I did take my computer to my local Circuit City to have it sent off for repairs, as I mentioned in the previous post. However, when I got there, the morbidly obese black woman who was attending the "Merchandise Returns" desk informed me that because I needed help more than one year after the purchase date, I would have to call the 800 number listed in my service contract and get help from them.
At first I was incredulous, but then I read the pamphlet and saw that, yes, I would have to go through the added steps of calling their number and waiting for them to send me a box to send my computer to them in. Of course, calling them required going through an ineptly programmed computer system to get to a "Technical Support Specialist."
I did finally stumble upon one, who called himself Travis. After taking some basic information and describing the problem to him, he decided to take me to the BIOS screen and let it sit there for an hour, presumably to see if it would shut down. (Of course, it didn't, because it only shuts down under high levels of CPU activity, but, hey, maybe this guy knows something.) He told me to call him back in an hour if it hadn't shut down. I'm pretty sure that he just didn't know how to handle the problem and, instead of taking it to his supervisor, he led me on a wild goose chase until his shift ended.
Anyway, an hour passes. I call the same number, and attempt to get the same person back. Instead, I get to talk to an "Edna," if that's her real name. English is probably not her first language; she speaks in a heavy Indian accent. Uh-oh.
I give her the same information I gave Travis. Apparently he didn't write it down. ::sigh:: Then I have to convice her that it's not a software problem. ::forehead slap:: It's not a software problem, because it's shut down under several different programs, including my virus scanner, two games, and Windows Media Player. I told her as much, and so she had me dig out my recovery CD for a test.
::red flags go up::
Then, through her accent I manage to determine that she wants me to boot into safe mode with a command prompt.
::klaxons go off::
I confirm that she isn't planning to reformat the hard drive.
::standing down from alert status::
She instead had me copy the CD onto my hard drive, presumably in an attempt to get it to shut down again. But, since it has just finished copying without shutting down, there's no telling what will happen next.
Posted by Blog Jones at August 23, 2004 10:38 PM
| Category: Technology