[[image:compy001.jpg:Old Reliable:left:0]]
Fracking great.
I get back from vacation, boot up the computer and connect to the internet…. and after 10 minutes the computer crashes.
I can’t reboot the computer. Ubuntu hands during the startup sequence. I try booting up an Ubuntu Live CD and it crashes. I try both Kubuntu and Knoppix and they crash.
The nice people at Ubuntuforums.org advise me to try formatting the hard disk drive using a Windows installer CD. I get my hands on one, and it crashes short of the formatting menu, then I was unable to boot up from the CD.
Methinks it’s not a hard disk problem. It might be a RAM problem or even the motherboard’s had it. It’s been a good desktop computer since 2002 and it hasn’t given me any big headaches since. It had operated with Win ME, Win XP and Ubuntu (both Gnome and KDE). It’s been connected to the internet with dial-up and eventually broadband. It’s been my communication with the outside world much more than any phone. It’s been a fantastic media player, wordprocessor and a learning tool. I couldn’t have done my online courses with Unitar without it.
But I think the computer – originally a Pentium 3, 933 MHz, 128MB RAM affair – has reached the end of its days. It might be time for a new one.
Hisham, signing off… from work laptop.
