Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Tellemurius]

A friend of mine wants me to fix her laptop. I figured out that the harddrive died. (She threw the laptop at a wall.) So I need to get a copy of Windows 7 and a new hdd. Does it matter if I get an OEM version of windows? This is the hdd I've been looking at.

Is it under warranty?  If it's under warranty, they'll ship the drive and the install media.

I'm not sure, but would warranty cover it if it was thrown at a wall? I always thought it was just for failure.

lol nope and usually they will charge her up the ass. Considering that it will cost the same of installing the HDD as sending it in, better chance of doing it yourself. OEM versions of windows allows people to do a Full install of Windows on a HDD with license to boot. The Retail/Upgrade version allows you to "Upgrade" your legal copy of XP and Vista to 7, XP you have to do a clean install. If she has a key on the laptop you can install windows 7 for free (just burn a disc). Use that key, call up microsoft and have them activate it for you if it does not, if they ask why just say you had a corrupt system and had to format the drive.

[white_darkness]

A friend of mine wants me to fix her laptop. I figured out that the harddrive died. (She threw the laptop at a wall.) So I need to get a copy of Windows 7 and a new hdd. Does it matter if I get an OEM version of windows? This is the hdd I've been looking at.

Is it under warranty?  If it's under warranty, they'll ship the drive and the install media.

I'm not sure, but would warranty cover it if it was thrown at a wall? I always thought it was just for failure.

In most cases, warranty would not cover that.  Though it can be fudged around if there's no obvious cosmetic damage to the system.  The guy on the phone can't see the system, and if the drive is easily accessible, most OEMs are more than happy to ship things parts only.  That way they don't have to pay an underpaid technician to drive out on his dime and deal with it.  As it stands, I never really cared. I actually helped a young lady clean spilled orange juice out of her system and then replaced her motherboard and I was one of the underpaid OEM tech drones.

[alamoes]

Every once and a while my computer has some kind of internet explorer or whatever browser i'm using related glitch.  It was most recently when I was typing and suddenly when I typed the screen would jump tabs.  Clicking on text would auto highlight it. *I think* pressing right control or the thing to the left of it worked.  Left control did not work. 

[Cthulhu]

Update on the fan thing, a clump of dust must've wedged itself somewhere because a few minutes ago the fan grinded for a few seconds then started up normally.  Nice and quiet now too.

[Tellemurius]

Update on the fan thing, a clump of dust must've wedged itself somewhere because a few minutes ago the fan grinded for a few seconds then started up normally.  Nice and quiet now too.

Err that can also be bearings going bad too.

[Thief^]

Every once and a while my computer has some kind of internet explorer or whatever browser i'm using related glitch.  It was most recently when I was typing and suddenly when I typed the screen would jump tabs.  Clicking on text would auto highlight it. *I think* pressing right control or the thing to the left of it worked.  Left control did not work. 

This sounds like a key on your keyboard likes to get stuck. Is this a laptop or desktop PC? Either way I'd try a new keyboard, preferably one that's not "low profile" (like a laptop keyboard) as they get keys stuck very easily.

[nenjin]

I think the HDD on this refurbished laptop is already going out. Was working fine and then WHAM, blue screen, no warning at all. This is the first blue screen I've seen in years. System recovered but when browsing back to my drive, it took for fucking ever for it to get anywhere. After a few minutes it seemed to come back up to speed.

Blech. Damn el-cheapo laptops. Haven't even had this thing 3 months yet. (And no, I'm not looking for technical assistance. This just seemed like a good place to bitch about it.)

[Tellemurius]

wireless mouse from logitech is shot, left button isn't clicking properly and spazzes out on any FPS. waiting for the new one tomorrow.

[JoshuaFH]

Alright, I'm forced to borrow the family computer for the time being to ask this question.

A little while ago, my computer flipped it's shit for no reason and froze up, forcing me to perform a hard shutdown. Then freezes again, except this time during login, for another hard shutdown.

I go into safe mode and it runs fine that way, and I do a system restore despite me not doing any major changes in the last few days, and I reel back by about a week.

Now my computer starts and runs just fine! Except now my wireless internet connection is broken. Like, completely broke. Everything works fine except that the computer can't detect wireless networks or connect to them, and I have no idea why this happened, or how to fix it.

Can anyone help me out?

[nenjin]

Alright, I'm forced to borrow the family computer for the time being to ask this question.

A little while ago, my computer flipped it's shit for no reason and froze up, forcing me to perform a hard shutdown. Then freezes again, except this time during login, for another hard shutdown.

I go into safe mode and it runs fine that way, and I do a system restore despite me not doing any major changes in the last few days, and I reel back by about a week.

Now my computer starts and runs just fine! Except now my wireless internet connection is broken. Like, completely broke. Everything works fine except that the computer can't detect wireless networks or connect to them, and I have no idea why this happened, or how to fix it.

Can anyone help me out?

Have you tried letting Windows repair the connection? There's a small chance the wireless adapter in your board went kerplooie when the system crashed, but that's fairly unlikely unless it's a very old system or very cheap components.

If Windows can't repair your wireless connectivity, and the wireless adapater is on your board, there's very little you can do. You might try going to the device manager, and have Windows re-apply the Wireless Adapter driver. If that's not taking or possible, you might try re-installing all the drivers for your mobo.

[JoshuaFH]

How would I go about asking windows to repair it? It doesn't detect anything as broken, but it's obviously broke because damnit computer, I'm looking at you and you're broke. In fact, it thinks it's always connected to a "Network 2" that doesn't exist.

That, or I'm misunderstanding something very fundamental.

[nenjin]

Well, first disconnect from network 2. If it's well and truly broken, it won't re-establish a connection. That will throw an error message when you try to re-connect, at which point (Windows 7? XP?) Windows should ask you if you want it to diagnose the connection and try to repair it.

[JoshuaFH]

Windows 7, and gimme a second to try.

[JoshuaFH]

Double posting for my successful idiot story: I only needed to press the wireless button at the top of my computer. Hurray, go me...

Apparently I accidentally hit it sometime in the time frame I told you about, and I just completely forgot that it existed.

[nenjin]

Eh. That's about par for the course for half of the TS calls I take