Notebook PC is malfunctioning

For six months now my notebook PC has been exhibiting increasing problems. This past week it finally got to the place where it has become nearly unusable.

The first problem was its built-in WiFi began to fail intermittently. More often than not, the hardware failed to be recognized at all and wouldn’t show up in the list of known hardware. I could live with this problem by connecting a LAN cable or using a separate WiFi receiver. I contacted HP support but they gave me the usual try this and that, which I already had.

The second problem was that it began to randomly shut itself down with no warning. It seemed to happen most often when the CPU was running at its max and when the physical area near the CPU became very hot. I’m not sure why this didn’t happen when the PC was new, but it began to happen and with increasing frequency. Again, I could sort of live with this as long as I was careful to not run too many applications simultaneously.

However, the third problem introduced an unlivable problem. I had placed the PC on standby mode and when I tried to wake it, the power returned but operation did not. I forced a shutdown and tried restarting, but it would not. I looked up the support pages and found instructions on performing a hard reset, which I did, but it didn’t seem to do any good. The instructions also described a way of forcing boot into the BIOS to run a system check. I did that and the instructions actually worked.

I ran the system check and there the fourth issue appeared. The comprehensive hard disk check reported that the drive needed to be replaced. After running the diagnostics, I was able to boot back into Windows, so I backed up my data onto an external HD. Unfortunately I discovered my desktop PC doesn’t recognize this HD, so I had to back up the data to a different external HD.

With the data backed up I looked to see if the extended service plan I had originally purchased (through Office Depot) was still valid. Fortune was with me this time: I still have about five weeks left until its expiration! I called up the service and described the problems listed above. I didn’t get the runaround that I was afraid I would get (and expected) but I was promptly told that a service order had been opened and they would be shipping me a box in which to return the unit.

I am now working on my desktop PC which is not really adequate for all that I need. It too has some issues, mainly with the Operating System, so it is not a permanent solution. It doesn’t have a camera, speakers or microphone, so I am not able to run Skype on it, for instance.

I hadn’t been doing a whole lot with photography recently, and one reason is because of my various computer issues. I can’t run Photoshop on the desktop PC, and because of the suspected CPU/heat issues I didn’t want to try it on my notebook PC.

Since the beginning of the year I had been considering getting a new desktop PC for precisely the reason stated; however, I did not sense a decisive conviction that I should do it. I had been praying about it for weeks and I continued to be ambivalent about what I should do. It was during the Memorial Day weekend when I developed a strong feeling that instead of a desktop PC, I should instead go with the Apple iPad. Now I seem to understand why that happened. I most likely will not have the notebook PC back before we take off on our summer travels and the iPad will now serve as its replacement. This whole incident is quite annoying, but it appears now that things have and will work out okay.