SOCIAL MEDIA

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Laptop! O Laptop!

Assalammualaikum!

:)

Yes! Yes! I hv been rather "dormant" for a reasonably long time.
Not to say I was too busy, or was dry of idea, it was just that I didn't have the "wind" (@ angin @ mood) to write. :p

So, let me just write what I did this weekend. :)
(As if anyone is interested, heh..)

Anyway, those people who know me enough, will know that I've bought a new bright pink TOSHIBA netbook. And my 2 year old ACER laptop was unofficially given to my younger brother.
After less than a year, that ACER laptop was already dying. He's been using it EXTENSIVELY to download anime like Naruto and Bleach. Until one day, there was no screen displayed. We can only use it by connecting it to the tv using cable. And due to my packed schedule, I had no time to look for the "treatment" yet.

And thus, I left it for months in the bag.
Then, couple of months ago, I suddenly remembered it!
And I took it out, tried to do a recovery (I cant reformat bcos I do not have the Vista installation CD).
With the recovery, I successfully incidentally DELETED my brother's collection of anime and his Gua Mulu Expedition pictures. And he was definitely unhappy with me. But, the screen was still blank.

And thus, I left it again in the bag.
Until sometime mid this week, I remembered about it.
And decided to bring it to Low Yat for treatment.
Now, it cannot even be switched on.

So yesterday Saturday 25th Sept 2010, I embarked on a journey to Low Yat with my brother, to search for a possible way to resuscitate my poor laptop.
Initially, I planned to go for on an adventure to Shah Alam, finding a place I've never been to in S.A but due to some reasons, I decided to KIV the trip; re-re-re-considering it.

As we reached Low Yat, both of us were blurr, and I was more so. I've never repaired a laptop there, but I bought my handphone, and repaired it there, and experience told me that most of them there are out to get our money with the lowest service they can give. My motto was: "We are bound to be cheated here, we just have to choose the place that cheat us less.";p

And when one Indian man waved and called us to come into their shop to repair my laptop, I was scared, and more so when I realised the shop was FULL with Indians. They were not Malaysian Indians, they were Indian Indians. Most of them can't speak Malay and spoke only basic English.

I showed my laptop, and told him it can't be switched on. He took out his own electric cable and after connecting it with my laptop, and still can't be switched on, he did an AMAZING thing; diagnosing my laptop; "MOTHERBOARD PROBLEM".
Oh man! I felt like shrieking, he hasnt even investigate ANYTHING, but dared to jump to the most expensive diagnosis! Change motherboard? As far as I know, it'll be better to just buy a new laptop!

So I asked him to check again, and this time, he changed my battery. And it can be switched on! Without the screen though. After connecting it to another monitor in the shop, he diagnosed again, "LCD Monitor Problem". And it'll cost me RM450 to change LCD monitor, with only 1 month warranty. Anyway, I slashed the price to RM300 (which I think can still be slashed). But seriously, that was the first shop I visited, I would want to go other shops as well, and see what price can they offer me. And when I told them I wanted to go other shops, they offered to do another investigation; to see if it's the LCD or the graphic card.

Thus, they cracked open my laptop and then only they made the correct diagnosis, graphic card problem. To change a new graphic card, will cost me RM450 with 2 months warranty, to repair the old graphic card, cost me RM150 without warranty. I chose to ask them to repair the old one, instead of buying a new one. Ugh, fishing out RM450 is painful!

After one hour, they called me saying my laptop was ready.
But it wasn't! I tried to restarting it, but the screen just wont appear. Some times, after many attempts of restarting it, the screen will appear. Thus, I asked them to re-check. After almost an hour, they repaired it. And then now, it can be switched on like normal.

And then, I noticed that my sound device isn't working, the security centre wasn't too. And when I brought that matter to him (by then I was already used to this Indian man that I dont think he's a bad cheater), he tried to do another recovery for me.
But guess what, even my recovery function was corrupted! Basically everything in my laptop were corrupted. And he offered to install a new Windows 7 and some other softwares for me, for RM30. I'll jump into it if it weren't for the RM30. Being desperate, I asked him to proceed and negotiate the price after everything is done. And I spent another 2.5hrs there. In other words, I've berkampung-ed in his shop, and that put my Shah Alam adventure away. I was thinking of going there after this Low Yat trip but by the time he started installing things for me, was already 7.30pm!

At almost 8.30pm, he showed my almost as good as new laptop (I would like to think of that way), with Windows 7 Ultimate and Microsoft Office etc. And I paid only RM100. Heheh... I managed to put up my 10sen face and get cheaper price. Well, I had to pay RM10 for parking though. :(

From what I know, India has a very good computer technology but unfortunately, there aren't enough job opportunities for the graduates there. I believe that was the reason they started coming over here to Malaysia, the prosperous land. There have been an increasing number of Indians opening computer shops, buying, selling and repairing PCs in Low Yat when once this industry was conquered by the Chinese. And these Indians again I state, are not from Malaysia, they are from India. Well, I dont mind as long as they do not pose any threat to us, it's good to have more experts in repairing computers over here. :)

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