Question some days

The keyboard in my laptop died today. hard death. a plug-in USB keyboard works, so there's something on the motherboard. damn. double-damn. i HATE doing any migration work; it takes freakin' forever to chase down teh licenses, reinstall everything, etc. it SUCKS.

So do I replace it so I can use laptop as a real laptop, including at the office and in my chair - and deal with all the software migration / reinstalls, or basically say screw-it and deal with permanently using a USB keyboard with thiis thing and is uncomfortable in my recliner?

at least I got CBHD parts 2 and 3 done, and part one of the major combat finals story is nearly done and I didn't lose the work.

I'd go with a wireless keyboard to be honest. But I have stubby fingers and find laptop keyboards are a pain.

Never good having parts like this break. :\

Is making a system image for a new laptop too much? Otherwise, at least it's not a total system failure, so it should be easier to track what you have and need - as opposed to wracking your memory as you set up a new machine?

I think it might be best biting the bullet now though, before giving it a chance to get worse. Unless of course you know for sure that the fault is isolated and not likely to lead to further issues down the line?

I verified it's the keyboard only. heavy sigh.

it's a pain in the ass being the household IT support guy - 5 of us, plus 3 laptops, plus the network.
if'n I got me a new laptop, what would y'all recommend as a reliable brand? (Y'all like the Texas twang I threw in? )

Afraid I can't really offer much help on brands and models. My only laptop is a Lenovo Thinkpad Edge, and it's done me *very* well these past few years (aside from being a PITA to grab the drivers after a clean wipe). Of course, I know Lenovo has gone downhill badly since, shipping with bad bloatware/malware. <_<

Alternatively, is it easier to swap the hard drive to a new machine and just do some driver updates?

I tend to stick to desktops for sheer ease of repair work that I can do myself, so unfortunately I'm not a lot of help with in the laptop department

FiddlerFox wrote: Alternatively, is it easier to swap the hard drive to a new machine and just do some driver updates?

I tend to stick to desktops for sheer ease of repair work that I can do myself, so unfortunately I'm not a lot of help with in the laptop department

I've got my desktop, but when my back is having very painful spasms, sitting in anything other than my recliner with a heating pad isn't an option, and it's not easy to hold a desktop in your lap.

Wimp.

I'll second not going Lenovo, or get it barebones. They love shoving useless programs that are nearly impossible to remove onto the computer.

You could become jump on the Apple bandwagon, and pay a fortune to look cool.

Unless its changed badly Acers are a good brand. I have a Toshiba that's still reliable as I use it now when I go on trips.

What type is it and all. It may be possible to swap out the keyboard if that is the prob else it may be the motherboard, depending on how its connected of course.

I had an HP that left me... disappointed in its longevity. I recently replaced it with a Sager which seems pretty good so far, although it's really too soon to say.

it's an HP Pavillion. And I found something nice. There is a known BIOS bug which basically disables the keyboard under some circumstances. Full power-off - including battery and adapter out, and boot to bios. Then undo the noodled-up config, and voila - the keyboard works again!

I am so easy to please sometimes. Between that and my doggie, I'm a happy person.
Had good work news a few minutes ago - there is a group at Goddard that wants me to work with them - and it'd be fun, and better than being sidelined by my current management. And I got permission (sort of) from my wife to get a dog for my daughter.

That offsets the bad - for the first time in 34 years, my wife and I are in different cities for our anniversary. She's visiting her family, which is important. So ... it happens.

All in all, the day ended mostly well. Now that my keyboard is fixed, back to the combat finals story. Then I can do the summer Kayda story. And work on the Gen 2 story. And maybe find time to write non-Whateley (like MAU and BB). (I need about 8 more hours every day!)

Good to hear the mostly good news.
That's a cute dog (and that's coming from a cat person).

Glad to here that your laptop is all better!

elrodw wrote: And I got permission (sort of) from my wife to get a dog for my daughter.]

When you say "sort of", do you mean like this?

Glad to hear its fixed. Now you're making me home sick.

What HP has such piss poor support they haven't released a bios update to fix that problem completely?

Acer has been hit or miss on quality, some models last others die rapidly.

Dell uses really cheaply made ports, so frequently you have no means to connect via usb on them.

Gateway, now part of Acer and showing the same issues.

Alienware, owned by Dell now so likely to fail in the same fashion.

Toshiba, specifically the Satellite Pro series, has by far been the most reliable in my own experience.

All of them have switched to the EUFI bios that is just useless, only able to boot windows, not even able to boot from CD/DVD unless it is the hardware company's rescue disks.

Cute puppy, Happy Anniversary,

Funnily enough, in some parts of Brazil there's a superstition that says that for good luck, you should name your dog after some kind of fish.

As for UEFI, yes it is a drag, but in most machines there is some way to switch it to "legacy mode" and disable "safe boot", allowing you to load other OSs. Of course, first you have to figure out how to enter the BIOS SETUP in the first place...

Slightly surprised at the Lenovo hate - bought one recently and its been fine.
Yes, it comes with bloatware, like every other laptop, but it wasnt hard to get rid of.
Positives - keyboard feel is way better than the nasty chicklet ones, and they still sell them with Windows 7 (which was the way more important thing for me)

Maybe its different in the USA...

Probably, I got mine in China and if they hadn't loaded it to the gills with every bell and whistle it would have been faster and less glitchy.

One consideration is that most big makers have different "home", "business" and "corporate" product lines, and that affects price, sturdiness, default version of Windows preloaded, level of bloatware etc.

For instance, Dell has Inspiron (consumer), XPS (advanced consumer/gamer), Vostro (small business) and Satellite (corporate) product lines. In Lenovo's case, there's a difference between "Lenovo" notebooks and "Thinkpads" -- Thinkpads are sturdier and pricier, aiming for the business/corporate crowd.

So take care when doing comparisons.

(Apple is the big exception, they don't actually have a business line or a low-end consumer line -- they have an "expensive line" an "douchy showoffs line")

Sir Lee wrote: Funnily enough, in some parts of Brazil there's a superstition that says that for good luck, you should name your dog after some kind of fish.

As for UEFI, yes it is a drag, but in most machines there is some way to switch it to "legacy mode" and disable "safe boot", allowing you to load other OSs. Of course, first you have to figure out how to enter the BIOS SETUP in the first place...

to get into the bios, escape or f1 or f2 or delete just after pressing the power button, depends on which one the company decided to use.

most common are f1 and delete.

I knew you could disable the uefi garbage, but that won't last for much longer, the companies wwill remove that soon, since "legacy" features don't get supported for long.

Well I couldn't find where what post it was in so I put it in here with Elrod's post.

I figured out what the W stands for.

Warren. Both he and Warren are the same person with two computers to fool us both. What?!

Ib12us wrote: Well I couldn't find where what post it was in so I put it in here with Elrod's post.

I figured out what the W stands for.

Warren. Both he and Warren are the same person with two computers to fool us both. What?!

I think not. Many of the Gen 2 team know what the W stands for. The trick is if I only pronounce it, you'd NEVER guess how to spell it correctly, and if I just spell it, you'll never guess how to pronounce it.

Let me give you a hint - it's pronounced as 3 syllables, and there ONE vowel in the traditional spelling

elrodw wrote:
I think not. Many of the Gen 2 team know what the W stands for. The trick is if I only pronounce it, you'd NEVER guess how to spell it correctly, and if I just spell it, you'll never guess how to pronounce it.

Let me give you a hint - it's pronounced as 3 syllables, and there ONE vowel in the traditional spelling

Ok that sounds like it could be Welsh, though Polish and Ukrainian might also be possible.

Dawnfyre wrote: to get into the bios, escape or f1 or f2 or delete just after pressing the power button, depends on which one the company decided to use.

most common are f1 and delete.

Not always. I saw a couple of Vaios where you had to start the computer by pressing a special "Assist" button instead of the regular "Power" button.

I knew you could disable the uefi garbage, but that won't last for much longer, the companies wwill remove that soon, since "legacy" features don't get supported for long.

As most things, that depends heavily on the company's bottom line. Turning your computers into Windows-only machines loses you the entire Linux enthusiast market -- which is not that big, but it is very vocal. Also, these days margins are pretty slim, and you don't want to lose any sales for any avoidable reasons.

My take is that Legacy mode is probably going to disappear eventually, yes. But then, OSs that can't run on UEFI are pretty long in the tooth, and would have compatibility problems with the hardware anyway. I mean, Win7 x64 is already UEFI-compliant, and I *think* Vista x64 also is (but then, who cares about Vista?). Reasonably recent versions of Linux and BSD (meaning "Five years old or less) should run on UEFI with no problems. No, you can't install XP on UEFI machines in native mode, but then, you won't find XP drivers for lots of components either, so it's not an attractive proposition.

The real problem is Secure Boot. If computers makers remove the option to disable Secure Boot, that's a big problem, because in practice those machines would become Windows-only machines. But that would be throwing away the entire Linux market, for what? Making Microsoft richer?

Microsoft would have to offer some financial lure to entice Lenovo, Dell and HP to do that... but that might entail lawsuits for anticompetitive practices. Linux has fizzled as an effective threat on the desktop space, so I doubt that Satya Nadella cares enough to commit the necessary money and lobbying resources to make it happen.