The past month has been frustrating for sure.

My video editing computer, an AlienWare Aurora R4, died a sudden and permanent death. Now, when I say it died, it really died. It is now basically a large paperweight sitting upon the desk. Fortunately I did have an in-home service warranty with next business day support!

Thus the repair saga began.

After a couple of calls to DELL they sent out a field tech to replace the motherboard. There was a parts delay so he eventually turned up a day late with a box of bits. The motherboard was replaced, end result, the computer was still dead, no video output, the main fans spun up, that was about it. The friendly field tech even noted to me, “it’s dead Jim!” – obviously a trekkie !

Another call to DELL and another service call was scheduled. This time they were sending a 2nd motherboard, a graphics card, some memory DIMMS. Yet another parts delay before the tech was onsite with multiple boxes of bits to replace. The components were swapped out, end result again, the computer was still dead, same as before. It was the same field tech as before and I could see the clear disappointment on his face. He cared, a rare thing, for a field support person who gets nothing but grief all day from his customers.

So, another call to DELL, this time they offered to replace the system. Now, as I had originally purchased this system as a “refurbished” model, they would only swap like for like, as they then went on to say “it may take a while but we will give you weekly updates!”

That sounded ominous …. had visions of yet more weeks, or months, with a dead computer …

A few days later the nice lady from the DELL exchange team contacted me. They were unable to find anywhere a suitable system to replace mine with. They were going to try again the following Friday. The days passed and I was contacted again to inform me they still could not source a replacement but would be in touch again the next week. More days passed, my anxiety level growing. Finally they called me back again, still, they could not find a refurbished replacement system.

“Now what?”, I asked, frustrated.

There is a silver lining in this story.

As DELL were unable to find a replacement system, the same spec as mine, and we were now weeks into my system being dead, they offered to build me a brand new computer, to spec, the same, or better than I had before. RESULT !

After reviewing the build order DELL certainly stepped up to the plate with fulfilling their commitment of equal or “better” – the new system will actually be about 10% faster … SWEET !

Hopefully, another week and my new computer will arrive and the CarpQuest video productions will resume and new content again available. I already have a few sessions worth of content to edit and produce.

So, if you were wondering where the video content production had vanished to, now you know !

Tight-Lines,
John

PS: yes, all my data is backed up ! whew !