Well, I thought I’d be sharing my thoughts about Saturday’s Oleta Adams concert, but circumstances beyond my control have pushed her to the back burner.
Unless you’re the worst enemy I have in the world (That would be Verizon. Long story. Don’t ask) I hope you never turn on your computer to see a sight like this:
This is the dreaded Blue Screen of Death and what it means is your computer is dead in the water and your day just got a lot worse, brother.
(And don’t worry. No cats were harmed in the writing of this post. I don’t even have a cat.)
Computers are such a part of our everyday life that when they malfunction it feels like a part of your body no longer works right. There’s such a feeling of utter helplessness when instead of the monitor flickering on it stays dark and the only sound to be heard is the desktop’s fan whirring away madly and the insistent BEEP-BEEP-BEEP of something really wrong going on in the computer.
After searching the Net, I think it could be the motherboard crapping out on my three-year-old Dell Inspiron 530, but that’s just a uneducated guess now. It might be something I can fix myself or something requiring an expert’s touch (and I am not that expert). All I know is I expect to spend a better part of the day rummaging around inside the computer trying to narrow down the potentially nasty possibilities into one resolvable (hopefully) problem.
I’m not the go-to guy when it comes to opening up computers and whiling away the hours pulling out parts and installing new ones. That’s my brother’s idea of fun and while I know he is available to offer his expertise, he’s not going to rush to the rescue. If you have a family member who’s good with cars or knows pluming or specializes in anything most people only have the most rudimentary working knowledge of, you know what I mean when I say, You don’t want to ask them for help, but you know when you hit the wall, it’s there for emergencies.
It’s a comfort to know I do have a fallback option to coughing up $100 bucks for a service call from a professional computer technician if I need it. I’m just really, really hoping I don’t need it.
The upcoming Thanksgiving holiday was already going to influence my blogging schedule. If I’m forced to use my son’s laptop to update the blog, that is really going to suck because my Laptop-Fu is weak. It took me a while to adapt from a typewriter to a PC, Transitioning from a PC to working on a laptop is proving to be equally demanding.
First things first though. Grab a small screwdriver to open the computer. Some canned air to clean out the computer, Put down some newspaper down to catch the dust bunnies as they are blown out of the computer and cross my fingers that I can dope out the problem here and try to fix it.
It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it. Looks like I’ve just been nominated.
First of all it’s “plumbing” not “plumping”.
You’ll need to find out specifically which model Dell computer you have (check to see if there’s a sticker on the back with the full model number). There are several models of the Dell Inspiron 530 and each has a different motherboard layout. While it’s possible that you’re suffering from a dead battery (which isn’t hard to replace and is really cheap and would be the first thing I would try) a replacement Dell motherboard could cost you more than $100 bucks and you would probably have to order it.
Give me a call when you get the chance bro.
Laptops aren’t bad, Jeff. I live on mine. They’re more mobile and allow you to do your work anywhere from your desk at home to Starbucks (where I do the vast majority of my work these days.)
But be careful trying to fix your machine. If you really screw something up, it’ll render your warranty moot.