bonneyarmstrong.com - laptop coma

2006.5.30
2006.5.16
2006.1.22
2006.1.22
2006.1.20
2005.12.25
2005.9.10
2005.8.13
2005.5.19
2005.4.14
2005.4.11
2005.4.9
2005.1.20
2004.12.26
2004.11.1
2004.5.6
2004.1.25
2004.1.12
2003.12.26
2003.11.19
2003.7.18
2003.7.18
2003.7.3
2003.6.26
2003.6.16
2003.6.11
2003.6.6
2002.10.22
2002.9.11
2002.6.11
2002.4.2
2002.3.31
2002.3.28
2002.3.27
2002.3.26
2002.3.21
2002.3.19
1986.5.23

laptop coma

The Story of the Scary Laptop Coma

So, the laptop wasn't working for several days. I thought it was a goner - thought the fan had died, and that would have meant $400 for a new fan, which in this model, is hardwired into the motherboard. Ouch! Turns out the culprit was the sleeper mode. I'd turned the laptop on one day and left it alone too long. It went into hibernation. It never came out. I could boot it up, but it would start to go into safe mode, then choke. I disconnected it from the base, and even popped out the battery, but to no avail. Therefore, I left it alone for a week. Thank goodness for Jamie. She pulled the cord out of the back of the laptop and out of the wall, so she could plug in her Game Boy. This made the battery on the laptop drain down completely, since the "hibernation mode" never really did go off. Then, just as a last ditch attempt, when I went to check the laptop one last time this morning, I saw that she'd unplugged the entire thing, plugged it back into the wall, and lo and behold - it booted up in safe mode! I shut it down, booted up again, and it went back to normal. I shut it down just to make sure it would power down correctly. Next thing I did when I was ready to work with it was to go on a search and destroy mission for those power settings and make sure they never ever kick in again. Sometimes they do spontaneously regenerate themselves, so I'll have to be vigilant. Oh well, that's a Compaq for you. At least I don't have to cough up a spare $400!