The devil is in the details

Good news and possibly better news. (a Sony update)

I made a trip over to the help desk today. First, they confirmed my problem ("You're right! It doesn't turn on!") and then they opened up the computer, took out the hard drive (which was entirely fine) and made me a copy of my data. So...in the end I haven't lost any data (except for songs downloaded from ITunes, which Harvard will not make a copy of due to copyright issues. Blech.)

After going to the help desk I came back to the lab and talked to a fellow grad student about the problem. (Thank you SO much Mike, you rock.) He did a little sleuthing online and found this, a statement from Sony dated two weeks ago noting that certain products (including my model) have a defective motherboard and extending the warranty on the motherboard for an additional year if you called them about it. I called and told the operator that I was having problems and gave him my model number and mentioned seeing the statement online and the operator immediately caved...he is sending me a FedEx box as we speak. It still isn't guaranteed that the problem is due to the defective motherboard and/or covered by this extended warranty, but Sony is currently covering the cost of shipping and diagnosis at least(and the man on the phone seemed pretty sure that the problem was due to this motherboard failure). It seemed rather strange how quickly the man said okay when mentioned the problem, possibly indicating that they are getting a lot of complaints about this issue right now (or around and during the two weeks since the statement has been up.) He indicated that I'd have the computer back in a week and he even mentioned that I should write a note with the computer telling them not to erase the hard drive if they don't have to. (I neglected to mention that part really didn't matter.) So.....it is possible that this is all going to work out. Maybe. Possibly. Keep your fingers crossed.

posted by Immunegirl @ 3:49 PM