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Most of this will be a rant about HP. In the meantime, try to guess the nature of the patterns.
There isn't a story to these images. I just got bored and decided I'd take photos of abstract patterns floating around the lab. While I was at it, I decided it would be fun to get some practice holding a remote hotshoe flash in my left hand while shooting with my right. This is extremely tiring, and would probably work a lot better with the XT.
Ok, so I said that I haven't posted in a while because I was busy. Partially true. The rest of it is that I don't have internet at home. (It's funny that whenever I say this, people look shocked and wonder what happened, if I'm in desperate financial straits, and so on.) In turn, the reason I don't have internet at home is that my tablet became ill on October 9. Get this, Windows Vista has a stability history utility that tells you exactly when the computer started performing poorly, ostensibly for troubleshooting reasons. It is not useful for troubleshooting.
In retrospect, it turns out that Vista SP2 is not really compatible with certain HP laptop BIOS, and the recommendation from HP is to reflash the BIOS before installing SP2. Well done, HP, since that fact is buried in a tech note, while SP2 is automatically installed by Windows Update. The technote goes on to say that, if you are one of the lucky few who still have a bootable computer after SP2 installs, you should reflash the BIOS and presumably pray to deity of choice. The computer booted and seemed fine for a day and then conked, probably permanently. It turns out that the most useful troubleshooting tool I've encountered is the motherboard, which after two weeks of this funky period completely failed to load the BIOS. When things fail like this, the motherboard flashes its lights in a pattern that indicates what the problem is (in this case BIOS). Well done.
So I called HP. Conveniently, this all happened one year and one month after I purchased the laptop, which is conveniently one month after the warranty expired. It turns out that if your warranty expires, not only will HP refuse to repair the laptop on warranty, HP will also not give you any technical support. However, for $49.99, you can purchase the right to tech support for 14 days. For $99.99, you can get tech support for a year. I asked the operator whether tech support would even be able to help me, given the hardware failure. She said I'd have to pay to find out.
I tried circumventing this by using HP tech chat instead. Here's the conversation. You can see how helpful it is. It's great because he's basically following an inflexible formula, which, frankly, a chat bot could carry out, but that's not his fault.
Vincent Auyeung : Laptop startup results in blank screen (no HP logo,
no windows logo) and blinking num lock and caps lock in 1-blink
pattern.
[An agent will be with you shortly.]
[You are now chatting with Arthur .]
Vincent Auyeung : Hi Arthur
Arthur : Welcome to HP Total Care for Notebook support. My name is Arthur.
Arthur : Hello Vincent.
Arthur : How are you?
Vincent Auyeung : I'm fine, thanks
Vincent Auyeung : I saw on the HP website that this blink pattern is
associated with CPU failure
Vincent Auyeung : can you confirm that?
Arthur : Good to know about you.
Arthur : We need to trouble shoot the problem before coming to a conclusion.
Vincent Auyeung : that sounds like an excellent plan
Vincent Auyeung : what do you propose to do?
Arthur : Vincent, you will perform the reseating of RAM modules and hard drive.
Vincent Auyeung : ok, I already attempted to reseat the RAM and hard drive
Arthur : Some times reseating the RAM and hard drive will resolve the problem.
Vincent Auyeung : that didn't fix the problem
Arthur : Good, I appreciate your efforts.
Vincent Auyeung : great! what's next?
Arthur : May I know the product and serial number of the Notebook on
which we are facing the problem.
Arthur : We can find the product and serial number on the rear panel
of the Notebook on a white bar coded sticker which is followed by P/n
and S/n.
Vincent Auyeung : ok, I actually don't have the notebook with me right now
Vincent Auyeung : because I can only access the internet at work
Vincent Auyeung : can I give you my customer care info?
Vincent Auyeung : the p/n and s/n should be there
Arthur : Vincent, please get back to us with serial and product numbers.
Arthur : If the Notebook is underwarranty , HP will go ahead and take
the Notebook for service.
Vincent Auyeung : it is off warranty
Vincent Auyeung : is there additional troubleshooting I can attempt
when I return home?
Arthur : Please check the status by connecting the Notebook to external monitor.
Vincent Auyeung : I've tried connecting it to an external monitor
Vincent Auyeung : the external monitor is also blank
Arthur : Okay. as you tried with all trouble shooting steps and issue
persists. It indicates there might be problem with the hard ware of
the Notebook.
Vincent Auyeung : I see
Arthur : And I recommend you to get back to us with the serial and
product number.
Vincent Auyeung : ok
Vincent Auyeung : how much does it cost to send the notebook to HP for
diagnosis/repair?
Arthur : It would cost you around $398.
Vincent Auyeung : ok, thanks for all your help. have a great day!!!!
Arthur : Pleasure is all mine.
Arthur : Is there anything else that I can assist you with today apart
from these?
Vincent Auyeung : Nope, goodbye.
Arthur : It is nice to assist such a friendly and wonderful customer
like you. May all the happiness always knock your doors…….
Arthur : take care, Vincent.
Arthur : Have a blessed time, ahead.
Arthur : Bye.
