~ HP Computer RANT ~

Okay.....so.......let me just say grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I love technology but when it is not working it is frustrating. Especially for a photographer/artist who LOVES using his "new" computer. So this morning I walk in to my office and hear the tower of my computer HUMMMMING loudly. I figured right away it was a fan inside but wasn't sure which one. I googled a bit on the laptop and found out it's probably a fan in my power supply that has a problem.

I got this system back in August of 2008, so it is still under warranty. What does that "awesome" HP warranty provide me with? Well, it provides me with customer service in the form of an automated answering service that takes at least 4-5 steps of me saying what I want to a computer before I get a human to talk with. Once I am connected with their customer service rep...I realize they are not even living in the country I live in. I have nothing against people in other countries, but it's tough to explain I got the computer in Edmonton and I live in Vegreville, when they can not even say or spell the names of those places. I also have to ask them to repeat themselves more then once because I am speaking with people who's primary language is not english and accents make it tough for me to understand.

Okay, what else do I get from this warranty? Well, after talking to a guy for about 20 minutes we come to the conclusion that it is the power supply that needs repair. He tells me I have to ship it away...so they will send me a shipping box. Once it's shipped the estimated repair time is 79 days. Also, they will reformat my hard drive and send me it back in factory condition. So here is what I have to do:
- back up my hp 750gig hard drive to an external drive, which I'd have to buy because I have noe external drives with free space to backup to....approx. $100-200 for a good sized one
- wait 79 days
- have to re-install and setup my system again when it arrives back...which will take a lot of time.....

OR

I called BestBuy where I got the computer and the GEEK SQUAD told me that I could bring the computer in that day and within 20 minutes they would replace the power supply. They would NOT reformat my hard drive and I'd be good to go. The only issue is if I go with the HP Warranty my cost is $0.00, they pay for shipping and everything. If I go for BestBuy and the ready in 20 minutes option....it's going to cost me the time of the install + the price of the power supply. Which I believe would be about the cost of an external drive anyway. So, I think it's a no brainer to go with BestBuy. The stoooopid thing is I have to pay....even though BestBuy is an authorized HP repair center, if I go for warranty they have to ship the part....or something dumb like that and it will be more time wasting so basically the same as if I go with shipping it myself. Dumb, dumb, dumb....but I have to do something as I need to have my computer and it's no use to me as a paper weight.

So hopefully when Jenn and I go in to Edmonton tomorrow for the hockey game, we can find a place to fix it. I'll try BestBuy and maybe Future Shop or somewhere else that can repair computers as I am sure they all have similar prices/services. It's just frustrating when technology doesn't work.

Until further notice, I'll be offline in the sense of not being able to do any photography work. I will use the laptop and our older desktop to update my blog....etc. but images are going to be suspended until my desktop is back. I just have my lightroom and CS4 setup perfectly to edit and no computer we have comes close to the power of my desktop. I'll just go weep softly and hope that I can have my desktop back again soon, without sounding like it's about to go KABOOOOOOM!!!!!!