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In which my computer has surgery
Oct. 3rd, 2019 03:38 pmAnd there are, alas, complications.
Slightly over a month ago, I bought a new laptop for work. While I was at MicroCenter, I asked about upgrading my Dell desktop computer from 4 Gb of RAM to 8 Gb. The salesperson confidently pulled a stick of memory from the shelf and told me it was $28. Moore's Law at work -- I don't remember what it would have been when I bought the computer in 2013, but a lot more than that.
It took a while to arrange a time for DD-B to be available to install the new RAM, but last night he came over to do so. It slotted into place nicely, and we tried it out. Unfortunately, all it did was make a loud humming sound, then nothing else. He checked that it was seated properly, and tried again. Same result. Some searching online left us with the possible theory that the upgrade needed to be two 2Gb DIMMs instead of one 4Gb one. We couldn't do anything about that at that point, so we went to dinner instead.
The next day (today), I called the MicroCenter tech support line, and after about 15 minutes on hold, I explained the situation to the person at the other end. He said to bring it in, and they'd take care of it gratis while I waited. I made the mistake of not remembering his name.
I brought the computer in, and talked to one of the sales people. He said that that computer was definitely supposed to support 4Gb DIMMs. He referred me to the repair people. The first person said that she thought the problem was latency. Another person said that couldn't be it, because the computer could adjust. She rebutted with "Well, it's a Dell, after all." No one liked the theory that the DIMMs had to be 2Gb ones.
They ended up paging someone from DIY. He looked at the computer and proposed a new theory -- that the 4Gb DIMMs were fine, but all of them had to be that, not two of 2 and one of 4. So the tech replaced the two old 2Gb ones with two new 4Gb ones ($12 more). When she booted up the computer, it made the same loud humming noise. She powered it down and made sure everything was really truly seated well (even though it had appeared to be before). Apparently that was the problem, because after that the computer booted up properly (though slowly).
There was a bit of a kerfuffle about the cost of the work (normally $30), but they agreed to waive it because I wouldn't have had to pay if I'd gone home the first time with the correct parts. I said I would tell people about the good service I got from MicroCenter, and I really did appreciate it. (When I was at Best Buy and asked about an upgrade, the salesperson gave me a hard sell about replacing the computer instead and went off in a huff when I declined.)
After I got home, I connected everything up. Things were very slow for a while, and it kept complaining about missing drivers. And none of the secondary hard drives that I have connected with a USP expander were showing up. But I unplugged and replugged, and it reinstalled the drivers, and things mostly seem to be working well. The only thing that isn't working yet is the scanner -- I get a missing driver error when I try using the scanning program, even though I downloaded and reinstalled the driver. I'll worry about that later, though.
I'm not sure if the computer is running any better, but (other than the scanner issue) it doesn't appear to be any worse. So I think the attempt was worth the $40 investment.
Slightly over a month ago, I bought a new laptop for work. While I was at MicroCenter, I asked about upgrading my Dell desktop computer from 4 Gb of RAM to 8 Gb. The salesperson confidently pulled a stick of memory from the shelf and told me it was $28. Moore's Law at work -- I don't remember what it would have been when I bought the computer in 2013, but a lot more than that.
It took a while to arrange a time for DD-B to be available to install the new RAM, but last night he came over to do so. It slotted into place nicely, and we tried it out. Unfortunately, all it did was make a loud humming sound, then nothing else. He checked that it was seated properly, and tried again. Same result. Some searching online left us with the possible theory that the upgrade needed to be two 2Gb DIMMs instead of one 4Gb one. We couldn't do anything about that at that point, so we went to dinner instead.
The next day (today), I called the MicroCenter tech support line, and after about 15 minutes on hold, I explained the situation to the person at the other end. He said to bring it in, and they'd take care of it gratis while I waited. I made the mistake of not remembering his name.
I brought the computer in, and talked to one of the sales people. He said that that computer was definitely supposed to support 4Gb DIMMs. He referred me to the repair people. The first person said that she thought the problem was latency. Another person said that couldn't be it, because the computer could adjust. She rebutted with "Well, it's a Dell, after all." No one liked the theory that the DIMMs had to be 2Gb ones.
They ended up paging someone from DIY. He looked at the computer and proposed a new theory -- that the 4Gb DIMMs were fine, but all of them had to be that, not two of 2 and one of 4. So the tech replaced the two old 2Gb ones with two new 4Gb ones ($12 more). When she booted up the computer, it made the same loud humming noise. She powered it down and made sure everything was really truly seated well (even though it had appeared to be before). Apparently that was the problem, because after that the computer booted up properly (though slowly).
There was a bit of a kerfuffle about the cost of the work (normally $30), but they agreed to waive it because I wouldn't have had to pay if I'd gone home the first time with the correct parts. I said I would tell people about the good service I got from MicroCenter, and I really did appreciate it. (When I was at Best Buy and asked about an upgrade, the salesperson gave me a hard sell about replacing the computer instead and went off in a huff when I declined.)
After I got home, I connected everything up. Things were very slow for a while, and it kept complaining about missing drivers. And none of the secondary hard drives that I have connected with a USP expander were showing up. But I unplugged and replugged, and it reinstalled the drivers, and things mostly seem to be working well. The only thing that isn't working yet is the scanner -- I get a missing driver error when I try using the scanning program, even though I downloaded and reinstalled the driver. I'll worry about that later, though.
I'm not sure if the computer is running any better, but (other than the scanner issue) it doesn't appear to be any worse. So I think the attempt was worth the $40 investment.
