WWTBAM Bored

The flurry of data calls seems to have abated for the time being, so perhaps today will be a little calmer. Not from the weather perspective, however - the forecast is for high winds (up to 60 MPH) and lots of rain. The concern is that tree branches weakened by the ice storm might start coming down, knocking out the power again.

I am still without a computer at home. To recap - the computer went off when our house lost power two weeks ago. There was a brief space of about two hours when the power came back, and I restarted the computer in order to provide it with a soft shutdown. However for some reason the computer refused to recognize the video card, instead defaulting to a generic VGA controller. The funny thing is that when restarting the computer, the auto-detect for new hardware went into effect and it found the video card. But then it did a second search and the system generated an error message and went back to the generic controller. So I took the CPU to the Geek Squad. After a couple hours of looking around, the technician diagnosed the problem as "trace infestations" of spyware/malware/viruses (412 instances, according to his diagnostic tool). For a mere $199 he said they could remove all these traces and that would solve the problem with the video card. I was dubious, but not having any other ideas, I agreed (and the instances needed removing anyway).

Fast forward to yesterday. The Geek Squad called and said that my CPU was ready to be picked up, so elwing went to get it. The technician (not the same one I dealt with a week ago) told her what had been done but she wisely demurred and called me. I spoke with the technician and told him specifically what the problem had been and how to determine if it was fixed. He looked, and the problem with the video card hadn't been resolved. Apparently the original technician didn't put that on the service request. So the CPU is back in the repair bay with a "priority" tag on it. We'll see how long this takes.

And now the question for my fellow computer geeks - what would cause the problem in the first place? It certainly wasn't "trace infestations". The video card is an NVidia GeForce 6800, loaded on the motherboard. The computer is a Dell XPS600.

I would have told you to take your system to anyone but the Geek Squad. Their price tag for running a program to clean your registry is ridiculous! You should demand a refund of that since it did not fix your problem.

Your video card is the same one in my old system that my granddaughter now has. I expect either the card has become fried or your motherboard has a fault. With luck it may just be dirty contacts. Did you try removing it, blowing canned air on the boards, then putting it back first?

Bob Juch wrote:I would have told you to take your system to anyone but the Geek Squad. Their price tag for running a program to clean your registry is ridiculous! You should demand a refund of that since it did not fix your problem.

Their price guarantees that the video card problem will be solved - I was specific in asking the first technician about that.

Bob Juch wrote:Your video card is the same one in my old system that my granddaughter now has. I expect either the card has become fried or your motherboard has a fault. With luck it may just be dirty contacts. Did you try removing it, blowing canned air on the boards, then putting it back first?

Yes.

earendel wrote:

Bob Juch wrote:I would have told you to take your system to anyone but the Geek Squad. Their price tag for running a program to clean your registry is ridiculous! You should demand a refund of that since it did not fix your problem.

Their price guarantees that the video card problem will be solved - I was specific in asking the first technician about that.

Good, but that's still pretty high.

earendel wrote:

Bob Juch wrote:Your video card is the same one in my old system that my granddaughter now has. I expect either the card has become fried or your motherboard has a fault. With luck it may just be dirty contacts. Did you try removing it, blowing canned air on the boards, then putting it back first?

Yes.

I expected you did - being in the business after all.