wherein Liz has a very bad day (yesterday)

[edenfalling]

My computer crashed yesterday. I don't know what happened. It was fine when I went out to the laundromat; when I came back 45 minutes later, it woke from 'sleep,' made a distressed noise, and died.

It seems to be a reoccurrance of the problem I had a month or so ago (which fixed itself, oddly enough), but this time it's much worse. I can restart the computer, and it will run normally for 1 to 3 minutes, and then I get blue screen of death (with long explanatory spiel) for about ten seconds max (nowhere near enough time to read the long explanatory spiel), and then everything shuts down... sometimes accompanied by hideous, straining beeping noises, sometimes not.

Argh.

I called Best Buy, and someone is coming out to look at it between noon and 4pm on Saturday. I think I am still under warranty, and I have this vague memory of signing up for a service program when I bought the damned computer last Oct/Nov, but I will have to check my paperwork for details, and it will still be too expensive in any case.

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In other frustrating news, I discovered yesterday that I cannot order new checks because I have not previously ordered new checks. *headdesk*

See, apparently Deluxe, the company who printed my current set of checks, will not let you use their phone or internet ordering service unless they have a record of your account number. The only way to create such a record is to order refills via their snail-mail paper order form... which I seem to have lost.

It's not a crisis -- when I deposit my paycheck tomorrow, I'm going to make the bank order checks for me -- but it's extremely annoying.

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I have the persistent feeling that I've fallen out of the real world and into a Kafka novel.

Comments

[deralte.livejournal.com]

Have you updated the BIOS lately? Since it's running for a bit, then quitting, it could be overheating. Also, all you need from the blue screen of death is the specific code on the second (or third line) on the screen. It took me ages to figure that out when my harddrive failed. I gave that code to the tech support and they had it replaced within a day.

[edenfalling]

I don't even know what a BIOS is. *is sheepish* One of these days, I should really get around to learning how to do more with computers beyond word process, surf the internet, and watch DVDs. (Spreadsheets do not count.)

It runs for a while, and is clearing working hard because it keeps doing that little mechanical "I'm busy!" grinding burbling thing that computers do when running heavy programs or whatever.

[deralte.livejournal.com]

The BIOS is your operating systems framework so to speak, it's what controls the very basic commands on your computer. If you go into the computer info (by hitting F12 I think) when the Windows logo shows up, it'll tell you what version your BIOS is. Your computer's website will offer updated versions of the BIOS which fixes any problems they've found. It's a good idea to update your BIOS every 6-12 months since it'll fix any problems specific to your computer (my old laptop, for example, had a fan problem which was fixed in a later BIOS update). Of course, I wouldn't recommend doing all this until you know what's wrong with your computer. You may have an easy to fix problem or a bad hard drive.

[doire]

Commiserations. I hope the guarantee stumps up.

I'm about to to try and resurrect my daughter's laptop which no longer boots up, or at least get her most recent writing off it. It owes us nothing; it's 8 years old and has had the battery held in by gaffa tape for several years.

Your talking about cheques made me realise again how different places are despite their apparent similarity. I've never ordered cheques; they come automatically when you use one of the last few in the previous book and these days I only use 4 or 5 a year anyway. The main problem is not not having any but remembering where the cheque book's been put.

[edenfalling]

It would be nice to get new checks automatically, but in America, banks have shifted their check supplying business over to private companies, and those companies (unlike your bank) have no way to know when you're about to run out. This does allow people to choose a lot more options for check backgrounds, fonts, and little personalized messages -- private companies, unlike banks, have the time and money to play with unnecessary touches -- but it also places the responsibility for keeping oneself in blank checks squarely on the consumer rather than the bank (or state, or whatever).

I like writing checks rather than allowing companies to automatically withdraw money from my account. I'm always worried that if, for example, I moved to a new apartment, my electric company would withdraw money to pay both my new bill and the bill for my old apartment. (I know from long and frustrating experience that NYSEG is deeply stupid about billing.) So I like to keep some control in my own hands. :-)