ME and Ophelia

DELL ENGINEER
Replaced second new fan

Dell engineer is here right now. He has replaced the new fan, installed on Friday, with another new fan. I am testing blogging while he is here. Machine has not shut itself down yet. Fingers crossed that when he goes out of the door, it does not cut out.

Update: Engineer is still here. He has been here for three hours. Second new fan did shut off machine after 15 minutes. He swapped over two new fans again but they both shut machine down after ten minutes of use. He has just re-installed old fan, machine has not shut down but it is back to working slower again. Now he is on the phone to Dell Tech in Ireland for advice. Thinks I may need a new mother board. And a new keyboard because for some reason, over the past hour, the left hand cursor button is very stiff and not working right.

Update: It is now 3.30 pm. Dell engineer has just left. He was here for three and a half hours and is returning tomorrow with a new mother board and key board. In the meantime, the old fan is back in and machine is running very slow but at least it is not shutting down. They do not know what is causing the problem.

By tomorrow, when the new motherboard and keyboard is installed, all that will be left of my original machine, bought brand new in June at a cost of £2K, is the screen and bottom half of the casing. Top half of the casing was replaced a few months ago. The technical and customer support has been excellent so it has not put me off Dell. For any readers buying new equipment, I strongly recommend purchasing on-site warranties. I'm very glad to have a three-year on-site warranty otherwise the machine would have needed to be repacked and sent back to Ireland for a week.

Today is the first time I have been able to use my machine long enough to access and read a blog without it shutting down. Publishing my daily posts over the past week took ages each day. I am going surfing now to catch up on what I have missed over the past week.