For quite a while I had a problem where my PC would shut down under almost the slightest load (for example when I opened 35 tabs of SkyDrive albums at once in IE, but also during many other activities). At first I tried to open it myself, meaning I removed the screws, but when it came to the main part, actually opening the laptop, I was at a loss. It just wouldn’t budge anywhere and I didn’t want to force it open, so on Monday, August 26, I took it to Waclawik in Cesky Tesin.
I only took out the HDD, left the charger at home, and was made to leave the battery there, which really wasn’t necessary, because even if they turned the PC on, it would never shut down (it has to be a really heavy load, with the fan spinning at full speed). Still, the repairman wanted it, so I left it there; I just took photos of both the laptop and the battery, especially their IDs and identifying marks. Up until then I had been very happy with that laptop.
He explained that they pick things up by courier every Friday from Ostrava and have to send it to a specialized repair shop, because the fan might be shot, every laptop has a slightly different fan, and only authorized service centers get the components for repairs. I don’t know, but that’s what I was told. I also suspected the thermal paste on the processor, but the repairman at Waclawik ruled that out. On Wednesday I went back twice, both times for data.
The first time my sister dropped me off almost right at Waclawik and then went to the library on her own, since I told her the copying would take about 18 minutes. During that first copy I put almost 50,000 files on the flash drive, but I forgot the more important stuff. This time I only copied the 2 VS project files (scz and HostingManager). Then I headed to the library, where my sister had just gotten back into the car, so I got in and told her I had realized I’d left the much more important files behind, so this time we left the car at Billa, went through the underpass, and in no time we were back at Waclawik. OK, I asked the repairman whether, since I had forgotten some data, I could copy a bit more.
He willingly let me use it, but he’d probably had enough by then too, because he said irritably that he was going to lunch and left the shop. I also copied send to sunamo gc for Chrome, swf, and some executables, in case I didn’t feel like recompiling my programs. Even this wasn’t complete, though; at the very least I still needed to copy the databases so that my programs would have something to work with. But as my sister was driving me home, she said she wouldn’t go there with me a third time, and I would only go there alone in an absolute emergency.
So I had to make do with the existing features on sunamo.cz and only save new caches on geocaching.sunamo.cz. I then borrowed my mom’s computer and used it now and then, but that computer drove me mad. Mainly its touchpad: I’m used to resting a finger or even the palm of my left hand on the touchpad, and unfortunately that somehow didn’t work on this one. The keyboard too, with a completely different layout from what I’m used to, plus a numeric keypad, got on my nerves and really annoyed me.
A lesser sin, in my view, was that the keyboard didn’t even have keys properly separated by a clear gap, though I have to say I later got somewhat used to it and typing on it no longer bothered me as much. Because I had also left my list of caches on the laptop, the ones I wanted to hunt, the ones I had searched for but not found, or the ones I didn’t dare try, and other categories, I didn’t get much done day to day. I went caching about twice in those 2 months; luckily the weather was good.
Still, caching didn’t go well for me, just like always (my success rate was about 45%). The rest of the time I mostly lay in bed, slept, or was bored. Other activities aren’t even worth mentioning, except that I watched 1 film called Harold & Maude, which I watched again because Muhe recommended it to me. On Thursday Waclawik called me (even though they were supposed to call on Wednesday) to say they would be sending it off and that the repair might cost up to 4,000 CZK, so when I got back home I told my mom about it so she could prepare for it, and my mom didn’t like the price at all and immediately called them to say that we would stop by tomorrow or on Monday to pick it up, because I simply couldn’t afford the repair right now.
And it was true: I really didn’t want to pay 4,000 CZK for a small laptop repair (just a fan replacement). On Friday we called the repair shop in Ostrava, which was an authorized HP service center, but we found out they were open only until 12 noon, and since it was already 11 a.m. and I wouldn’t have made it to Ostrava by public transport in time, we agreed I would bring it in on Friday. Or rather, my mom arranged it; I was “afraid” to call and handle my own affairs myself.
The weekend flew by, and on Monday morning I headed off to Ostrava with the laptop. Only when I was almost 1 km from home did I remember that I had left the receipt at home, which I needed for it to be accepted as a warranty repair, as well as all the screws, but since I was already on my way, I didn’t turn back; I just called them after 8 a.m., when they should have been in, and they told me we would “work something out” about the screws and that I could email them a scan of the receipt. That settled it, I didn’t turn back and boarded the train at Ropice station, which I managed to catch.
Unfortunately, only on the train did I realize that I didn’t have my in-card and would have to buy a full-price ticket, but that wasn’t the only disaster: because I thought it would be better to go all the way to Ostrava Stodolni, I bought a return ticket from Ostrava Stodolni to Ropice for 114 CZK. Ridiculously expensive without the in-card. I think both trains were late that day; fortunately the second one, a CityElefant, was a semi-fast train, so the journey went by pleasantly quickly. On the train I checked the map on my phone and found out it would be better to get off at Ostrava Stred, so that’s what I did.
I set off past the IQ building (a beautiful new building), which now mainly houses Tieto Czech, and kept following the navigation along 28 October Street, and I then found the repair shop without any trouble. I rang the bell, they buzzed me in, I took the elevator to the 4th floor and rang another bell. A man came to open the door, sat down at a PC, and started writing it all up with me. So I described everything to him, that the laptop shuts down under heavier load, gave him my address and my contact details, and then we started dealing with the screws.
The man said they could put in some of their own screws, but it would be better if I brought my own, and since I didn’t feel like arguing, we agreed that I would stop by tomorrow and bring both the receipt and the screws. And so the next day, Tuesday, again early in the morning, I repeated the whole trip to Ostrava. Unfortunately, this time their bell wasn’t working, but luckily a DPD employee was heading into another company in the same entrance, and that’s how I got inside. I rang again, went in, and within a minute I was back outside.
They promised to send it to Tabor (VSP Data) by tomorrow at the latest, so I left satisfied. Then came the second hitch: the elevator wouldn’t come, and after a short wait I walked down the stairs, and then a 3rd thing probably didn’t work the way it should, namely the button to get out. I made it back in record time, and if the train hadn’t been 20 minutes late, I would have had to wait another 50 minutes, but as it was, I arrived and rode straight to Cesky Tesin.
From CT someone probably drove me home again, most likely my brother. Today is September 11, so it’s been 8 days since I brought them the screws and the receipt, and nobody knows where the laptop is. In Ostrava there’s only a guy who says there are 4 laptops in Ostrava but doesn’t know whether mine is among them, and his colleague, who doesn’t feel like digging through it, is on vacation.
In Tabor, on the other hand, they say the laptop hasn’t arrived yet, which is strange, because they said they would send it to Tabor right away. “Luckily,” I already have a brand-new laptop that cost a lot of money, and maybe that was the right call, because who knows how much longer I’ll be without my primary laptop. An HDD enclosure should also arrive today, so hopefully I’ll be able to transfer my data to this laptop and start working on it normally.
EDIT September 16, 2013: I now have the repaired laptop back home and it works great! Tasks during which it always shut down as soon as the fan spun up to full speed now only spin it up to about 40%, everything on the PC is fast, most things are instant, and the PC doesn’t heat up at all!