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I take it all back.
Mar. 4th, 2006 10:50 amIt's been a sucky week for hardware.
The Wacom tablet was indeed deliberately crippled by the company, so I took it back.
My new Macbook Pro had two dead pixels right in the middle of the screen and I was told that this was fewer than the amount to count as a 'defect' and I would have to live with it. (Did I mention one of them flashed on and off?)
Fuck that. I went to return it too, along with the memory, carrying case, etc. they told me I couldn't return it that night because it was an online order and I had to have some ref number from the call center (which had closed ten minutes prior to when they told me this).
I went home sick and cried the cry of an angry child. I waited a month for this computer, I haven't bought anything really 'new' like this ever before, and, except for my current car, I spent more on this computer than I've spent on every car I've owned and more than most of them combined. It's like if I'd got a new car and it had a chip in the windshield or a torn seat. Or maybe it's more like being a little kid and waiting for Santa. He doesn't show up until New Years, he's fucking hung over and takes a dump in the middle of your living room floor.
So I cried and sniffled and carried on like a little child last night. Eventually went to sleep. Got up at 6AM to call their call-in center. Was told they'd charge me 300 dollars to return it (restocking fee) and that I was SOL. Live with a FLICKERING CYAN spot on my screen or be out 300 AND the new computer I'd waited a month for. :/
I threw the phone, cried some more. I don't think I've had such a bad temper tantrum since I was twelve. I guess it just started getting to me how so many things in my life are this shitty compromise. Nothing ever goes right for me. I have to do everything by force and I always have to live with rotten compromises. I know everyone goes through this now and then so I can't really go 'woe, pity me!'. Just this once, I was buying a luxury item. I went all out on it. Even paid too much for Apple memory. I didn't go through a friend and use his employee discount or my student discount or anything. I wanted to have the experience of being able to afford a real luxury that I strongly desired and not having to haggle for it. They've shipped thousands of others of these computers. There are at least 4 others at work. none of them have a problem like this. Why me? More specifically, why ALWAYS me? Every once in a while, understandable but virtually everything I do has this sort of baggage associated with it.
I can fight it. If you put enough muscle behind something, you can fix it, even when it goes crappy like this. Brute force and intimidation has gotten me a lot further than 'luck' ever has. I just get sick of having to always fight. The Wacom guys told me I was SOL too. I returned the tablet, threw a big enough fit that the store negated the restock fee. The computer. Apple is smart enough to say 'you have to go call this phone number'. Phone support can be faceless and detached and they don't suffer so much if you get screwed. In person, you can attach a face to the 'you've just been screwed out of 3 grand and a fantasy' and it's much harder to cope with and they'll try to fix it. Upsetting one customer in a store can cost you more in sales than just fixing it.
After my tantrum and cry and some angry product reviews, I switched to brute force since intimidation wasn't solving it.
One of the guys at work had mentioned that he had heard you could sometimes massage a dead pixel back to life. I'd tried it briefly yesterday and it would make the pixel work right for a minute or two and then come back. But I'd been cautious. I'd rather show the bug to the store and get it fixed properly than using a crude solution. I saved this for a last ditch.
I took a camera lens cloth and massaged it gently for about two minutes in circles and pulse-tapping. When I lifted the cloth, the dead pixel was gone.
I waited 20 minutes. Still gone.
I tried running video-memory heavy apps and flashing the colour of this pixel a lot for several minutes. Still gone.
I put the computer near the space heater and got it warm (since the dead pixel manifested after the machine was operating for a few minutes and go warm. I let it get quite warm. Still gone.
I repeated the heavy video apps test until the fans came on and it was hot to the touch. Still gone.
I shut the machine down and put it in a cool spot for an hour. Turned it on. Still gone.
I re-ran the heavy video access of the area and heat tests. Still gone.
It's 4 hours after that. I'm cautiously optimistic that Brute Force has worked.
After returning all the accessories, I searched around and found I could save 200 on the RAM (out of 300 dollars) and I could get some of the other things in other places for the same price or less.
So I'm better off now, but the experience of buying something 'shiny and new' is pretty sour and instead of a joyful shiny relationship with my new computer, I feel angry, hurt, and distrustful of it. If I wanted that, I would have bought a Dell.
The Wacom tablet was indeed deliberately crippled by the company, so I took it back.
My new Macbook Pro had two dead pixels right in the middle of the screen and I was told that this was fewer than the amount to count as a 'defect' and I would have to live with it. (Did I mention one of them flashed on and off?)
Fuck that. I went to return it too, along with the memory, carrying case, etc. they told me I couldn't return it that night because it was an online order and I had to have some ref number from the call center (which had closed ten minutes prior to when they told me this).
I went home sick and cried the cry of an angry child. I waited a month for this computer, I haven't bought anything really 'new' like this ever before, and, except for my current car, I spent more on this computer than I've spent on every car I've owned and more than most of them combined. It's like if I'd got a new car and it had a chip in the windshield or a torn seat. Or maybe it's more like being a little kid and waiting for Santa. He doesn't show up until New Years, he's fucking hung over and takes a dump in the middle of your living room floor.
So I cried and sniffled and carried on like a little child last night. Eventually went to sleep. Got up at 6AM to call their call-in center. Was told they'd charge me 300 dollars to return it (restocking fee) and that I was SOL. Live with a FLICKERING CYAN spot on my screen or be out 300 AND the new computer I'd waited a month for. :/
I threw the phone, cried some more. I don't think I've had such a bad temper tantrum since I was twelve. I guess it just started getting to me how so many things in my life are this shitty compromise. Nothing ever goes right for me. I have to do everything by force and I always have to live with rotten compromises. I know everyone goes through this now and then so I can't really go 'woe, pity me!'. Just this once, I was buying a luxury item. I went all out on it. Even paid too much for Apple memory. I didn't go through a friend and use his employee discount or my student discount or anything. I wanted to have the experience of being able to afford a real luxury that I strongly desired and not having to haggle for it. They've shipped thousands of others of these computers. There are at least 4 others at work. none of them have a problem like this. Why me? More specifically, why ALWAYS me? Every once in a while, understandable but virtually everything I do has this sort of baggage associated with it.
I can fight it. If you put enough muscle behind something, you can fix it, even when it goes crappy like this. Brute force and intimidation has gotten me a lot further than 'luck' ever has. I just get sick of having to always fight. The Wacom guys told me I was SOL too. I returned the tablet, threw a big enough fit that the store negated the restock fee. The computer. Apple is smart enough to say 'you have to go call this phone number'. Phone support can be faceless and detached and they don't suffer so much if you get screwed. In person, you can attach a face to the 'you've just been screwed out of 3 grand and a fantasy' and it's much harder to cope with and they'll try to fix it. Upsetting one customer in a store can cost you more in sales than just fixing it.
After my tantrum and cry and some angry product reviews, I switched to brute force since intimidation wasn't solving it.
One of the guys at work had mentioned that he had heard you could sometimes massage a dead pixel back to life. I'd tried it briefly yesterday and it would make the pixel work right for a minute or two and then come back. But I'd been cautious. I'd rather show the bug to the store and get it fixed properly than using a crude solution. I saved this for a last ditch.
I took a camera lens cloth and massaged it gently for about two minutes in circles and pulse-tapping. When I lifted the cloth, the dead pixel was gone.
I waited 20 minutes. Still gone.
I tried running video-memory heavy apps and flashing the colour of this pixel a lot for several minutes. Still gone.
I put the computer near the space heater and got it warm (since the dead pixel manifested after the machine was operating for a few minutes and go warm. I let it get quite warm. Still gone.
I repeated the heavy video apps test until the fans came on and it was hot to the touch. Still gone.
I shut the machine down and put it in a cool spot for an hour. Turned it on. Still gone.
I re-ran the heavy video access of the area and heat tests. Still gone.
It's 4 hours after that. I'm cautiously optimistic that Brute Force has worked.
After returning all the accessories, I searched around and found I could save 200 on the RAM (out of 300 dollars) and I could get some of the other things in other places for the same price or less.
So I'm better off now, but the experience of buying something 'shiny and new' is pretty sour and instead of a joyful shiny relationship with my new computer, I feel angry, hurt, and distrustful of it. If I wanted that, I would have bought a Dell.
