Computer woes

It turns out my beloved Averatec 1020 is just as mortal as any other laptop. The fan, which was always a little noisy, has quit working altogether. I noticed two days ago that the computer was getting pretty hot, and yesterday I realized that the fan was not turning on at all. I don't think any time would be a good time to have something like this happen, but now was definitely not it.

So today, instead of working, I spent the day troubleshooting (using the generic instructions Averatec gave me) and backing up my files. It took a while, because I had to keep shutting down my computer to keep it from getting too hot, but I did get all the important stuff off (I think - :::knock on wood:::).

This evening I took my laptop back to CompUSA, where I bought it about 10 months ago. Because the laptop is still under warranty, they are shipping it back to Averatec to fix. They said I could do it myself, but I have heard that Averatec has crappy customer service, so I asked CompUSA to take care of it for me.

Unfortunately, I will be without my laptop for a minimum of two weeks. I'm glad that I kept my old laptop; even though it's pathetically outdated - a 500 MhZ pentium with only about 20 GB of drive space - it'll serve as a backup. However, it doesn't have wireless capabilities or a very good battery, so it'll be a couple of weeks before I can enjoy some of my favorite habits again - taking my laptop into different rooms, working at a bookstore or coffee shop, or even working in the basement to escape the heat, to name a few.

It'll be a very long two weeks.