Posted July 20, 200618 yr I have a column 1-2 pixels wide (depending on if I flex the monitor up or down a little) that doesn't display what it is suppose to. It's just blank. I was wondering what caused this and if it is fixable. My guess is that there's different wires regulating what is displayed in each column of pixels and that that column's wire has a short in it...I don't know. It wouldn't bother me so much if knew that it stops there but I have a friend that had a Dell and she said that it started off with one column then became two, then became three, then five, etc. I think the warranty on this computer was 1 year and I bought it a year and one month ago. It's an Acer. Last time I sent a computer in, it was my Sony Vaio and they wanted to charge me 700 dollars just to fix the power supply and if this is a similar case, I'm just buying a new one; it's not worth it, this is a cheaply made laptop anyway. I've changed parts in my computer before but when it comes to lcd monitors i'm clueless. Anyone know if it's a quick fix? Or am I $%^ed? My backspace key also just broke off, so I have to precisely hit the little rubber pad. This sucks. DONT BUY AN ACER!!!!
July 20, 200618 yr I have heard the same sentiment about Acer before. Get a Mac. If you are runing WinXP you can load it on the Mac legally. and before you start whining about how expensive Macs are.... Look at your Acer
July 20, 200618 yr No, I feel you, I mean with computers ...you basically get what you pay for. I've noticed a substantial difference in the quality of my Sony Vaio laptop and this one. Macs are great, but if I get a new laptop I don't know if I want to do that or get a PC and just dual-boot Linux and windows on it. What I really want to do is get another laptop regardless of this problem and if theres any way I can cheaply fix this monitor problem, upgrade the graphics card and run both monitors simultaneousy. That would be sweeeeet.
July 21, 200618 yr No, I feel you, I mean with computers ...you basically get what you pay for. I've noticed a substantial difference in the quality of my Sony Vaio laptop and this one. Macs are great, but if I get a new laptop I don't know if I want to do that or get a PC and just dual-boot Linux and windows on it. What I really want to do is get another laptop regardless of this problem and if theres any way I can cheaply fix this monitor problem, upgrade the graphics card and run both monitors simultaneousy. That would be sweeeeet. what type of monitor is it a crt / or flat panel? if its a crt(big ass monitor) then you can screw with it and maybe fix it if its a flat panle and the lcd are going bad i dont think their is anything you can do, but if you pm me you could build a computer and get a monitor that would last for a couple years with no problems. the key is building the thing yourself and getting good componites on every level but this can usally be done on the cheep, esp if you can get software from uc bookstore. for 1k you could build the equivilant computer of a dell that would cost you about 3k.
July 21, 200618 yr David it sounds like your LCD is going bad, it is called dead pixels and yes it does continue to get worse. If you had a warranty they would replace the LCD component in the laptop and not fix it. You might want to try checking out Laptop World by Tri-County Mall and see if they have an old Acer you can buy for cheap and swap out the LCD but I only recommend this if you are computer savy. I would suggest buying a Mac. If you are a student you qualify for the educational price and you could get a beautiful system for around $1000. I played the dual boot Linux/Windows thing, if you know Linux then you know that when you use Linux you end up spending most of your time getting it to work right. Sure it is fun when you are trying to learn a new OS but it gets really old trying to install RPM's to find out that the RPM (Red Hat Package Manager) is dependant on another 10 RPM's to get the one RPM to work. I always had problems with video. Mplayer would only work 50% of the time. Seriously with Mac, you have all the main software apps that you are used to unlike Linux. Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Quicktime, Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Quicken, Skype, AIM, Google Maps, etc... It is very true that once you go Mac, you won't go back. I switched last year and loved it so much I got rid of all my PC's. The great thing about the new Mac's if you find out you don't like it you can always use it for a Windows machine. That is because the new Mac's are x86 so you can run Linux on them too if you so desire. As someone who works with Solaris, Red Hat, Suse & Windows daily at work... I find Mac's to be superior in everyway. It is also UNIX based (FreeBSD) so you have full command line if you desire like Linux. Check out the new affordable MacBooks here: http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wo/0.RSLID?mco=A4791B5D&nclm=MacBook
July 21, 200618 yr It's a laptop; Acer Aspire. I'm not sure exactly what kind of monitor it is but it's the wide screen Xbright (or something similar...different brands call it something different but they're basically suppose to be twice the brightness and clarity of the older standard ones). When you say 1k for a 3k computer are you talking about buying components for a laptop or desktop? I really need a laptop for its portability.
July 21, 200618 yr David it sounds like your LCD is going bad, it is called dead pixels and yes it does continue to get worse. If you had a warranty they would replace the LCD component in the laptop and not fix it. You might want to try checking out Laptop World by Tri-County Mall and see if they have an old Acer you can buy for cheap and swap out the LCD but I only recommend this if you are computer savy. I would suggest buying a Mac. If you are a student you qualify for the educational price and you could get a beautiful system for around $1000. I played the dual boot Linux/Windows thing, if you know Linux then you know that when you use Linux you end up spending most of your time getting it to work right. Sure it is fun when you are trying to learn a new OS but it gets really old trying to install RPM's to find out that the RPM (Red Hat Package Manager) is dependant on another 10 RPM's to get the one RPM to work. I always had problems with video. Mplayer would only work 50% of the time. Seriously with Mac, you have all the main software apps that you are used to unlike Linux. Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Quicktime, Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Quicken, Skype, AIM, Google Maps, etc... It is very true that once you go Mac, you won't go back. I switched last year and loved it so much I got rid of all my PC's. The great thing about the new Mac's if you find out you don't like it you can always use it for a Windows machine. That is because the new Mac's are x86 so you can run Linux on them too if you so desire. As someone who works with Solaris, Red Hat, Suse & Windows daily at work... I find Mac's to be superior in everyway. It is also UNIX based (FreeBSD) so you have full command line if you desire like Linux. Check out the new affordable MacBooks here: http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wo/0.RSLID?mco=A4791B5D&nclm=MacBook Thanks. I might consider the mac...hopefully I can ride this computer out a little longer so that I can come up with the money. How big of a discount do they offer students, do you know?
July 21, 200618 yr Another nice thing about a Mac, you can take it to the Genius Bar at the Apple Store in Kenwood Mall and they will answer your questions for free. They also have free workshops, I have been to two of them so far. See there free workshop schedule here: http://www.apple.com/retail/kenwood/week/20060716.html Ask to speak to Pez Whitson when you go, he is the assistant Store Manager and is pretty level headed and can answer your own questions. For the educational rate, make sure you bring some form of school ID, if you don't have one bring something in on school letterhead and they will usually honor it. The educational deal is usally over $100 cheaper and the extended warranty is much cheaper too. Good Luck.
July 21, 200618 yr You should check out the new sles linux desktop 10.1, its the best linux os I have seen yet. once you install it you will have everything you need. If you get the novell edition then they have a tweeked version of Open Office thats IMHO is better the Microsoft Office.
July 21, 200618 yr It's a laptop; Acer Aspire. I'm not sure exactly what kind of monitor it is but it's the wide screen Xbright (or something similar...different brands call it something different but they're basically suppose to be twice the brightness and clarity of the older standard ones). When you say 1k for a 3k computer are you talking about buying components for a laptop or desktop? I really need a laptop for its portability. I was talking about a desktop
July 21, 200618 yr You should check out the new sles linux desktop 10.1, its the best linux os I have seen yet. once you install it you will have everything you need. If you get the novell edition then they have a tweeked version of Open Office thats IMHO is better the Microsoft Office. Yeah I have the CDs to load all that. You're right, OpenOffice is 10x better. And it's free. You can't beat free.
July 21, 200618 yr But it is not 10X better because sadly it isn't Office. MS Office is the standard, so if you use an office suite that is not compatible then you will run into problems. Given the nature of my job, I used to use Linux at work and ran into problems left and right. While Open Office will open and save a word doc, it doesn't handle bullets & tabs very well. I spent a couple of days working on documentation in Open Office a while back and passed it on to my boss who opened it in Word and it was all screwed up - that was the last time I tryed to use Linux in the corporate environment for a desktop OS. The great thing about Mac, is that you have access to Microsoft Office for Mac. I got my hands on an old Mac from the IT department and can do everything a Windows box can do with no problems. The only issue I have ever run into was trying to open a visio document. The work around for that is to use OmniGraffle Professional. Now I agree, Open Office is a great application but when you are working in a Windows world you have to bow down in certain situations. I feel MS Office is more powerful than the Windows OS in the corporate world. These corporations have so many documents, spreadsheets and powerpoint slides that they don't want to lose so having an application that can open them is crucial. Feel free to check out http://www.mactopia.com for more information on Microsoft apps on the Mac. It is actually a Microsoft site.
July 21, 200618 yr check out the newest version of open office, it doesnt have those bugs and aslong as you set the defaults to save in the same file format that microsoft uses you will be fine creating documents that can be opened up with microsofts version.
July 21, 200618 yr gaslight, I still have a place in my heart for Linux but I have since moved on to Mac and have been quite happy. I am glad to hear Linux making ground, more and more pressure on Microsoft is a good thing. For those interested here is a good thread on the Mac market share gain that came out today. http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=218113
July 21, 200618 yr I do love the new mac commercials :-D esp when the bill gates looking guys just falls over (crashes)
July 21, 200618 yr Apple has frequently been in the top 5 of computer makers. Consumer Reports usually has them 1st in least repairs & best customer support The weird thing about their overall market share is that they sell more computers at <5% market share than they did back when they had 99% market share. :-) That being said. The one thing I cannot get to run on Fedora Core 4 (that really bugs me) is Adobe Acrobat Reader. Anybody else have any luck with that one ?
July 21, 200618 yr Yep never had any problems getting Acrobat Reader to run on Fedora 4. Is your problem the browser plugin or the application itself? The nice thing about Suse, is that it comes with Acrobat Reader, Macromedia Flash & mp3 enabled out of the box unlike Fedora. While I know how to get all these applications working, it got old reinstalling these apps and their plugins after every upgrade (Install of the next release).
August 1, 200618 yr video of suse10.1 with xgl, the cube stuff is cool but might get old quick :wave:
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