The Wacky World of Chris Knight

I guess I was one of the lucky ones, and in that way unlucky as well since I never realized it was happening… I had no symptoms: no seizures, no failure to wake up in the morning, no sudden gaps in my memory. I didn’t even realize that I had a problem until I was fiddling with some project and I happened to hit escape during boot. Into the setup I went, and what did I see? 256M of memory, half of what it should be… Now it made sense, all those little things that nagged at the back of the mind without being outright pains: the slow file opens, the heavy swapping. Not enough to hurt, but enough to slow me down.

I did some testing, thinking it was a bad memory module and that I would just get a new one at Circuit City. Nope, it appeared that one of the memory slots would no longer recognize the memory. I also tried putting in a 512M module into the one working slot and learned that my laptop won’t recognize high density DDR memory. So much for that quick fix.

Well, I kinda like my Sony laptop; and as much as I would like to replace it with a PowerBook I need to get a few more miles out of this one.

I checked with Sony. They don’t ‘fix’ computers. They make a guess at the part that isn’t working and they replace it. In this case, they want $700 to replace the motherboard. Blech.

I started looking on-line for companies that fix Sony laptops. During that quest I encountered a message board thread about the very problem I am having. It appears to be a common problem for several series of Sony laptops, though for some people their laptops don’t boot at all. That’s where I was lucky, I could at least still use mine.

This is also where I encountered Joe Kabalan of AQS Computer Services. Joe posted several detailed explanations regarding a problem that perfectly fit the experience I had been having. Most importantly, his explanations fit my ‘geek sense’ intuition about the problem. It appears that the Sony robotic assembly machines are too economical in their use of solder, and wind up with solder connections on the SODIMM modules that easily break. Joe mentions in his posts that AQS Computer Services fixes this problem for a nominal fee. Joe described the problem well enough that anyone so inclined could fix it themselves with the right equipment. Unfortunatly my Weller is in Tampa and I am in San Francisco, and I don’t need to go and buy more stuff…

I wrote Joe, describing my problem. He sent me back a semi-form-letter reply that described not only my problem, but also several other problems that tend to plague Sony laptops and his price to fix them. We exchanged a couple of emails. With a one year warranty on the repair, and my good feeling about it, I boxed up my laptop and sent it via FedEx overnight to the other side of the country.

I bit my nails a lot that week.

Two days later, fairly early in the morning, Joe calls me and tells me my laptop is finished and tested. I send him a payment via paypal and he sent me a confirmation that the laptop would be shipping that day. In case you haven’t noticed, Joe was very responsive to email and fairly prompt in his replies.

The next day FedEx drops off a box for me. Not the same box I shipped. Joe took the time and effort to re-package my laptop, most likely because I used what I had available and it was a rather shoddy packing job. I popped open the memory cover and looked over the work. It is easy to see where the solder traces have been touched up, and the work is very clean.

It wasn’t until a day or so later that I realized that Joe also tightened up my screen hinges. It was that little thing, that wasn’t part of the repair but went the extra step, that made me feel it was worth sitting down and typing this all out. If I can lead one person Joe’s way to get their Sony GRX-580 laptop with the second SODIMM slot dead then I’ll be happy. He deserves the business.

-Chris

I set up this instance of WordPress so that I would have a easy and convenient way of putting words down on my website. I’ve slacked, and I no longer have my template system where adding new pages was a couple of minutes work. Now I’m paying the price… I’ve been found… I’ve deleted nearly a dozen Blog Spams this week. Blech.

It’s time for a bitch session. I really try not to do this too often; but damn it, if a business sucks people should know…

I recently tried to order a gift for a friend on-line, which I wanted shipped directly to my friend. There is a particularly good on-line geek store that I frequent (and I’ll plug somewhere else) that I wanted to use for the purchase. They have a wonderfully secure policy regarding instances where the shipping and billing address do not match: They contact the credit card company and verify that the shipping address is listed as a valid shipping address for the card. I think this is wonderful as it is great at thwarting purchases made on stolen credit cards. Now, I’ve done third party shipping with this company before. The last time I was buying with my PapPal debit card, and PayPal has an item in their customer service web tools specifically for adding another address. Last time was a piece of cake.

This time I used my Bank of America debit card. Big mistake. There is no ‘Add Shipping Address’ in the BofA customer service screens. There is a Contact Customer Service option. I used it. That’s when the trouble began.

First email to Customer Support described that I wanted to buy a gift for a friend mail-order, and that I needed the friend’s address added to my authorized shipping addresses. I get a reply letting me know that my address has been updated with my friend’s address. Puzzled, I write to confirm that my friend’s address was added, and did not replace my address. The response I get is short and sweet, and did not answer my original question. The response simply confirms that the address on my account is the one I gave for my friend, and to let them know if I need it changed again. It was late, I was tired, and I just decided not to worry about it.

The next day I made my order. I waited until the order had charged. I returned to the BofA customer service website. I replied to the last message, indicating that my order had been placed, and could they please change my shipping address back to my home address.

This is where it gets surreal. A BofA represenative writes me back and informs me that I had already changed my account address in the last 64 days, and that due to banking regulations they can not take another on-line address change request from me. I need to go to a branch to prove who I am before they will returm my account address to where I actually live.

I got ticked. I wrote a long reply. I explained that I had never asked for my account address to be changed. I suggested the person read my first email to customer support, because I clearly explained the purpose and intent of my request. I aksed why the person who first handled the request had simply not told me they could not do what I asked, if that was the case. I explained that PayPal has this feature and asked why my bank does not. I asked if my customer support requests were being handled by a call center in India. I hit submit. The site said my reply was too long, gave me no way to edit it, and completely dropped my text.

I got really ticked, which means I got terse. I tried my best, in four sentences, to let them know that they were incompetent baboons and that I would file a complaint when I drove to the local bank branch to fix their mistake.

Well, they finally fixed it. Still, it seems silly that at this time of year they don’t know how to handle occasions when someone wants to have a gift shipped directly through a retailer that takes credit card security seriously.

I’ve hated BofA since the Leather Jacket Incident, but I’m stuck since Wells Fargo doesn’t exist around here…

-Chris