computer problems

and nice fucking timing, too, what with the grant due in 10 days.

turned on the computer on friday to show sarahdee pictures of karl, and the screen didn't come on. upon further inspection, i found that the screen *was* on, but that it was SO dim that i could only barely make out the outlines of dialog boxes etc. so, not so much useable.

yesterday, i hooked it up to karl's monitor so i could back up documents and stuff. today, i chatted with denny from gateway tech support. i told him the problem: my computer's screen is SO DIM that i can't actually see anything on it. i had tried adjusting the brightness (no effect (no surprise)), and knew that there was nothing wrong with the desktop/cpu/drivers/etc because when i hooked it to karl's monitor everything looked normal (note my blazing diagnostic skills). this is a hardware problem.

i hate being treated like an idiot. denny very condescendingly walked me through possible solutions (did you try adjusting the brightness? yes, denny, no change. did you install any software recently that could have done this? yeah, denny, because installing adobe photoshop has that side effect. did you scan for viruses? yes. could you just adMIT that this is a hardware problem already? jeezus.). none of them worked (shocker). he finally said that i'd have to send it in for service (gee, THAT's news) and that he'd get me a service order.

oh wait. he can't get me the service order just then because their system is down. but it should only be down for a couple of hours, so someone will email me with the service order in a few hours. fine.

20 minutes later, i get an email from ryan (different guy. the last one was denny, if you recall) at gateway customer support. he wants me to try to reinstall my display drivers. dude, this is a *hardware* problem--did you not read denny's notes? send me my goddam service order already. so, i sent ryan back an email to that effect. haven't heard back yet.

me: not a moron. me: in need of computer to write grant. gateway: pissing me off.