It’s been a little more than 24 hours, so I guess it’s safe to talk about it now…
I was editing my weekly video for my YouTube channel, it was episode 31 of Sunday Morning Quickies. I had been editing it for a little over 2 hours when my computer decided that I needed another heart attack.
The screen was black. Not even a BSOD, it… went… black…
I miss the days of reset buttons on computers. I also miss the days when a laptop battery could be removed from a hung computer to force it to power off. Hell, I miss built in optical drives and PCMCIA slots (am I showing my age?). Anyway,I was looking at a very expensive laptop that wasn’t very old, sitting there with a black screen, yet the keyboard backlights were shining.
What to do?
I waited about 20 minutes. Well, to be honest, I didn’t “wait”, I went online on my phone and got the number for Dell technical support!
By the time someone in the call center answered, my laptop had been sitting there like a brick for over half an hour. In broken English, the customer service representative was asking me all sorts of questions, none of which was “what can I do to help you”. They were insisting that my computer had a tag on the back that had a Dell service code. I was basically being called a liar because no such tag exists on my laptop. They wanted to know where I bought it (Best Buy), and were adamant that there was a sticker. I offered to take photographs of the back, front, and sides of my laptop to show that, NO, there wasn’t a damn sticker on my damn dead laptop!
Let me say here, I wasn’t concerned about the laptop per se, not the data contained therein. I have an 8TB drive that is connected to my laptop that constantly backs up all of my data. Every time I save a file to my laptop, it automagically backs that file up on my external drive. I’ve learned my lesson, having had HDD failures in the past. I won’t allow my cardiac health to be compromised by failing to have a backup system in place and always working. No, my concern was for the file that was in progress! The video I was editing that was due to be released at midnight, now just less than 2 hours away!
Anyway, while the Dell representative was busy berating me for not having a service number tag or whatever it’s called on the back of my laptop, the screen popped back to life! It wasn’t my normal screen, rather a screen that indicated that Windows 10 had taken a massive dump in its virtual diaper and needed a bath, some baby oil, and a fresh onesie. I set my cellphone on speaker, placed my phone of the desk and stared at my screen and breathed a heavy sigh of relief. I let the rep from Dell spew forth a bit more vitriol while my computer ran a battery of power on self tests. When my “normal” log on screen appeared, I hung up on the rather nasty Dell rep, knowing that this was going to be the last Dell laptop I would ever buy, rather I would go back to building my own desktop machines in the future and NEVER have to deal with crappy Dell customer support ever again.
Well you have to rely on the magic box. The way of the future. Scary