But I know it won't be HP or Compaq!

The story starts a couple of months ago when I began to realize that my new computer (Compaq Presario, Athlon 64, 512 meg of RAM and Windows Vista) was slower than the computer it replaced (Compaq Presario, Celeron 2.53 GHz, 760 meg of RAM and Windows XP)! I did some research and discovered that Vista (MS bloatware that it is) really needs at least a gig of RAM and preferably two. So, I went to Fry's (where I bought the computer) and bought two 1 gig RAM sticks, brought the home and installed them. I marveled at how much faster and smoother it ran and puzzled that with the low cost of RAM, that HP would sell such a crippled computer!

My joy was short lived. Within a week, the computer started crashing unexpectedly. Since the only thing that I had changed was the RAM, I suspected that it may have been faulty, so I took it back to Fry's and had them check it out. They said that the RAM was good and that it was either the CPU or the motherboard. Here's where it gets really weird! HP wouldn't send Fry's a new mobo. Something about only HP techs are qualified or some such BS! So Fry's had to send the whole 'puter to HP with an estimated turn around time of 6 to 8 weeks!

Here's where I decided to never buy another HP computer again. After keeping it for a month and a half, HP sent the computer back to Fry's unfixed because it had non-HP RAM in it! They promised to send 2 GIG of official HP approved RAM sometime within a week!

My bet is that Fry's will install the HP RAM and find that it still doesn't work (remember they already tested the RAM that I installed and found it to be good) and we will be back to square one!

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson