor is expensive, might run upwards to $500, and if it was his computer he’d just junk it and buy a new one.

Fine. Who’s gonna pay for the new one?

Then I checked the on-line Yellow Pages for anyone in the bigger cities nearby that might work on laptop computers. There isn’t a multitude of repair shops willing to work on laptops. I was informed that performing laptop repairs is different than working on a desktop computer, and takes special knowledge, tools and parts.

I sent off a couple of emails to places advertised that actually work on laptops. One was called Fast-teks and has a local franchise. The other one, Laptop Rescue, requires the laptop be sent to them.

I got an email in a short time from the latter, telling me what they thought might be the problem, and how much the flat labor fee is for working on LCD’s, and how much the parts were likely to be.

The franchise place didn’t send emails until the next morning, one from corporate, and one shortly thereafter from the local guy. I called him and talked with him a while. He was very nice, but the bottom line was $100 minimum for just looking at the computer so he could tell me what’s wrong. If it can be fixed within the first hour, fine, no extra charge. If not, it’s $25 for every additional 15 minutes of labor. He, too, talked about $250-$500 for replacement parts. He, too, said if it were his laptop, he’d ditch it, buy a new one, and spend the $100 to have them recover the data from the old computer and put on the new one.

That left Laptop Rescue. (Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope!)

Those flat fees for labor sounded pretty good, but what if it’s not fixable? How much then? Turns out if they can’t fix it, you pay about $30 for them to look at it. If they do the repairs, it’s no charge.

But how to get it there? I haven’t got much time! Every step of the way it seemed like I needed to choose the more expensive options to make sure the computer would get back in time for me to take on the trip to Alaska.

At present I’m waiting for UPS to deliver a special shipping box and get the computer sent. Once it gets there, they can figure out the problem and give me an estimate for repair. Then I wait to get it back, fixed or unfixed.

All this takes time and money, and with this trip to Alaska, I’m running short on both. In the meantime, any and all computer work has to be done sitting at the desk. Bummer.

I miss my laptop.