Tag: Dell

Why am I not posting to my blog?

I post here when I want to share what is happening in my virtual life. For the most part, I try to follow the rule of “if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing”. Sometimes I rant and rave. It is MY blog, after all. *wry grin* But these days my virtual life is giving me mostly tears. And I’m loathe to come here and cry repeatedly.

Why has my my life in SL turned to tears? Because I loved SL so much, I bought myself what I was assured was a kick-donkey top of the line gaming computer – an Alienware M17x. I had to buy a new computer because the nVidia GeForce 8800M video cards in my Dell XPS M1730 burned out in November and Dell and nVidia could not tell me when the cards could be replaced. Up til then, well, I’d found Dell first line support a bit annoying, but no more so than much of life. Dealing with ordering the Alienware became an ordeal, thanks to Dell, who now own Alienware. I was going to blog about that, but quite honestly – it infuriated me every time I thought about it and I didn’t think that frustration and agony needed to be aired.

At long last my gorgeous fantastic super-duper Alienware M17x arrived (late, thank you Dell Order Modification Dept). Sensational. Until I ran SL. 30 minutes into it, then Blue Screen of Death. The whole first weekend – BSOD on SL, Portal Factory, SOLITAIRE!!!!! I mean – obviously a Dell issue. Then mysteriously it stopped BSOD’ing. Only SL died. Repeatedly. With the BSOD. Sometimes with just “normal” SL crash-end. I called SL support to see if they could help. With great joy in his typing, Fog informed me that I was running unsupported software and graphics. Not HIS problem. Oh? Then why are so many folk running the same and SL works for them?

Anyway, there really is a post here someday about Dell and Linden Labs and customer support if I can stop crying. I took a day and drove my computer to an SL friend who has years experience in getting machines to run SL. We thought it was solved. It seemed to run without crashing. No BSOD. Until I brought it home. Turned it on, raced into SL. Hung out there for an hour. Went to feed the cats, the dog. Came back to BSOD. Rebooted – let it sit running Firefox and Norton for an hour. No problem. Raised the machine on blocks (better ventilation). Went into SL with my alt. Didn’t move, just sat there. 2 hours – SL crash.

The truth is, I’m no techie. By my mother I’m a techie, but by a techie I’m no techie. I do NOT know what to do, where to turn, except to continually throw myself and my useless extremely expensive computer onto the mercy of friends. And there is only so long you can impose on friends. Dell isn’t going to care that one application doesn’t run – they will blame the application. And trying to fight your way past firstline support sucks you dry of all energy, patience and coherent thought. And LL has already gleefully told me THEY don’t care.

So I sit and look at this $$$$$ computer that won’t do the one thing for which I bought it, and I cry. Maybe that makes me a drama queen or totally emotional. So be it. But because I cry every time I look at it, and I cry each time I boot up SL on my other computer (which needs to run other software, do other things), I’m not having fun. I have nothing positive to share. I cry, my heart sinks, and all I want to do is simply walk away from SL for good and go back to reading. THAT is technology that actually works right out of the box. 😦