Jan 31, 2006

My computer is insane and wants to die

I just restarted my computer 18 times (maybe more than that), and the monitor never kicked in. The power's on, but nobody's home.

So I figured, maybe I have a dead monitor. Time to test it with another computer. I dragged out my ancient Windows 98 machine and hooked it up. The monitor worked, but it looked pixellated and weird. I began to hope that my problem truly is JUST that I need a new monitor. Replacing a monitor is easy. Replacing my computer would be a huge chore, because it has a ton of stuff on it that I don't want to lose in the transfer.

I hooked the monitor back to my newer computer . . . and lo, it worked fine. It was as if nothing was wrong at all.

You might say, "Well, Abby, maybe your monitor wasn't hooked up properly the first time." But you'd be wrong! Because this blank monitor is a recurring problem that's been happening AT RANDOM for the last half a year. Every once in a while--usually when I plug or unplug a USB device--the monitor goes blank. It's been happening more and more frequently. At first, it only happened once a month or so. Now it's very common, and sometimes the monitor won't work on start-up.

You might say, "Well, Abby, maybe you just have a bad video card." But you'd probably be wrong again! Because I've replaced my video card TWICE in the last year or so. If it's gone bad a third time, that's just not fair. Not fair, I say.

So . . . what do you think I should do? Buy a new monitor? Or bite the bullet and buy a new computer, even though I'd rather wait to do that? Please, if you're reading this and you know stuff about computers, I beg you for advice!

Thank you and good night.