separated by a common language
Oh, how this bugs me: The ‘computer’ is not the ‘hard drive’!
Some of you may interpret this as being elitist, pompous bitching (and it very well may be); but think of it this way: if your ‘sink’ is leaking, you don’t tell your plumber that your ‘bathroom’ is broken; or worse, start throwing around plumbing-related words you heard someplace like “ballcock assembly” or “roto-rooter” to describe your problem; it’s not helpful, and makes you sound silly.
Put another way, it’s not the driver’s job to necessarily know the difference between the alternator and the radiator in a car (that’s why there are mechanics) but in describing a problem, being able to differentiate between the engine and the wheels is expected.
For future reference, this is not a hard drive:
This, however, IS a hard drive, and is merely a part of the whole:
If your monitor (which is not ‘the computer’, merely a peripheral) is displaying a blue screen with indecipherable white text on it, your ‘computer’ may be malfunctioning, but it’s probably not your hard drive (that usually involves grinding noises and smoke, or at best, a mostly blank screen with some insistent-sounding beeping).
Your best bet is to give your computer-fixing professional a clear, detailed description of what symptoms your system (which is a good word to use for all those pieces connected together) is displaying. This is most likely what’s on your screen. Such behavior will generally get you a reasonably rapid and polite resolution, and won’t earn you the quiet ridicule of your IT guys.
This has been your non-sequitir complaint for the day.
THis of course is in the PC world. In Appleland, little ever breaks. Hee Hee! Sometimes and then it is 5+ years down the road and totally time for a new machine anyway.
Miss you man!
May 18th, 2009 at 5:39 PMI guess Apple’s solved this issue by making pretty little all-in-one boxes…something, I suppose, to be said for that; and heavily standardized hardware helps too.
Five years? I’ve kept my P4 desktop running for almost ten, and the only thing that ever broke was the video card (after almost seven years of daily use), and was fixed with sixty bucks and five minutes with a screwdriver. The rest of it was cracking it open to tinker and put more high-performance bits in. I’m going to keep that box running forever!
May 18th, 2009 at 5:52 PMAt least we’re not Xbox 360 owners…that thing’s got something like a 20 percent failure rate! (the fact that it runs on a PowerPC chip is interesting, but not why the box tends to brick itself)
There’s a reason I’m not a windows guy; can you say “quality control”?
May 18th, 2009 at 5:55 PM