Dell Vostro 1400 Nvidia 8400M GS Problems (part 2)

After nearly 2 weeks I’ve finally gotten Dell convinced of the problem and that my laptop is covered under the warranty, and just got the box to ship it today. They’ve been very helpful over email once the problem was elevated, but the turn around has been slow enough to be a bit frustrating. This rather slow desktop I’m using leaves much to be desired, including all my software.

Speaking of software, I went off to Fry’s Electronics and got myself a 320GB 7200RPM SATA laptop drive ($79) and a SATA to eSATA/USB drive enclosure to back up my data before I send the laptop off to Dell. My handy gparted live CD is working away right now to copy all my partitions to it. It’s a lot bigger and faster than my current drive, so I may just swap it and use it as my primary laptop drive once I get it back. Otherwise I’ll just use it for external storage.

In another news, I’ve gotten nothing done with my AVR butterfly, because I haven’t felt like installing all the software on this desktop. Also, I’ve been biking, busing, and walking to get to work lately, which kills most of my free time reading science fiction on the bus.

8 hours sleep + 8 1/2 hours work + 3 hours of commute + 1/2 hour shower + 1 hour eating/misc + 3  somewhat free hours of IRC and relaxing = 1 day. Throw in a flat tire, broken chain, or missed bus, and there goes even more of my free time.