- Joined
- Sep 21, 2018
- Messages
- 1,724
- Location
- Kansas
- SL Rez
- 2005
- Joined SLU
- June 2007
- SLU Posts
- 44403
Update and resolution: It still surprises me a bit that I am so completely and utterly dependent on my internet connection! The day I received the Cyberpower PC and failed to get it set up and working correctly, I felt strong twinges of anxiety, even some sadness. It was as if a Kansas tornado had swept through my life and left me bereft. That's not overly dramatizing how I felt. Lost sleep, high anxiety, lots of stress on top of feeling shut in with the pandemic.
But as I knee-jerked around my home office looking for solutions, things evolved. First, I dug out the old laptop I'd purchased several years ago that I had intended to use on business trips when all I wanted was email and word processing. And that's all it really should ever do. But plugging it in to the older monitor I thought had fried, the monitor came alive! I had picture! Follow by connecting mouse & keyboard, and while the CPU ran like a dog, at least I could accomplish a few things online. Including shopping. (Uh oh)
Back to my innate impatience and impulsivity. I drove over to Best Buy to return the new curved monitor and get my $400 back. While there, I looked at their desktop displays. Saw one with almost exactly the same setup as my Cyberpower and offered to buy the display model. "No, we can't sell those". Ok, fine, order me one. Rush ship for extra $$ and it'll be here by Tuesday (tomorrow as I write this). I don't care if it is $1300, gimme!
Feeling like I had taken a desperate step to restore my full connectivity, I now had a new source of anxiety - what if the new one doesn't work either? How can I box up the Cyberpower and ship it when I'd rather avoid the PO and UPS? When would I ever have a working desktop work PC again?
The solution finally hit me on Saturday. It was so simple I felt like I should probably enroll in self-help classes. I found a PC repair shop 2 blocks up from my house in a small shopping center. The kind of shopping center we are all familiar with - vacant store fronts, crumbling pavement, a few hold outs trying to stay afloat. Yelp reviews were positive. Now, all I had to do was wait for them to open Monday. Me, the impatient one .
Long story short: The local store had my Cyberpower video up and running in an hour on Monday and even installed my spare 4TB HD (Something I could normally do but the layout in the box was unfamiliar). The tech, who had the same name as my husband, said he had to add another HD connector cable to the motherboard just to add a drive - yes, that's how Cyberpower builds their crap. First Cyberpower had too many wires and it looked like a bird's nest inside. This one, though, is as spartan as a Japanese dining room. To save money I suppose. No more Cyberpowers, ever.
Final bill for the repair: $53. How easy can it get?
Took it home, plugged it in, gasped at the speed of this new beast and now my biggest issue is remembering which USB drive held all my backups for my applications and games and photoshop brushes.
The PC I ordered from Best Buy on impulse is due to arrive today via UPS. I won't even open the box. Best Buy is 2 miles from me, and I can drive it over immediately upon receipt and ask to return it. Yes, they will ding me for restocking fees like they did for the monitor. Probably about $75+. But for the grand total of $150 in return costs plus maybe another $40 in miscellaneous cables and connectors I'd bought, I would return to homeo stasis and have my "major upgrade" with the Cyberpower machine. I will deal with the fiscal fallout of the unnecessary additional costs later. Lesson learned.
The repair tech said "But that will avoid the warranty" if he opened the case and started replacing things.
I laughed at him.
But as I knee-jerked around my home office looking for solutions, things evolved. First, I dug out the old laptop I'd purchased several years ago that I had intended to use on business trips when all I wanted was email and word processing. And that's all it really should ever do. But plugging it in to the older monitor I thought had fried, the monitor came alive! I had picture! Follow by connecting mouse & keyboard, and while the CPU ran like a dog, at least I could accomplish a few things online. Including shopping. (Uh oh)
Back to my innate impatience and impulsivity. I drove over to Best Buy to return the new curved monitor and get my $400 back. While there, I looked at their desktop displays. Saw one with almost exactly the same setup as my Cyberpower and offered to buy the display model. "No, we can't sell those". Ok, fine, order me one. Rush ship for extra $$ and it'll be here by Tuesday (tomorrow as I write this). I don't care if it is $1300, gimme!
Feeling like I had taken a desperate step to restore my full connectivity, I now had a new source of anxiety - what if the new one doesn't work either? How can I box up the Cyberpower and ship it when I'd rather avoid the PO and UPS? When would I ever have a working desktop work PC again?
The solution finally hit me on Saturday. It was so simple I felt like I should probably enroll in self-help classes. I found a PC repair shop 2 blocks up from my house in a small shopping center. The kind of shopping center we are all familiar with - vacant store fronts, crumbling pavement, a few hold outs trying to stay afloat. Yelp reviews were positive. Now, all I had to do was wait for them to open Monday. Me, the impatient one .
Long story short: The local store had my Cyberpower video up and running in an hour on Monday and even installed my spare 4TB HD (Something I could normally do but the layout in the box was unfamiliar). The tech, who had the same name as my husband, said he had to add another HD connector cable to the motherboard just to add a drive - yes, that's how Cyberpower builds their crap. First Cyberpower had too many wires and it looked like a bird's nest inside. This one, though, is as spartan as a Japanese dining room. To save money I suppose. No more Cyberpowers, ever.
Final bill for the repair: $53. How easy can it get?
Took it home, plugged it in, gasped at the speed of this new beast and now my biggest issue is remembering which USB drive held all my backups for my applications and games and photoshop brushes.
The PC I ordered from Best Buy on impulse is due to arrive today via UPS. I won't even open the box. Best Buy is 2 miles from me, and I can drive it over immediately upon receipt and ask to return it. Yes, they will ding me for restocking fees like they did for the monitor. Probably about $75+. But for the grand total of $150 in return costs plus maybe another $40 in miscellaneous cables and connectors I'd bought, I would return to homeo stasis and have my "major upgrade" with the Cyberpower machine. I will deal with the fiscal fallout of the unnecessary additional costs later. Lesson learned.
The repair tech said "But that will avoid the warranty" if he opened the case and started replacing things.
I laughed at him.