One Man’s Treasure…

…is another man’s trash, as my Uncle Rich says. And that’s been the theme of the month.

The highlight is that my Uncle Dave got fed up with his HP Pavilion tx1000, which had a faulty GPU and an expired warranty. So he gave it to me (I guess because I have the reputation of “Caretaker for Laptops with Issues”), which was absolutely fantastic. Some Googling and Wikipediaing showed that GPU borking was a very common problem (there’s a consensus that HP should’ve held a recall…which didn’t happen, since HP has yet to figure out how to not-suck with laptops), and that in most cases it was due to overheating. The proposed solution was to attach a penny to the top of the GPU to act as a heat sink, which I did. I very impressively managed to not lose any screws, but I still had about five extras after reassembling it. Whatever. It’s not falling apart. Then there was apparently voodoo at work, because the darn thing couldn’t decide if it wanted to turn on or not. I’d assemble it, it wouldn’t turn on. I’d start taking it apart–thinking I’d forgotten to plug something in (which was initially true, but quickly fixed). It would start powering up…then it wouldn’t…then it would. It took about two hours to have an assembled, powered device. Very frustrating. And strange. Harrumph.

At this point, I’d like to point out that even though I’m reasonably techy, I hate hardware with a fiery passion. Software is great. It’s usually free. It doesn’t screw up your computer. You can copy it, download it, email it, and mess with it. And if you break it (and you know it was you who broke it, quality software doesn’t just run out of gas and die), you know that it’s fixable. Even as a worst-case scenario, you just have to reinstall it. And while you’re doing all kinds of things with it, you do it from the comfort of your chair, with a happy computer in front of you, and with the knowledge that the world is OK.

Hardware, on the other hand, is angry and temperamental. It does run out of gas and die. It does break if you’re not careful. There is no copying, sending, or backing up. Fixing it usually requires taking apart the Happy Computer and spilling screws, silicon, and screwdrivers all over your desk. It doesn’t even give you nice error messages–instead of “GRUB Error 17″ or Microsoft’s lovely “Error: No error”, you at best get cryptic flashing from your Caps/Num/Scroll Lock lights. And, to quote Kaylee, “Sometimes a thing gets broke, can’t be fixed.” And suddenly you’re out $80 and 3-5 business days waiting for a new hard drive to come in the mail.

Speaking about new hard drives coming in the mail…the tablet didn’t come with a hard drive, RAM, or a stylus. I was talking about it at school, and my friend Jason was like, “Oh, you need RAM?” “Yes.” “Here, I have two 512MB sticks in my backpack that you can have.” [Note: This is not typical. I'm just as surprised as you are. I'm chalking this one up to divine intervention or luck.] “Thanks!”

…and even with RAM it wouldn’t boot off a Live CD. Returning to shady internet forums, I learned that the overheating could cause the solder holding the GPU down to melt, letting the GPU rise up off the circuit board. The proposed solution was to leave the thing powered on but trapped in a case for about an hour (letting it get quite hot, and supposedly soften up the solder), and then press down hard on a certain area of the keyboard to reseat the GPU. For lack of a better idea, I tried it–and it worked perfectly. I am ecstatic that the one time I got lucky with laptop displays it was on the 2008 tablet, not the 2001 mammoth.

And now it’s all happy running whatever Live CD I fancy. Shazam. And I know I’m milking this story, but I’m really excited that once assorted eBay parts arrive, I will have upgraded my RAM by a factor of eight (512MB->4GB), my hard drive storage by a factor of over twelve (40GB->500GB), a 32-bit single-core Pentium M to an AMD Turion 64 X2, and I’ll also have higher screen resolution (1024×768->1200×800), smaller overall size (“Medium” to “Medium-small”), a DVD+/-RW drive with LightScribe, a swivel-licious hinge, and a freakin’ touchscreen. Behold, I have entered this side of the year 2006.

My luck doesn’t end, though. I saved the following from a landfill: a Dell 1024×768 flatscreen monitor (which is the first flatscreen monitor I’ve ever owned), a Brother AX-350 electric typerwriter (shut up, I actually really like typewriters–they’re fun, and they’re good for popping out quick documents and filling out worksheets/forms) with owner’s manual and ribbon refill, shiny Dell speakers, and a Dell PS/2 keyboard. Win.

What’s not win, though, is my health: I got a migraine on December 3 which was so bad it took me out of school for over three weeks. After my doctor ran out of ideas to solve it he referred me to a neurologist, who gave me a cornucopia of drugs, an MRI, and a spinal tap, all of which were no real help. A visit to the ER just after Christmas put me on painkillers which made me feel worse (look up “rebound headaches”), and then I got a new neurologist, who said that the best solution was to resume my normal schedule (WHAT‽), and that in 6-8 weeks I’d feel much better. That was in early January, and since then I have improved (especially in the mornings, but it declines as the day goes on), but am definitely not “well”. Catching up on all the schoolwork and final exams I missed was, uh, buckets of fun, but as of this morning I’ve finished first semester. So at least I can change my IM status from “∫Fds, ∫sdF, ∫Fds” to something cheerier.