Chomper Stomping
jQuery/JavaScript/CSS 3/HTML 5, Java/PHP/Python/ActionScript, Git, Chrome/Firefox Extensions, Wordpress/Game/iPhone App Development and other random techie tidbits I've collected



hardware

November 1, 2006

“Dell Wars” Episode IV: A New XPS 410

Some of you may have heard about my Dell Wars saga to date. But if you have not, I will sum it up here:

Dell sent me a lemon.

Episode I – The Phantom Menace:

I get the Dell. It”s stats are off the chart. I am astounded. Yet there are some foreboding signs I ignore lurking in the shadows. My computer freezes randomly sometimes…

Episode II – Attack of the Cloning Sounds:

While playing HL2:E1 the computer begins crashing with looping sounds. Whaaaaa??? Dell sends me a new video card, and I put a new sound card in it and disable the on-board sound.

Episode III – Revenge of the System Board:

While playing WOW my Dell starts crashing and giving me “Blue Screens of Death”. I calmly call dell and scream at them, and they tell me it is the ram and system board. Oh and the processor. And they come and replace it. The RAM goes bad, and they send me new RAM. Then the system board goes bad AGAIN… All seems lost. I rise up screaming “NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!”

This brings us current with:

Episode IV: A New XPS 410

My old computer (An XPS400) has gone over to the dark side of the force. However after a year of dealing with my darth dell computer, A new (free) XPS 410 has just arrived in it’s place. Could this new hope be the answer to all my problems? Will it play HL2:E1 without crashing even at full resolution and max fps? Will I counter strike with impunity? We shall soon find out (I just took it out of the box)…

Stay tuned. Hopefully there will be no Episode V in which the evil dellpire strikes back and turns out to have sent me another hopelessly crappy computer…



About the Author

Christopher McCulloh
E-Commerce developer at Finish Line Co-Author of HTML, XHTML and CSS All-in-one Desk Reference for Dummies Graduated from IU with a Bachelors of Media Arts and Science and a Certificate in Applied Computer Science. Tech Editor for Building Facebook Applications for Dummies and Building Websites All-in-one for Dummies 2nd Edition. Creator and maintainer of the Status-bar Calculator Firefox Extension Three years professional experience in Java E-Commerce Development and four years professional experience with PHP for a combined total of seven years professional JavaScript/HTML/CSS experience




 
 

 
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2 Comments


  1. [...] chronicled my disastrous flirtations with Dell computers in the past, and thought that my struggles were over. [...]


  2. [...] think there was a chance I could fix it (probably have to buy a new motherboard, this will be it’s third one) I’d take it out back and beat the snot out of it with a baseball [...]



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