On 4/15/2009, I posted a rambling about working on my computer that was thoughtlessly hurtful to some of my dear blog friends. That wasn't my intention, of course; but, my miscalculation/lack of forethought/stupidity of attitude resulted in the unfortunate effect. Frequently, I have chided family and friends for "snobbishness"; but I have for years and years been insensitive to the snobbishness built into many of us who have a technical bent. [If you watch "The Big Bang Theory", or if you interact with techies much, you know exactly what I mean!]
In attempting to unpublish the piece while cogitating how to make up to my friends for my display of tech snobbery, the wonkiness of the TypePad Beta system caused me to inadvertently delete the piece. This is not bad...I could easily (as I've done, below) reconstitute it. However, in deleting the posting, the system also deleted the comments from my dear blog friends. These, unfortunately, cannot be reconstituted.
Mea culpa for posting the original piece (which I reproduced, below with the offending sentence expurgated to hide my tech snobbery!) Mea maxima culpa for losing the comments of my friends. Those comments (and a couple of emails that I received on the subject) allowed me to realize how woefully I have done in rooting out my tech snobbery. I promise to continue working on it. There is no excuse for my having harbored such tendencies for these many years. 'Nuff said?
Having spent an extra couple of hours in bed, this morning, it is surprising to me how jittery/happy/atwitter I feel. Yesterday was such a good day--especially so for being my first day out of the house since the 3rd (Bogie's birthday for anyone who may have missed it!) I spent a full day at the office (including getting to see one of my favorite volunteers for a few minutes), fixed dinner, and then spent a couple of enjoyable hours on the phone with a young man. And, Hunky Husband wasn't even jealous!
In Aren't Computers Fun? and Testing My Luck, I gave you the low-down on the new computer that HH gave me (see, below, in A Tidy Desk--for now for a photo.) Since dealing with the technician in India via IM, I had not heard back "within two business days", as promised; thus, when the machine did its sudden shut-off syndrome (SSS) thing, first thing Wednesday morning, a week ago, I called HP's 800 service number. What a difference! I was connected to Innokenti who spoke perfectly unaccented, American English (he said that he was in Oregon.) After hearing my tale, he assured me that Wilson and I had probably not isolated the problem. He would start me along the correct path toward such isolation.
Innokenti laid out the intended sequence of events: 1) he would (quite pleasantly and patiently) lead me through a couple of built-in diagnostic tests, would ask that I spend a few more hours on additional built-in diagnostic tests, and would have someone call me that evening to garner the results. He mentioned that, if we failed to isolate a problem, they might ask me to poke about in the guts of the machine a bit, to see if we could find a loose connection or some issue that would be obvious to the visual examination. WHAT?! I had assumed that my "poking about" would invalidate the warranty. Not so, said he.
That nearly blew my mind; but, a couple of days later, in seeking other information, I ran across the following statement in HP's Limited Warranty and Support Guide:
Customer Self Repair Warranty Service
In countries/regions where it is available, your HP Limited Warranty may include a customer self repair warranty service. If applicable, HP will determine in its sole discretion that customer self repair is the appropriate method of warranty service. If so, HP will ship approved replacement parts directly to you to fulfill your HP Hardware Product warranty service. This will save considerable repair time.
The paragraph goes on about shipment of parts, etc; but, the very idea that they trust the public to thrash about in the innards of their product speaks volumes. [Excess tech snobbery evidence deleted, here.]
HP (in the form of Ian) did, indeed, call me Wednesday evening to hear my results. All tests had been passed--not a surprise, to me, since I had previously run most of them multiple times! Ian then led me through a memory stress test and through setting up some of the built in testing (we used to call them BITs, when I worked fly-by-wire flight control and radar systems) so as to, hopefully, stop the SSS process in its tracks. The hope was that, instead of shutting down without leaving a trace, the machine would actually post an error message on a "blue screen of death". HP would call me on Saturday morning. Came Saturday morning, my voice was almost non-existent, due to the common cold. I asked HH to take the call. They were to call back last evening--which they did.
Andre called. After telling him what all Innokenti, Ian, and I had accomplished and that in five shut downs the error message/blue screen had failed to appear, he said, "OK. If you are up to it, we'll go inside the box." Go inside the box, we did. After unplugging the power cord, the monitor, and the six plugs for various externals (mouse, keyboard, camera, TREO, external modem, and printer), we removed the cover.
After determining that my fingers were too fat to fit in the space between the plug that plugs the power into the motherboard and the power supply (Andre had wanted me to pull the power connector and reinsert it to assure proper seating), we took off the front panel, removed the optical and (vacant) floppy drive boxes. Now, the memory chips could be removed and reinstalled to assure good contact and the electrical lines between the power on/off button and the motherboard could be disassembled/inspected/reassembled. At this point, Andre had me plug in the power cord to see if the memory chip installation produced a noise (this occurs if the chips are not well seated). After that, everything was reassembled and powered up to assure that nothing showed up in booting the machine.
What fun I had working on the computer "with" Andre! Some people get a kick out of arts and crafts, but I get a kick out of electronics work. I had nearly forgotten. It had been so long. (I'll maybe blog on electronic assembly work, later.)
All-in-all, it was a fabulous evening. Now...I just sit here using the machine...waiting to see if it pulls its SSS thing! HP is to call me Friday evening to see if it has done so. If so, we'll need to get someone from HP to lay hands on the machine. What a shame that would be!
P.S. Since my thrashing about in its innards, the cute little machine has performed admirably. I told Jordan (the HP rep who called last evening) to please have someone call again in one week. If the machine has not pulled its SSS thing, by then, I shall declare victory and tell HP that we have succeeded!
Excellent. I have yet to post my fun and games, but I will. With luck, you can give them the thumbs up when they call back. Happy surfing.
Posted by: Wichi Dude | April 18, 2009 at 03:10 PM
Glad your computer is acting the way it should - hope it keeps up that way.
As for being an Engineering snob - I think we all have our snobbishnesses - each in their own area of expertise. It usually doesn't bother me as long as the person isn't a continual snob on many different levels - which you aren't, so don't think you should worry about it.
I understand why you should be proud of being comfortable diving into the innards of a computer, while astonished that the computer company will recognize that some people can actually do stuff themselves.
Posted by: bogie | April 19, 2009 at 05:27 AM
WD--We've been waiting for your story. Thanks.
Bogie--Thank you for your kind words. My ill-chosen words had implied that those who were not comfortable diving in weren't quite up to snuff. As you say, each of us has our own thing(s). The comments were from folks who definitely are superior to you and me (well...at least, to me) in other ways. In fact, as I recall, Darlene left a comment that dropped the little nugget of information that she had installed additional memory in her machine!
BTW: Not one person was gauche enough to call me names or to take me to task for what I had written. What they wrote was very gentle; but, I caught the whiff of my own snobbery. They were wonderful in doing me the favor! Thank you, folks.
Posted by: Cop Car | April 19, 2009 at 07:32 AM
I didn't take offense and (or did I?) I'm seriously non-techy. I am a maintenace freak, however, and I do all I can to keep things running smoothly.
Posted by: Kay Dennison | April 19, 2009 at 11:14 PM
Kay--Hmmm...now I'm seriously scratching my head because I believe that you are the one who said she had added memory to her machine. Would you please install a few chips in my head?!
Posted by: Cop Car | April 20, 2009 at 02:13 PM
Enjoyed your story! I'm so disappointed I didn't get to read your piece before you took out the offensive tech snobby bit so I could be offended and write you a comment about it. Oh well, maybe another time.
Maybe in another life I'll get into electronics as a couple years or so ago my niece (works main frames for IBM) took my CPU unit apart to install an item for me. I thought it all looked surprisingly simple, but pros always make it look that way. She says the PCs are quite a different animal from what she works on and typically goes to her good friend if issues with her PC.
I remember spending a lonnnggg time on the phone with successive guys in India a year or so ago -- Ian was one of them. Maybe they just trade those English names around for whoever happens to on shift and it wasn't the same guy.
Posted by: joared | April 22, 2009 at 05:48 AM
Joared--Oh, PCs are so simple inside these days compared to what they were 25 years ago, and main frames are a whole 'nuther animal. All are fun to poke about, though.
I've always suspected that, just as we use screen names, the IT folks with whom we communicate use work names. HP, to their credit, show a photo of a visibly East Indian person on the website where one initiates IM sessions. I was surprised that the telephone people all spoke without detectable accent. It makes sense, though. In my dealings with audibly East Indian IT people on software issues, I spend most of my time having them repeat, spell out, or otherwise clarify to me what they are saying. I ask for enough clarification when I understand the words. It's horrible when I can't understand them.
All--So far, so good. When HP calls tomorrow night, they will be free to close out the service ticket. It appears to me that the issue was the wiring between the power switch and the motherboard!
Posted by: Cop Car | April 23, 2009 at 07:23 AM