I’m writing to you today from the keyboard of the gentleman on the left. Unfortunately Spinetop has gone to the mothership for repairs. I miss him already. The Baron is a fine machine, we’ve been together for years, but he is battered and old and SLOW as molasses. Still there’s something strange about the nostalgic tic tic of they keys (Spine’s keyboard is much quieter)

I hope when Spinetop comes back from Dell that he’ll have that farting problem fixed… because just like the real Spine, he has chronic IBS. Something inside of him sputters like a raspberry and it’s not the fan. I guess we’ll soon see. I wont lie though, part of me is nervous I may never see Spinetop ever again. I left the Chevrons on as an experiment to see if they drop new laptop in the box and claim they’ve fixed it.

What I failed to mention in this first public posting was that Spinetop had been farting at me for four months. It was a steady emission, like clockwork, every few minutes it would emit a not so soft “Ptthhbbbt.” 

It was annoying at first, but not that big a deal. I mean, the rest ran fine and I needed a computer. After half a year, though, it was starting to wear on me, and I was tired of it turning heads in coffee shops whose patrons assumed the flatulence was me. What was I supposed to say to them, anyway? No one believed I owned a farting laptop.

I contacted Dell support and told them it was the fan. They sent a technician and the fan was replaced free of charge. I thought that solved the problem, until I opened it up to do work and heard the telltale “ptthbbt.” At this point it was more than frustrating. I called Dell again, they mailed a box, and Spinetop was off to the doctor’s

Spinetop update

Spinetop is officially at the Dell repair center to be doctored by their staff. I feel like an anxious family member because they send me emails and call my phone constantly. I can’t wait to get my laptop back if only so they’ll leave me alone.

And then

Spinetop Update

It’s back from the shop.

Chevrons intact, miraculously.

Turned the thing on and it’s DOING THE EXACT SAME GODDAM THING IT WAS DOING WHEN I SENT IT OFF.

Holy hell, what was the point of all that? Didn’t they test the thing? I gave them instructions on how to recreate the problem, so they replaced a bunch of junk inside and sent it back without even turning it on to see if it was still making noises. Well, *I* turned it back on and it’s making the same goddam noise and vibrating under my hand and now it can’t even connect to the internet, thanks Dell. I love how it came back more broken than it left.

To be fair, they replaced all the scuffed parts and dents that it accumulated during the four months Iv'e owned it, but I didn’t ask them to fix those parts, I asked them to fix the vibration and the stuttering. They’re apparently going to send a technician out to look at it. Damnit. Ugh. I’m so done.

To be fair, I’m typing to you right now on the previous dell laptop that I bought Spinetop to replace, and the laptop actually runs fine, it just makes upsetting sounds. I’d forget about it except I’m scared its going to get worse the day after my warrantee expires. -_- Still what they say is true, you get what you pay for, and I bought myself a cheap computer because I’m a tightwad, thankfully Dell’s helping me fix it without charging me more money.

Time to try again.

Spinetop update

So after informing the overseas tech support guy on the phone of what exactly they have already done to my system, he is fully confident it is the harddrive. I’m a bit suspicious, if we start the conversation convinced that flashing the bios is gonna solve it then we leave the conversation thinking that replacing the whole harddrive is going to solve it, that’s a big difference. When the tech comes to visit I’m going to force him to observe the activity going on in this box… maybe tell him to order me a new motherboard while he’s at it. Just get me a new computer, I can put the chevrons back on, it’s not that hard….

It’s farting at me as we speak and I’m not even using it. Darn you Spinetop!

Dell sent a very nice tech named Mark out for a home visit. I sat him down at my kitchen table and started Spinetop up. Despite replacing the fan twice, the fart still corresponded with the fan and I knew when it spun on startup, he’d understand what was going on. Sure enough, after waiting just long enough to inspire doubt, Spine offered his now trademark “pthhbt.” Mark looked at me like we’d entered another dimension. 

He sat with Spinetop for almost an hour, running diagnostics and calling the mothership for advice. It was satisfying to hear him using that same flat, impatient tone of voice I used when trying to speak with Dell’s support system, but nothing compared to the validation I got shortly after. 

I was seated opposite him on The Baron -- because I gotta work as well -- listening to his phone calls and Spinetop’s steady ‘toot.’ Every couple minutes, like clockwork, the fan would spin and Spine would fart. 

Mark the technician:(staring at my computer while on phone with HQ) Spinetop:(farts) Mark the technician:(looks up at me) You're right, that is annoying.

Yer damn right it is, Mark. Yer goddam right.

Mark agreed it was the harddrive, so I took everything I needed and ripped out the poor guy’s brain. Mark had to take the old one with him for accountability purposes. Dell’s chariot arrived a short time later. 

At this point Spinetop had a reputation on my blog. People were sending me notes and requesting updates, but there were doubters as well. A farting laptop? Surely I was joking, or at kindness, embellishing for humor. I still had the evidence so if they wanted proof of farting, I was happy to comply.

You guys want to know what this mythic Farting sound I keep complaining about sounds like? Here it is. The first sound is the optical (cd) drive cycling. The second it the offending poot. Its something catching the fan, although not the fan itself because that has been replaced. I recorded this with my phone during a normal startup. 

LINK TO FARTOP AUDIO

The link received the intended response

sassydetective: OMG IT ACTUALLY FARTS I THOUGHT YOU WERE BEING FUNNY

And you know what, the problem WAS funny! It’s a farting laptop! The whole cast were characters now. I made light of it while I could VVVVVVVV

Box arrived and Spinetop was buckled in.

I packed it with extra care this time.

I set Spinetop’s Poot as my text notification sound and the waiting began again.

...

......

.........

Here we go.

What...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

#and the first thing it did was fart... just to spite me.

At this point over three months had passed since my first service call. My patience was shot as was my humor. I called Dell back

On phone with Dell service guy

Dell Guy: You're calling about the XPS 15 laptop, is that right?

Me: Yes

Dell Guy: Just so you know, this laptop is under warranty until November 15th, 2013

Me: Good.

OKAY

SO

I called Dell. I opened conversation with “To start I want to apologize because I know this isn’t your fault but I’m pissed off.”

My laptop is doing the exact goddam thing it’s been doing this whole time. The jerks didn’t bother reading the note I left, didn’t try to reproduce the problem, they didn’t even care – they plugged the laptop into their diagnostic software, returned a “nothin’ ta see here”, put it back in the box and mailed it home. I’m so done with this I told them in no uncertain terms that I wanted another. I want a replacement. Send me a new computer.

The lady on the other end was scared to death of me.

At least I finally got a result.

My anger suceeded. My replacement was approved, and the updates increased in frequency.

Alright they are going to replace Spinetop with something “alike or better”, whatever that means. This opens a whole fount of new concerns, but I get the impression that it’s the only way to solve the farting problem. Needless to day I’m having a hard time not worrying after all this crap… if there’s something wrong I don’t expect correcting it to be easy. I might have to bite the bullet and deal.

I think I’m gonna make myself an iced latte to celebrate finally getting off the phone.

Dell just called to tell me they’re still trying to figure out what “equal or better”  means.

Just got of the phone with Dell, they are sending me a newer, younger, version of Spinetop running Windows 8. I called them to doublecheck they weren’t screwing me on parts. I had the man on the phone list all the stuff that was in it for me – ends up they were trying to send half the ram I used to have so I called him on it and he’s like “Oh, I’ll put a request in.” then vanished for a few minutes and came back like “Everything will be equal to what you had or better. Equal or better. We guarantee” and I’m thinking – last time you guaranteed the problem would be fixed when you mailed it back to me after doing nothing to fix it. I don’t trust you Dell people to care about individual cases, and I understand why that is. If you cared about my case you would have assigned me a case worker, or given me a local repair shop I could send it to. You are a removed factory out in space somewhere who sees computers run through like cattle at a slaughterhouse. I honestly believe that you WANT to make me happy, because you seem like nice people and that’s what you get paid for, but I don’t believe that you’re GOING to make me happy.

Anyway Equal or Better should be at my place early next week. Photos to follow.

Dell just called to confirm what I called them this morning to confirm.

Yep, still hasn’t changed….

And then the day arrived. Spinetop 2.0 arrived, shiny and new as a minted nickel. 

Omg you guys! Spinetop 2.0 is here! Look at the shininess…..

2.0 is running Windows 8, which is a pisser to say the least, but I vow to make do. I’ve set a Windows 8 pc to run like Windows 7 before… but I want to do it right on 2.0 just in case something awful happens and we have to do this all over again again.

I miss my start button. The Start screen is so ugly. It’s trying desperately to be my xbox homescreen… I already own an xbox so I can’t understand why. I’ve programmed it to show me the desktop by default using the task manager, but it looks like I’ll have to download a plugin to get my start button back. I’ll try and get used to it as is for now I guess. 

Spinetop is in the mail and on his way back to his maker, may they do what they like with him. The lady at Fedex inadvertently let me say a final goodbye to him when she insisted we unseal the package and make sure it was well padded. It’s a little bittersweet… that computer was everything I wanted plus an annoying sound and now I have a replacement that’s a pain in the ass even if its newer, sturdier, and more powerful. On paper I made out like a fox, but still… goodbye spinetop.

And hello Nerdtop :)

He’s been with me for three years and is going to wrangle out a forth if he can. I don’t know if he’s equal or better but he certainly does his job. In the end, it was a fitting end to very unusual story. 

......

I hope