As I mentioned in a news post earlier, I experienced some notebook woes over the weekend and was forced to move the installed OS from my lowly HP dv2 netbook, over to a Gateway UC7807u that had been shoved in a closet over a year ago - due to it being "dead".
I am not sure if I have a curse or not, but where notebooks are concerned, I tend to have horrible luck. After having purchased the Gateway UC7807u, my sister and her husband borrowed it for about six months due to them not owning a computer (since remedied). I got it back "dead", though there was no physical damage at all. I had figured that the power supply might have just gone the way of the dodo, so I ordered a replacement online, and proceeded to never receive it due to Canada Post being utterly useless. I received an e-mail that stated that it was delivered, but it wasn't. They either left it near the door and it was stolen (unlikely), or they just didn't deliver it at all and acted like they did (highly likely).
Not wanting to take a second chance on ordering another, and for the sake of not wasting more cash on a notebook that could have been actually dead, I just decided to shelve it and use the HP dv2 netbook, since it was more than capable for what I needed it for (while at home, I use a notebook as a second monitor).
In the past couple of months, the dv2 began to get its own power problem. Sometimes Ubuntu would tell me that the battery was discharging, even while the power was plugged in. Oddly, sometimes it would matter the exact orientation I'd have the notebook in. Sometimes it'd charge, sometimes it wouldn't. In the end, the notebook got so bad that it seemed impossible to have it keep powered on, so I just gave up.
Remembering I had that UC7807u in the closet, and also another device kicking around here that I thought might well use the same or similar power adapter, I decided to check. Sure enough, the specs on the adapters was identical, and to my surprise, after plugging in the UC7807u again, it booted right up, no problems at all. As it turned out, it wasn't dead after all, and had the useless Canada Post actually delivered the original power adapter I ordered, I would have been able to continue using that notebook long ago.
So, the "dead" laptop I had came to life, and the alive one went... dead. I sure do have the best of luck with these things, but at least the better notebook of the two is back to working.
I am not sure if I have a curse or not, but where notebooks are concerned, I tend to have horrible luck. After having purchased the Gateway UC7807u, my sister and her husband borrowed it for about six months due to them not owning a computer (since remedied). I got it back "dead", though there was no physical damage at all. I had figured that the power supply might have just gone the way of the dodo, so I ordered a replacement online, and proceeded to never receive it due to Canada Post being utterly useless. I received an e-mail that stated that it was delivered, but it wasn't. They either left it near the door and it was stolen (unlikely), or they just didn't deliver it at all and acted like they did (highly likely).
Not wanting to take a second chance on ordering another, and for the sake of not wasting more cash on a notebook that could have been actually dead, I just decided to shelve it and use the HP dv2 netbook, since it was more than capable for what I needed it for (while at home, I use a notebook as a second monitor).
In the past couple of months, the dv2 began to get its own power problem. Sometimes Ubuntu would tell me that the battery was discharging, even while the power was plugged in. Oddly, sometimes it would matter the exact orientation I'd have the notebook in. Sometimes it'd charge, sometimes it wouldn't. In the end, the notebook got so bad that it seemed impossible to have it keep powered on, so I just gave up.
Remembering I had that UC7807u in the closet, and also another device kicking around here that I thought might well use the same or similar power adapter, I decided to check. Sure enough, the specs on the adapters was identical, and to my surprise, after plugging in the UC7807u again, it booted right up, no problems at all. As it turned out, it wasn't dead after all, and had the useless Canada Post actually delivered the original power adapter I ordered, I would have been able to continue using that notebook long ago.
So, the "dead" laptop I had came to life, and the alive one went... dead. I sure do have the best of luck with these things, but at least the better notebook of the two is back to working.
