finally HP said the desktop pc is ready

After my post yesterday, finally I have received a good news from HP this afternoon.

I did sent an email to the HP Marketing Manager (MM) yesterday asking the status of my prize, a HP Desktop PC which I won at the Window Vista Launch recently.

And today after failing to get the person in charge on the phone several times (I failed to get her on the phone yesterday too), I decided to call the MM himself. He told me that the PC is available for pickup.

I've just log on to my email and saw the MM's reply and he thought I already collected the PC.

I'm just glad that I called the MM or else the PC is going to sit at the office just because nobody cares to inform me (or should I say attend my enquiry).

I'm going to pick it up tomorrow and going to write a review about the desktop PC soon. Hopefully it's going to worth the wait.

where is my desktop pc loaded with Window Vista?

I have waited patiently. Indeed very patiently. My friends including a few bloggers and treasure hunters have been asking me the same questions repeatedly for the past 1 month.

"Hey, how's your new HP desktop PC, ah? Window Vista nice or not?" asked Shuh Yong.

"I'm sure you already get your PC by now," said a treasure hunter in an email.

"Wei, nice or not ah the PC? I thought we agreed to sell it at ebay and then split the money since we don't win anything at the Vista Walk Hunt?" asked Chia Chia, my treasure hunt team mate and friend.

"Joking only lar. What??? Serious ah?! HP haven't give you the PC, meh?" she continued.

"I told you to complain already. Supposed to be your birthday present, wert. Now after more than one month also haven't get. No stock, no stock. Ask them to give you a laptop with similar feature lar," my sister insisted.

"Yah, yah yah. I will call them again tomorrow lor. They said no stock mah. I also cannot do anything, wert. You know I don't like to ask so many times. Not that I'm embarrassed to ask for my prize. But I called so many times till people also scared liao," I explained to them.

"HP is a big company mah. If that model out of stock, sure they can afford to give something better than that model mah. You think which one is important? Owe people a PC or just give away a PC or laptop with similar model and save their face?" my brother added.

"Aiya, you all don't say liao lar. I pening already lar. Tomorrow I'll call again lar. Altogether I'm like call four five times liao. Email to the Marketing Manager also send liao. But he can't even promise me a date," I said trying to calm everyone down.

"I'll give them a call tomorrow and then see if they can settle that for me within this week lar. Seriously I lagi pissed off than you all coz I have to wait for more than 1 month liao. Window Vista punyer mood also tarak liao. Haih, we'll see how lar, ok?" I tried to convince them again.

laptop backpack

I've been looking for a laptop backpack with reasonable price and I found it at Tesco, Bandar Utama. The normal price is RM75 but I've got it even cheaper, with 20% discount (RM63.20). The most important thing for me is my 15.4" laptop fits well into the backpack.

I don't think you can get a better bargain than this. The quality is not bad. However, if you are looking for something like the Targus brand, be ready to fork out RM150-300. Even the best deal I could get on ebay was RM85 for a second hand backpack, excluding the delivery charges of RM20.

So, if you are looking for one, I've already grabbed the last blue coloured model.

never trust an IT guy: part II

It seems that I finally know what is wrong with my pc now. The amount of money which I spent is not worth it at all because the problem is not with the power supply or the hardisk.

I came across a website which provide me with the solution.

pci.sys and ntfs.sys error messages when booting

"Recently I ran into an issue with a WinXP box booting up. I kept getting "pci.sys" errors…and if, after cold booting a few times, I was lucky enough to get past that error, I would get the "ntfs.sys" error. Turns out I had a bad memory card. Dropping in a new card resolved ALL issues."

So I'm going to get a new memory card and see if it works. Now, how much is the memory card...

Lesson learnt: In some cases, it is better to learn to solve the problem yourself rather than depending on people who make you pay extra for nothing.

never trust an IT guy

Recently my home PC broke down after I've installed Sims 2 game. When I restarted the computer, an error message came out as something like this: system32/drivers/pci.exe missing or corrupt file. It says that I have to restart the computer with the original Window Setup CD (which I don't have the original) and press 'r' to repair. I tried with the pirated ones but it just couldn't work.

So I called up an IT guy, Kee, whom I came to know about through an advertisement in The Star newspaper. As I need the PC urgently to do my work and I don't have time to do research and fix it on my own, I leave it to his expertise. He convinced me that something is wrong with my hardisk and I agreed to change a new one. He brought back the PC to his office to fix it. When my PC came back, he told me he changed the power supply as well (which he haven't even ask my permission or explain to me about the faulty yet). End up I have to forked out RM320.

I thought the PC was ok until today. About two weeks after the repair, it seems that my problem is back to square one. I'm facing the same problem again. I think I've been duped. I called the IT guy just now and told him the problem. I was patient (after a few classes of meditation) enough and in fact I was surprised I did not curse at him. I just told him that I'll look for somebody else to fix it instead of paying him another RM90 (could be more!) to come over and doing nothing.

I wonder if most IT guys are unethical and look for fast money...

more recovery

Finally, there's hope for my pc. I'm not really sure about the problem (although I believe it has to do with the adapter setting) but it's definitely not about the BIOS.

I've just came back to uni to get more info on the OS setup and by tonight I'll be able to get the pc to start working again. Phew, instead of spending at least RM80 to get people to fix it for you, better do it yourself. You're not only get to keep the cash but you really learn a lot through the process.

computer failure

What a bad weekend! I spent the whole weekend and on Labour Day to fix my computer. The computer is down at the wrong time. And finally only yesterday I found out that it's the BIOS failure. I hope my files are still there because my most precious script is in there. I can't rewrite the same thing again. Now I have to delay the production of my first non-academic book. Dang!