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Date:	Sun, 16 Oct 2005 18:03:24 PDT7
From:	Colin Campbell <cmcampb@adelphia.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: OT: Windows / Dell Laptop Problem

Content Type: text/plain

My daughter has a Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop with WinXP Home installed on
it. She hasn't been using the machine, because each time she boots it,
and tries to access the Internet (using Internet Explorer), the machine
freezes, and can only be reactivated by pressing the Power button long
enough to turn the machine off.

Since the machine is pretty high end (as of nearly 4 years ago), and was
a gift from her parents, I have been encouraging her to bite the bullet
and get it repaired. So, what did she do? She gave it to her mother,
who brought it to our house, so I can fool with it. Naturally, half the
stuff that came with the PC is still at my daughter's house, including
the Dell recovery CD.

I booted up the machine today, and verified that it worked, and also
that when her boyfriend tried reinstalling WinXP, that he did not
reinstall the other software that came with the machine. I have also
connected the machine to my Adelphia "cable modem", and observed the
machine freezing. (Previously, they had tried dial up and DSL connections.)

After yesterday's SCOUG meeting, I burned an eCS Demo CD.

Figuring "What's the worst that can happen?", I booted the laptop from
this CD, and it worked just fine, like Sandy's Thinkpad T42 did at the
meeting. The Flash presentation worked, with sound, SciTech supported
the video beautifully, and I could connect to the Internet (and the
machine didn't freeze). The Demo CD has about half convinced me that I
could have a pleasant experience with a laptop and eCS.

I'm now wondering
(1) does anyone have an opinion about whether this is a hardware or
software problem,
(2) does anyone an idea about how I should go about fixing it if this is
a software problem (I assume I'd do a full software recovery?), and
(3) does anyone have a recommendation for where I should take the
machine in the North Orange County area to get it fixed?

Thanks,
Colin

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