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Marsha Gupton
21st November 2005, 11:26 AM (11:26)
My ISP is comcast. I have two computers at home that are networked through the comcast home networking. My laptop has a comcast wireless card installed in it.

Things were fine Saturday with my laptop. I shut it down when I was leaving the house. Saturday night when I turned it back on, windows would not load. I have windows xp. When I would turn it on it would bring up a screen that was blue and said windows xp and would not proceed at all.

This may have been the wrong thing to have done, but I re-installed windows. When I reinstalled windows I lost everything including my wireless network connection setup. I have a HPze3400 (I think).

I called comcast saturday night. I spoken with someone with an indian dialect who said he was sceduling an appointment for a tech to come out Sunday afternoon at 2pm. The tech never showed, so I called and then I was told there was no record that I had called and no appointment had been scheduled. So, at that time they set up a new time and tell me Monday between 6-9. This time the customer service rep spoke with a heavy oriental accent. To be honest, it was extremely difficult for me to understand him. He told me the person would be coming Monday between 6-9pm.

Well, I thought that was really odd for a tech to come at that time. Since, I have a dinner engagement tonight, I was uncomfortable with my Mother being at home alone and some comcast guy coming after dark, so I called to change the appointment. Monday morning I called customer service, spoke with a female whom I could understand and she looked it up and said it is for Tuesday from 3-6. She was concerned that someone told me a tech would come between 6-9 because that is totally wrong.

There has been some discussion on this board about the lack of customer service with Sony and other companies. I think this lack of customer service that I have recently had to deal with is unacceptable. But, what do you do?

Jim Severns
21st November 2005, 12:18 PM (12:18)
My Dell laptop (now 5 years old) has a habit of just freezing up. This is always accompanied by a rather humorous sound (gloop flup flup flup). I have to remove the battery and unplug power, then boot up.

I have found over the years that if a computer seems to have lost everything, if you can manage to get through startup in Windows Safe Mode, you can usually go through a normal shut-down and then things will start working again.

If it makes you feel better, we made a payment on our Comcast account on 11/2. It wasn't credited to the account until 11/12. It didn't clear the bank until 11/16. It sure would be nice if they had some competition locally!

Keith Isley
21st November 2005, 02:56 PM (14:56)
My Dell laptop (now 5 years old) has a habit of just freezing up. This is always accompanied by a rather humorous sound (gloop flup flup flup).

The sound you describe....is it coming out of the speakers, or is it part of the "hard drive" whirring/soft chattering sound that you normally hear when the laptop is on?

If it's coming from the hard drive, you might want to look into a replacement drive....the hard drive could be going south on you. And that would be icky. :)

- KAI

Jim Severns
30th November 2005, 12:28 PM (12:28)
Sorry for the slow response.

The sound is definitely 100% through the speakers. It seems to be part of a .wav sound followed by another partial .wav that loops about 3 times. Very strange.

So far, no weird hard drive sounds. I know about those. A couple of desktop PC's at work have croaked on me due to bad hard drives.

Dana Grant
30th November 2005, 01:30 PM (13:30)
That's one thing that I have loved about my Toshiba. I get someone who speaks American English when I call for tech support -- that has sold me! I'll be buying Toshiba from now on!!!

Belinda Y. Edwards
30th November 2005, 09:06 PM (21:06)
wow- i didn't know this. This is great. i think i will keep my eyes out for a Toshiba in the future, too.


That's one thing that I have loved about my Toshiba. I get someone who speaks American English when I call for tech support -- that has sold me! I'll be buying Toshiba from now on!!!

Hans Deventer
30th November 2005, 10:07 PM (22:07)
That's one thing that I have loved about my Toshiba. I get someone who speaks American English when I call for tech support -- that has sold me! I'll be buying Toshiba from now on!!!

Got no clue what language I'd hear if I called Toshiba's technical support, for we have never as yet have to call them. But I do like our Toshiba.

Dana Grant
30th November 2005, 10:18 PM (22:18)
Got no clue what language I'd hear if I called Toshiba's technical support, for we have never as yet have to call them. But I do like our Toshiba.

Wow, that's even better!! Well, the times that I have had to call the tech support have been problems that I caused, not the computer.

First time, the computer kept shutting off. Turns out I never cleaned the screens on the bottom of the computer that house the fans -- can you say LOADS of dog hair got inside and cut off the fans, so the computer was only doing what it was supposed to do when it overheated. Now you can bet that my little screens get cleaned VERY OFTEN, and I don't have that problem now.

Next time, lightning struck my computer and knocked out my modem. If I had been SMART, I would have turned it off during a thunderstorm.....again, my fault.

I have taken it to Phoenix a couple of times just to be cleaned. We do have the long-haired dogs and they ARE in the office. So to be safe, I take it for a good cleaning once or twice a year. Doesn't cost anything because it's still under warranty. Better safe than sorry!!!