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Trip Start Jul 19, 2008 Previous
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  Muntinlupa, Luzon, Philippines
Tuesday, July 22, 2008

The visual silence is deafening.  I am unable to see things clearly as the pixellation and fuzzy shapes appear and stay locked on various areas of the field...

Alas the trip is not going so well, today at work while plugging away at some things, the screen to the laptop went kaplooie.  At first I thought it was merely a system error so I rebooted and the screen had some funky lines and dots on it, I didn't think anything of it and continued along the reboot process and then...nothing.

Zip.

Zero.

Nil.

Stuck in Safe Mode

Nada.

Using the desktop, I hopped on the Dell Support Site and after going through the "Trouble-Shooting Step-by-Step Wizard" it led me to contacting a Dell Technical Support Representative either via email, phone call or online chat.  I opted for the latter and after a 15 minute or so wait, one could probably go on the longer end, I was in a chat with the representative.  He walked me through a couple of things, I even hooked up one of the monitors that is utilized by the desktop and still there was nothing.  At first he thought it was the LCD screen but upon further evaluation it ended up being the video card.

I breathed a sigh of relief, it was after all only a video card and after upgrading a few of them on my personal desktops I knew it was something that wasn't too terribly difficult.

Riiiiiiiight.

Looking online I found a couple of "computer repair" places at Alabang Town Center and after packing up the trusty M90 I headed out into the heat and humidity.  With sweat trickling down my back and forearms, my shirt slightly damp I made the eight minute walk to Alabang Town Center and basked in the coolness of the mall interior.  My first stop, PC Express where I sat and waited for about 15 minutes to have the technician look at the laptop and say something along the lines that the video card was integrated into the motherboard and there was no way to just replace the video card.  After looking dumbfoundedly at the technician, I asked if there was any other place that might be able to do it.  He suggested "CompuServe" which was located on the third level of the mall, so back out into the ickyness I went and arriving at CompuServe the technician there looked at me and said that they were not "Dell certified" and could not repair the M90.  Once more I asked if there was a place and the technician simply shook his head and pointed to the other shops in the mall that were located on the third floor.

You know there are scenes in some movies where a character goes in and out of stores where when they go in they look somewhat hopefully, but when they come out, they begin to look more and more dejected.  Yah, that was me and I only went to three other stores.  But wait!  There was a store I was looking at that had "Dell" on it!  Dare I hope a little?

Stepping into the store one of the eight technicians/salespeople came up, eager to help me and once more after explaining my problem and even starting up the poor M90 to show him the problem he shook his head and said that they would not be able to fix it but they could send it out.

Send it out?  There was a light at the end of the tunnel!

But it would take two to three weeks to complete.  As quickly as that pencil thin light appeared it was quickly smothered in the darkness.

All is not lost yet though as I still have the shops at Festival Supermall to try so maybe something can come out of it yet.  If not, I have discovered that I can work on some things in Safe Mode.

Yes.

Safe Mode.

Hrm...I wonder if I can set something so that it would just bypass the video card and use the generic set up?

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