Thanks for the tips. We tended to leave that laptop on because it was a pain to get the wifi started. The new one will definitely be turned off at night.

It is important to me to have my graphics program on there, and we are considering Adobe maybe ...but if I can weasel my Paint shop pro back on there (don't tell on me), that will be enough for me. The laptop is really for hubby...and since he is so helpful and is supporting us 100% now that I am not working... who am I to say, no? We take it on vacation... and that is when I use it most. Sometimes in the night I use it if I can't sleep and don't want to brave the stairs at 2am. Going up and down really then wakes me up and I have wasted a sleep time.

We did the F12 thing...nada. My son thinks the HD is totally dead. He said he'll try to resurrect it. We'll take it to him sometime after Xmas so he can work on it at his convenience. His job is releasing a new software product and he is totally stressed and tired with the moving into the new house and all on top of that. He is the bug tester...and feels it is really a big responsibility to catch ALL the bugs!

So hubby is sharing the main machine downstairs where I typically work. He insists on using HIS side, so there is alot of logging off here etc. I always just used his side on the laptop, but he won't do that here. So logging off back and forth is a pain of sorts. He is going to put our finances on this machine from the backup... since this one has the software on it. That way we can move to the new laptop with a flash drive. He made spread sheets showing our retirement situation and it is pretty nifty. It is easy then to see trends and move things etc. That way we don't lose much by mistake. So today he will be starting that back moving and I won't be online as much as before.

Hi mrsD, sounds like your about to make a new purchase!! That is so cool! You probably wont have the wireless problems on the new one because it is all built in, and especially if it is Windows 7. That OS takes all the hard stuff out and just connects like a breeze.

I have used those cooling stands, it made me feel like it was safer but it started makin noises and I havent used it since LOL. Best is to not put it on top of bed, pillows, clothes, or anything that will constrict the air flow.

Here is a video on how to change out the hdd in the old one in casr you might want to do that later on for a back up puter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg_EhfPcZX4

You will be totally surprised at the ease LOL!

Oh, that's cool.... thanks!
Getting a new computer is rather exciting, I agree! LOL

Another way to check it once you get the new laptop... I bought a hard drive caddy on ebay I think it cost around $10 with shipping. It has a usb cable with it. I took the HD out of my old laptop and hooked it to the new one and was very thankfully able to retreive all of my old files. And now I use that drive as a backup and I can plug it into any computer and it pulls right up.

I mention this because the old one sounds like it could be more of a partition issue than the hard drive.

I will say this much for dell.... The dog knocked a glass of lemonade over on my latitude fried the keyboard...but it still worked. Then my DH2B's DD came to visit and she was using my computer to watch movies...apparently she fell asleep and knocked a glass of tea over on the table that my laptop sat in overnight... it took a while to dry but it kept right on chugging...until I dropped a glass and a few tiny drops of tea hit the keyboard and THAT was the final straw and the dead of my 5 yr old dell that I bought used to begin with. I will say that was one tough little machine!

Another word of caution...that tough little machine downloaded a virus while mcaffee was updating when i left it running overnight. Try not to leave it connected to the internet when you go to bed.

Not made to last long.
Should be cheap to replace though.
Both my desktop hard drives failed in under 2 years. Luckily with warranty.
Got it home and then the DVD burner failed.
bit late now, but next time-Always get extended warranty with computers as there are so many individual components.

I use a cooling pad w/my laptop. Important to keep in mind is if one is used, make sure that the fans (computer and pad) don't work in conflicting directions.

And, the HD - along with the RAM - on one of my laptops completely fried only a few months after I received it (as a gift). The manufacturer replaced the parts, yet I had to be totally assertive and go up the "food chain."

The machine wouldn't do a darn'd thing - to enable recovery of data - until I purchased a program that works as a boot from the CD/DVD drive. Before replacing the HD, etc., I recovered everything I wanted and kept/packed the old drive.

We have a second puzzle:

Hubby brought down the back up for that laptop (which used to be on this machine, before we bought the new Seagate one).

So he could move our finances to here until the new laptop comes --estimated delivery Dec. 22. (it is in transit now)

So last night he did an Avast complete scan and it found a trojan?

Win32AGENT-AICW[trj]

The I may be l... can't tell. Could this be why the laptop crashed?

I did a search for this and could not find it. I got up at 4:30am today and came down here, and found the AVAST stopped on it, and so I copied and sequestered it in the chest. (the typical action).

Any experience with this? Is it just a low virulence thing?

Any trojan isn't a good sign.


I know I'd not re-install "infected" programs or files, though.

Well, the new laptop came today. It was suggested to arrive today and it did...by FedEx which seems to never deliver to us properly in the past. Good thing I was here... I'm going out tomorrow to WalMart for some candy and extraneous things for Xmas at my son's house.

Hubby is showing great restraint in opening the box, which I saved for him (he was on an audit today). He is still on the Federal clock so to speak.
I suspect tonight will be a busy long night

Here's a virus list with many Win32AGENT -maybe you can find the one or type it in to se what it says about it.
http://www.viruslist.com/en/index.html