So I got my laptop back in order finally! Yay! It was a major hassle but at least I’m back to having my main machine in working order (I think <s>)…

A tech came out today to replace the video card after Dell had shipped parts to me this morning. So, all fun and games aside Dell shipped the video card, new memory and a new motherboard. When the tech got here he got down to assembling EVERYTHING and I told him not to take out the motherboard. All the parts Dell shipped are Refurb parts and the last thing I need is to have them put a problematic motherboard into my machine – took some arguing with the guy to just replace the video card even though he agreed that most likely it’s just the video card, his Dell routine says to replace everything and more likely he didn’t want to have to do the job over if the video card wasn’t the problem.

So he also replaced the memory on the machine, and when I booted the machine to check out video came up no problem right away, but after a few minutes the machine blue screened. Rebooted and explorer kept crashing with memory errors – WTF.

So we replaced the memory putting the old memory back and sure enough now things are working fine at least for the last couple of hours. No more crashing or blue screens. The memory from dell is also refurb and to make things even worse they sent two different kinds of memory on Simm of which was the wrong speed! No wonder the memory wasn’t working.

Anyway – it pays to be adament about NOT replacing everything just because the manufacturer is sending the parts…