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Laptop PCs and crappy customer service

Quick summary of past four months-
Wifey gets brand new PC (at my expense) that goes horribly wrong two months later. The past few months have been spent chasing a problem with multiple blue-screens.

Invite for comments - read the conversation (skip through it if you like) and guess which national retail chain are being utterly useless.

The laptop is now at the point where it randomly goes BSOD for no obvious reason and most running programs crash within 10-15 minutes - sometimes, you cannot even log on. A complete reinstall does not fix the problem.

Friday night past - I phoned the helpline. They said to take it to the shop and ask for a refund/new PC.

The shop said - "we don't do that!" No, this chain need you to arrange for them to take it to the warehouse/workshop and the shops can't do that (they are not trained to do that). The manager phoned the tech support line to check what they said - conveniently, their guy did not accurately record the conversation. There then followed a long conversation with Phone Supervisor, who insisted I ignored their advice.

Phone Supervisor: "We need you to tell us what the Blue Screen says"
UncleDuck: "The PC doesn't stay up long enough to read it"
PS: "We cannot help then"
UD: "Can you not diagnose the problem?"
PS: "We fix the problems, our technicians do not diagnose. Our records show you have not followed out dianostic"
UD: "So you are saying that your trained technicians do not have the ability to fault-find?"

PS: "We have no record of you ever following our diagnostics. Until you do that, we cannot help."
UD: "The computer crashed when I was on the phone to your guy"
PS: "You did not follow our diagnostics"
UD: "How could I?"
PS: "We are going round in circles - you have to follow our diagnostics"
UD: "Why can't you take the PC away and diagnose?"
PS: "We don't do that."
UD: "But you are technicians. This PC has probable multiple faults, it needs to go away"
PS: "How do you know it has multiple faults? You did not follow our diagnostics."
UD: "Your guy an hour ago, who told me to come to the shop, agreed with me it had multiple faults. He agreed with my explanation of all I had done to diagnose the fault myself."
PS: "That's not what his records say. His records say you refused to follow the diagnostics."

UD: "Tell you what, I'm in the store with lots of new PCs that work. Why don't I take one of these and leave the broken one?"
PS: "I cannot authorise that- we are a different company"

So, large store refuses to help - they pass me onto the phone line (company policy) but the phone line guys are a different company and can;t authorise a refund - or much, really.

PS: "We need you to restore the PC to factory-condition and wait for the fault to manifest"
UD: "But I need to install certain software and use the Internet"
PS: "You might get a virus then - that could be your problem"
UD: "Viruses do not cause everything I am seeing and I am utterly paranoid about security. How would a virus keep getting on within seconds of a complete reinstall before I've even set up a network connection?"

PS: "It might be a software fault, because of something you have installed. If it was a hardware fault, it would manifest as soon as you turn it on."
UD: "It crashes as soon as I turn it on. Running programs disappear. The BSOD messages every ten minutes suggest there is a hardware problem"
PS: "You do not know it is a hardware problem as you did not follow our diagnostics."
UD: "Anyway, you are telling me the only way I can use this machine is to not do anything I bought it for or do anything that might trigger the fault, and not to call you until the fault you are trying to make me avoid triggering occurs and stays on-screen long enough for me to read it?"
PS: "You are putting words in my mouth"
UD: "Why can you not take it away, observe the BSOD yourself and fix it?"
PS: "We don't diagnose the problem, we only fix based on what the user told us"
UD: "Well, I'm telling you there are definate hardware problems - memory probably"
PS (all together now): "You do not know this for sure as you did not follow our diagnostics"
UD: "But it won't let me run the diagnostics"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Hurrah, the witch is dead...

Good news this morning - the money-wasting useless technology imposed on all Northern Irish schools, known as Classroom 2000, has broken.

Every computer, in every school, in the whole country, did not work.

On one hand, this is a problem for people like me who use them a lot and having a centrally-administered ICT system in all schools does make sense. On the other hand, it is the worst-designed piece of crap I have every had the misfortune to use and those responsible for designing and purchasing the thing should be taken out at dawn and shot.  Metaphorically speaking, of course...

Anyway, the great news - the sodding thing is broken - hurrah! For a moment, I hoped it could be replaced. Alas no - it will be working tomorrow, as slow and inefficient as ever. Hmpf!

I'm not saying our neighbours have forgotten to cut the grass, but...

 

Put a ring round where you think the ball is to enter the competition:

 Our neighbours' grass, as you can see, is a bit of a sight.  If anyone has a hungry goat, please send them round.  It stands almost three feet high in parts.  Really.

The view from the bedroom....

 
You didn't believe me about the ball, did you?

River Infest

Weekend highlight - 'River Fest', on the River Bann.  Having mostly ignored it, we trotted down to the fireworks last night.  The local paper promised Northern Ireland's first ever combined water-jet, laser and fireworks display.

We got... fireworks lauched vertically and heading right for Tesco, on the other bank; 
what looked like a video using thirty side-by-side showers as its screen;
and a 'water jet' that looked more like a wee boy seeing how high he could pee.

We decided "To pot with that" when it fizzled out and went home. Half an hour later, we heard more fireworks. Pity they didn't get it going properly earlier - I'm told it was good in the end.  Having the MS Windows error noise coming through loudspeakers every two minutes was probably the kiss of death for it though...

I am a whore

If you do A-levels this year, I may get to read your handiwork.  I am one of the many teachers silly enough to be inside on a sunny evening, selling our bodies to exam boards to mark papers.

Having just finished a batch of particularly poor papers, I was feeling down.  A pleasant surprise waited in my box of exam papers - Wifey has left a bar of Green and Blacks yummy scrummy dark chocolate.

I need to get out more.