[Non-Gaki Related] One of those months...

Hello readers and fellow Gaki fans...

As you may have noticed, I have not put any new reviews up in about two weeks. That is because my computer with all my movies on it decided to blow up. So, I've decided to inform you on the status.

If you want to read a long, pitiful rant, feel free to click the "Read more..." link below. If not, just feel free browse around or hit the Back button in your browser or something like that.


The tale of my computer is an interesting one. I had a laptop during my first year here at college, and somehow the little headphone jack got broken. The computer would no longer would play sound at all, since it thought that the headphones were always plugged in, but the jack was broken so sound couldn't get to you if you plugged headphones in.

My aunt, who had just left her job of almost 20 years for a higher paying one, had more money than she essentially knew what to do with. She was now working for this new job with great pay, and her old job gave her a severance package, paying her for several years after she'd left.

Out the combined deepness of her heart and her pockets, we went online to Dell.com and picked out a nice, new, shiny laptop: the Dell XPS M1330. As my aunt wanted to spoil me, she decided that money was not an object and just started hitting the upgrade options left and right. One of those upgrades was an nVidia graphics card.

The catch, and general punchline to this story is that the graphics card has apparently had a glitch in it, that tends to cause the card to fry itself and sometimes the motherboard with it. That's what happened to me. So, I took my non-functional laptop to the library to do some research on what could be done. Apparently, this is a common issue for this model of laptop and graphics card, and usually happens fairly early into the life of the computer. I saw reports of people's computers biting the dust only 14 days after they got it. So, I think about contacting Dell to see what they can do about it, and having had my computer for about a year got me thinking, "Holy crap. This better be covered in my warranty."

Punchline number two: My warranty expired just two weeks before the thing tanked. I call Dell anyway, where I'm referred to the Out-of-Warranty service department. The person working the phones actually recognized the symptoms and said that I was "lucky" to have gone so long without that thing failing. Apparently, so lucky that I new have to pay to get it fixed. The lady on the phones told me that service was $199 dollars, and that covered everything, including plastics and keyboard should it be needed... And that should the motherboard or screen need to be replaced, that'll be another $299. So doing the math and taking into account that more than likely this video card has made my motherboard go kablooey, I'm out $500 dollars because all my stuff is on this laptop. I've sent it off to them, and they gave me the usual "7 to 10 business days! Enjoy disconnectivity, and I hope you backed up your files. :D" schtick, and I'm stick walking across campus in the snow (yes, it's still snowing here. -_- ) to use the library computers every few hours to check my e-mails, with no guarantee that the files that I'm really shelling out this money to keep are going to be there when this thing gets back to me.

So, the moral of this story is: If you buy a laptop, (not just a Dell or Windows PC, as this same card is screwing over Mac users too) get an external hard drive and save all your important things on there, just in case your laptop craps out and you have to explain to your blog readers why you ain't bringin' the funny. :(

Alright. Enough about me and my computer. I'll see you guys again soon, hopefully with a laptop full of Gaki videos that I'll be able to review and post here.