My Hewlett @ss Packart (yes that language is necessary). Is acting up again. It's having the same problems it did last year. Last Summer it took HP 3 months to fix it . I'm going to see if I can get them to replace it-they refused to do that last time. In the mean time my internet access might be limited. Of course it's not as if we need a huge team of moderators.

Needless to say-I'm building my next computer.

I've built 22 computers (for friends and such) since Jan. of 2003. If I can help, drop me a line.

I, too, have terrible luck with these damn "miracles of modern science"! I had a Gateway for 4 years, and it worked great. Then, out of the blue, it started acting up (shutting off, crashing, losing documents, etc.). So, we figured that it was time to get a new computer anyway. We heard great things about Dell, so we got a new, close to top-of-the-line Dell. Well, we've had the Dell for 4 months, and it's dead. It will start up, but we cannot start any applications. Actually, we can use Excel. But, no other icons or programs work. Even when we start them directly from the Program file, it still just won't do anything. We tried to call Tech Support, but they couldn't do anything. (They said that we'd need top reinstall Windows, so we had to save our files to a backup, like a CD. I told them that our CD burning software wouldn't work. Then, we tried a few other things. And then they say that we need to reinstall Windows, and to backup our files to CD. I told them again that the software required to do that doesn't work. We went through this same conversation 2 other times in less than 30 minutes. So, we finally hung up. I think we're just going to send them the damn thing and let them fix it under warranty.).

So, I'm now using the almost 5 year old Gateway. Slow and reliable. Oh well!!

Well I'm currently typing on my g/f's computer. The power supply fan has failed thus eating up another video card. I could've sworn it worked before when all the other video cards failed. Anyway they sent a box out here to pick it up. It's getting shipped out to a repair facility in texas for the third time. I'm sure it won't come back right so then I can escalate the situation.

I hope you get it worked out soon. I know it's frustrating, a.) having the problem, and b.) dealing with some remote service center....

I am thinking of building a new computer. Kicking around the idea of doing a water cooled version with some serious bolt ons

It gets worse. The computer I'm posting from is my sister's iMac. It's a white computer which is called "Sno". They have to be doubley creative and leave out the W. Snow alone was not enough.

It's got Mac OS9 which I swear is just like windows 3.0 or 3.11. It's so hard to use when you're used to windows '95 style/xp. I don't know how these computers are considered easier to use.

it's a sign... every summer your computer going down... it's telling you to leave the computer and go behind the wheel

These stories always hit home.

I read an article about 10 years ago about how the average male in his 20's-40's spends more time fixing and hot rodding his computer than his car.

Guess there is a sorry few of us that do both! ARHHH!

Macs are very popular among artists, but not engineers. They appeal to a very different mindset.

A few years back, we had to use a Mac to reproduce a customer problem. "The" Mac guy was gone, and even with a whole group of engineers standing around it we were really struggling with operating it. I'm sure a 4 year old child would have been able to help us. Surely there was config file buried in there somewhere that we could edit

Heck, I feel put out when I have to limp along with Windoze instead of Linux.

I manage computer networks for a living and this is what I've seen lately...

Virus and spyware applications will cripple a computer. Sometimes the only solution is to wipe them out and start over. It's rarely the computer makers problem. I've used many different brands of computers over the years and over the last several years Gateway's and Dell's. The Dell's have always been more reliable. I had a 6% failure rate of Gateway's right out of the box.

But lately, spyware and viruses are the culprit. I would highly recommend wiping out Windows and re-installing.

I use both McAfee for virus protection and Spybot for my spyware protection and have no problems on any of my computers.

"How many engineers does it take to......"? ....nevermind.

I have 5 computers at home. I've built them all.4 on Windows, one on Linux, 2 routers (one wireless, one with print server for the laser printer), and more parts, cables and assorted crap than I can count.

I really like Linux, but it can be "less than user friendly" sometimes and I've not had the time to sit down and really learn it like I should. Maybe I'll do that after I get moved in a month or so.

I agree, if it wasn't for the fact that my work PC is a 2k box, i would never use windows. A good portion of my day is spent in term sesions to the unix machines here at work though.

The home line-up = 3 Linux, 1 Sunfire w/ Solaris, 1 BSD, 1 Mandrake SNF router, 1 Cisco Router

Also, I saw a great bumper sticker yesterday, i thought it fit well with the topic...

"Mac OS X, because it is easier to re-skin BSD, than it is to fix Windows."

That's the funny thing though. Although I'm a mechanical engineering major I took a lot of art during hs and did a bunch of oil paintings lol. I never could understand the abstract stuff so I'm glad I went into an engineering program.

Eugenio-I've got three to four (depending upon how many my g/f let's me go to) autocrosses in a row right now I promise I'm not neglecting my car.

Steve-that was the first thing I did. I've reformatted this computer's hd so many times it's not even funny. That was hp tech support's solution to everything-which I cannot really disagree with. However, they wanted me to reformat it multiple times which never made any sense to me.

I'm 21, but I really don't care too much for computers outside of work/school (well and these forums-but that's car related). It's hard to imagine where some of us would be with our driving/cars w/o these forums. They definately accelerate the development of these cars. Imagine if GMHTP or HP TV was all we relied upon. Or if all of us could only read suspension dynamics books and not have others to help explain the concepts.

They are only considered easier by those who are too lazy or stubborn to learn anything else. Mac's may have had their place at one time but that time is loooong past.

Anyhow although the old Mac OS is pretty primitive but it does have one nice feature, being able to boot off the system CD with full network access even if the hard drive is totally hosed. It also has built in support for imaging (sort of).

OSX is MUCH nicer looking and more stable than OS 9 but I definately prefer Win2k/XP when it comes down to getting stuff done. Plus Apple is practically forcing everyone to shell out $150 a year if they want to stay current (i.e Jaguar, Panther, Tiger).

I'm a sysadmin who used to build computers for friends and family (and still do sometimes). AIM me (bushmannt) if you need any help, configuration, setup, install, or hardware wise. I've been told I have a 6th sense for hardware failures
I deal with just about every OS, from Windows, through BSD's and Linux to OSX, so feel free to bug me.

Knoppix = Linux bootable from CD, with network and X-windows working.

Gimp = free Photoshop-like package in most Linux distributions

I use a mix of Solaris and Linux at work, with a somewhat vestigial Win2K machine on my desk.

At home, it's a mix of Suse, Redhat, and XP.

You can put GIMP on windows too. I use win98 SE at home and win2k, SUSE linux, and Redhat linux at work. The only reason I use Windows is for MS office; Open office is coming along though and I havn't learned LATEX yet. I have to use Linux at work for running Computational Fluids Dynamics simulations and since windows uses 25% of your memory no matter how much you have, it just won't do for large computations.

I started to mention Knoppix earlier, but figured it was not that popular (assumed that nobody had ever heard of it). I guess I was wrong. The best part is that it allows you to access NTFS drives that windows can't read. Handy when you need it.

I just grabbed it a few days ago. So far so good (on XP Pro).

Problem fixed! The computer was shipped out for the 3rd time and it returned NOT working! I spent hours with tech support this morning and after going up two levels hp agreed to send me a brand new computer-which is much faster than the one I have now. I could write a novel about what went on this morning.

So I get a new computer with a one year warranty. All in all it wasn't easy and I would've much rather had a good one to start out. But this one should last me a couple of years.