Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/07/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 01:20 PM 7/26/2005, you wrote: >So Tina, please let us know how the Geek Squad visit went. Brian and LUG: The good news is that he found absolutely nothing wrong. The bad news is that he found absolutely nothing wrong. I had hoped there would be some glaring mistake I was making that would explain everything. The guy was great. He was here about 3 hours and ran all kinds of diagnostic tests. I had managed to reload quite a few of my programs and had the internet connected when he got here. He also hooked up several peripherals to check for problems. At first he thought I had a definite problem with the APC PowerChute because the fan wasn't running, but he ran a check on it and the fan is supposed to only come on when it is hot. My APC also has a voltage control, so it's not fluctuating power that's causing problems. He opened up the case and checked all of the connections and the controllers built into the motherboard. No problems there. The second internal hard drive still causes an automatic "Check Disk" message every time I turn the computer on, but I knew that was an issue and plan to reformat it as soon as I transfer some of the information. It hasn't been reformated since I installed the new operating system. The Geek guy found a few registry errors but said they shouldn't have caused any problems. He enabled Hyperthreading which he said would make the computer run better, but he was at a loss as to why I've had so many hard drive failures. He said he guessed it was possible that Dell had a whole batch of bad Maxtor drives. He also said my Dell is the most powerful one they make and that they are really proud of them and check them out thoroughly before they leave the factory. The last time the computer crashed, I was running Archive Creator, a program that calculates how many DVDs you need to copy a folder and then prompts you to put a new one in when each one is full. We reloaded that program and it's working fine. I've been working all morning restoring my programs and checking them out and so far so good. I'm going to back it all up tonight and every night. The only one of the external drives that is not working is the LaCie 120 GB one. It refuses to reformat so I've unplugged it. I have a 30 day warranty now with Geek Squad so if anything goes wrong, they'll come back out and fix it. Dell called me yesterday, too, (from India) to find out if everything was running o.k. I told them to call back today and I'd tell them. I haven't had any problems with Dell's customer service except that all of their solutions involve my losing weeks worth of work!! This time I lost 200GB of photos that I'll have to rescan and a slide program that I had almost finished. That's what kills me. Thanks for all of the advice and good wishes directed my way. It's great to have a group that I can complain to!! Back to the salt mine! Tina