Gee, that’s the best $700 motherboard I’ve ever been forced to purchase..

My laptop is useless right now. The work I planned for Galago and the notification stuff this weekend will not get done, and I won’t be available for contact much until after next week (assuming IBM can get it right this time.)

Update: Tacking on another wonderful issue. The laptop just stops recognizing the keyboard and trackpoint randomly, requiring a complete shut down. Unfortunately, the On/Off button, which you normally hold down to force a shut-off, doesn’t seem to always work, especially not when the keyboard isn’t working, so you have to pull out the battery.

I’m not happy.

Last week was a crappy week, and I won’t get into all the details of it, except for one part that’s needed for this little story. I was at work, with my laptop sitting next to my monitors, and I was dealing with some annoyances. During this, I had my earphones on, listening to some music on my Rio. I stood up for a second, I can’t remember why exactly. Since I had my earphones on, the cord of course pulled up with me. What I wasn’t aware of at the time was that it was wrapped around a full, newly opened can of Mountain Dew, which proceeded to spill over my keyboard.

This didn’t ease the day any. I cleaned up what I could, knowing that the keyboard was going to be sticky in a couple of days. The next day, I called IBM, whose tech support was superb from past experiences. I told them that the keyboard was sticking and also that my monitor is leaving these vertical light streaks. They sent me a box and I sent it back to them with the laptop.

So I was without a laptop for a few days. My desktop computer wasn’t even configured for a dual-head X session, didn’t have anything except a default Ubuntu desktop on it, and barely any non-base packages. I essentially made my laptop the main computer. Rather than deal with configuring the desktop fully, I decided to relax during the nights and play World of Warcraft and such.

So on Wednesday, I got a call from IBM about the laptop. They said they detected a spill inside the laptop and would have to replace the keyboard and motherboard. They said they would have to bill me $700 for this. I was in shock. It was under warranty and I certainly didn’t expect a fee like this. I asked if it was necessary, and they said liquid could short circuit it later. BS, I thought, it was working for days. They could just wipe whatever off, and there wasn’t that much that spilled in. However, they informed me that either they fix everything and I pay the money, or they don’t fix anything and they just send it back. In which case, my warranty would be useless. After a bit of grumbling, I gave them the billing info.

Today, I received my laptop. I looked at the check list. Replaced the plastic, the motherboard, and ran a virus scan. Huh, virus scan.. I didn’t leave a hard drive in there. Oh well. Wait, nothing about the screen? I had to check, so I performed my usual test. I powered it on and opened up a window. Streaks. Great. I used it a bit longer and realized something else. The right-hand side of the laptop’s plastic is warped. If I put my hand on it to type, I can hear and feel it creak. Too annoying to ignore.

So once again, I called up IBM and explained my frustration. They wanted me to duplicate the problem on Windows, thinking it was a Linux problem, but I assured them I already went through all this with the last person and we confirmed it was the LCD. They’re going to send me a box and I’ll be sending the laptop back to them, again. They tell me I won’t be billed for this one, so I’m going to hold them to that. What was interesting is that they claimed that they were going to escalate my problem to a higher priority division where it would get better care. They’re probably just saying that to ease concerns, and I hope that’s the case, because the idea of them having a division that would handle hardware better than the default level worries me.

I won’t be online much again for a week after Tuesday. This means no Galago, notifications, etc. development, unless I get things running on my desktop box (which is the plan). I will be checking e-mail while at work. If people want to send patches, please do :) Otherwise, I’ll get back to development on stuff when I have a working system put together.