Contents

  1. David Eccles
  2. Overview
  3. Laptops
    1. pombe
    2. The exchange saga — Murphy's law in action
    3. cutora
    4. melinus
  4. Quotable Quotes

David Eccles

DavidEccles is a PhD student at Victoria University of Wellington. He is currently (most likely) procrastinating, in the hope that his thesis will write itself.

Email: <interface AT SPAMFREE gringer DOT org>

Umm... this is me trying to be all graduated and stuff. 20 points if you can work out where it is, without seeing the picture that this was derived from:

http://gringer.dis.org.nz/me_pics/David-upper.jpg

Overview

Just in case you're wondering, I'm doing computer-based (as opposed to the usual lab-based) analysis of the human genome, concentrating on the Maori population, and areas within the genome that have some form of association with complex diseases. At the moment, my studies are split between alcoholism, risk-taking behaviour, and attempting to optimise a selection algorithm for mutation markers. Once I stop my risk-taking behaviour, I should have a bit more time to concentrate on things related to my intended subject area....

Here's a random list of some things that I have typed out:

I've pretty much given up on the idea of getting my MCS account back. However, I'm quite content with what I'm able to get through Interface (the most useful being IRC, and a place to store files when they can't be sent through email for various reasons).

Laptops

pombe

My first laptop, pombe has been in the wars. About 2 months after I got it (around March 2004), it stopped working. After sorting out a repair with IBM, and getting it set up on the ITS network, it now has the incredibly elegant name of KK-417-02-XL (to me, it's still pombe). After a few hours with another guy from ITS, I have obtained non-web access to my directory on palermo (ITS call it an "H" drive), and more importantly, can access the Internet via my little hole in KK417. pombe was sent to Auckland again about six weeks later, and still had issues after they supposedly fixed it. The little schizosaccharomyces analogue now has a replaced case and fixed touchpad button, which should keep me happy for another year. As of October 2005, it has been to the service centre in Auckland about six times. "another year" later (January 2006), and pombe is breaking down again. The fix this time seems to be a complete replacement of the laptop with a new model.

Here's a little description of the most common problem for my laptop (taken from a letter that I put with the laptop when it was sent to the IBM service centre the first time this happened):

The exchange saga — Murphy's law in action

This was quite long, so I decided to shift it to another page. See ExchangeSaga.

cutora

The replacement laptop from IBM, cutora was working fine. 3d acceleration worked fine off the ubuntu 5.10 live CD, and was very easy to get working under Debian. Here's a run-down of the things that have been done differently between pombe and cutora:

My old problem has reared its frustrating head again. cutora has now suffered from the same problem I was having with pombe, and I'm not very happy about that. The laptop was sent to the service centre in Auckland, and returned back with a new system board. If I don't consider this problem to be a significant issue (which, despite IBM's insistence that the problem is very rare, has happened to me five times on two different R series models so far), then this variety of laptop has been wonderful in its usability under Linux.

So much for it being a problem that doesn't happen all that much... here're a few links to websites that have mentioned this problem:

I ended up getting a bit more concerned than last time, and asked for my money back (from my original laptop purchase back in 2004). Lenovo have agreed to that, so I've decided to purchase a non-Lenovo laptop using that money. I should be getting this replacement laptop delivered to my house around the 24th of August. All I have to think about now is a name for it....

melinus

This is the laptop that was pre-purchased (23 August 2007) using money from IBM (which was paid to me around 10th October). Just to keep things interesting, melinus decided that it wanted a loose left touchpad button. This happened about a month into getting the laptop, and melinus was sitting at the repair place at Datacom for two weeks waiting for a replacement part. As the laptop was functional, I decided to retrieve the laptop, and let them tell me when the part had arrived.

On 14 November 2006, the part arrived. Datacom rang me up about 1000, I took the computer in around 1200, and I picked it up, fixed, at 1400. Sadly, I suspect that this replacement touchpad unit is in the same danger of failure as the previous one. On the plus side, scratch marks from me dropping a padlock on my keyboard are no longer present (I presume the whole top face of the laptop keyboard area was replaced.

On 5 August 2007, I noticed that colours were draining from the LCD screen after around 2 minutes in the sunlight. Coupled with the recurrent left touchpad issue (which was fairly easy to live with), I decided it was time for another warranty repair. I phoned up the retailer on 6 October, Ascent, who suggested I contact Acer. Three phonecalls and ~40 minutes of on-hold waiting later, I had a booking for the laptop at Datacom. melinus was taken into Datacom the next day (7th October), where they helpfully extracted the hard drive for me. The display was fixed fairly quickly, but it ended up staying there for another month while waiting for the spare keyboard top to be shipped from Australia (they were apparently being shipped in batches, and the last batch had just gone when I first had the problem). In the end, the guy at Datacom just glued the button back to the casing, which seems to have resulted in a somewhat more robust button. Fate as it is, the replacement cover appeared at Datacom a few days after that -- I told the guy he might as well keep it in case someone else had the same problem.

On 20th January 2009, the hated freeze issue surfaced again. It seems that the ThinkPads are not the only laptops that have this issue (maybe it's Intel-specific?). The laptop will be heading off for a 2-week trip to Sydney in a few days, for that to get fixed as well as the left touchpad button (it came loose again, but not nearly as quickly as previous times), while I get all panicky about the upcoming wedding [http://wedding.gringer.org]. I also should probably see if I can get a new AC adaptor -- my old one is currently taped up to stop accidentally exposing me to 12V DC.

The laptop finally got picked up and returned fixed about a month later (this was after being initially told it would take 1-3 working days to be picked up). The mouse button problem was not fixed (it's an annoyance, but doesn't impact my use too much), but at least the laptop runs again. It seems like Acer support headed downhill once they took out the Wellington component.

Quotable Quotes

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InterfaceWiki: DavidEccles (last edited 2010-01-22 03:42:01 by DavidEccles)