New Computer (4th October 2006)
The power supply on our old Pentium 100 PC retired after a decade of dutiful service dopwnstairs, so my parents bought a brand new computer from Evesham. That’s where the old one came from and where our newer AMD 1400 (upstairs) came from.
When it arrived, it didn’t work. I don’t mean it didn’t run a particular game quite as perfectly as I’d want, or it didn’t support a particular format of DVD. It was completely dead. The power light wasn’t even turned on.
So we ran the technical support and the Indian operator slowly guided us through the things we’d already tried. It was like a sketch from The IT Crowd. I’m quoting it here but I’m not sure what the best markup for dialogue is.
Support: Are you absolutely sure it is plugged in, Mr Millard? Me: Yes, I am absolutely sure. Support: Can you check the plug for me again, please? Me: OK…right, I’ve checked both ends and it’s definitely plugged in. Support: Sorry, I don’t understand…? Me: It is connected at both ends. Support: I’m sorry, what are you saying? Me: One end of the cable is plugged into the wall. The other end is plugged into the computer. It is definitely plugged in.
So eventually they realised we weren’t idiots and sent an engineer to us. A Polish guy not much older than me...in fact, unnervingly similar to a more stylish Eastern European version of me. He opened it up and decided to replace the motherboard and the power supply because he hadn’t seen that design of motherboard before. He got it working and realised in was an Intel motherboard, which he seemed very impressed by.