New Laptop?

Lutz, Florida

A little while back, I was getting up from my chair with my laptop in my arms.  It was sitting on a laptop lap pad.  I tripped and both the laptop and pad fell flat to the floor.  I didn’t see any damage on the laptop and it was still working…thank goodness.   There are a  few black scuffs on the laptop pad, from the laptop, I guess.  It hit pretty hard but was sitting on the pad which has a thick pad. 

Lately, when I start up the laptop, the monitor won’t light up.  I can hear Windows opening up, so I know it’s just the monitor.  I have had to tap on the cover, open and close it a few times,  and mess with it a while before I can get the monitor to light up.

The good news is that I do have a Personal Articles Policy on the laptop and my camera.  Since my camera goes kayaking with me, I felt it was a good idea.  It’s very cheap, so I went ahead and bought the policy a couple years ago.    It would be covered if  the damage was caused by me dropping it.  I just don’t know how to know, or prove it.

So, my questions to you guys is:

Do you have any ideas on why the monitor doesn’t light up?  I have so far always gotten it to work, but it seems to be getting harder and harder.  Could it be any kind of driver?  Is there a way to check where it connects to the computer?

Do you think it could be the drop, even though there is no visible damage to the laptop?  It did land pretty hard, but was cushioned by the laptop pad.

Would a repair shop be able to determine the cause? 

Any ideas of where to take it?

I assume I will be buying a new laptop one way of the other, since  I cannot be without a laptop.

I would prefer the old style monitor.  The one with the matte screen verses the shiny new kind.  I love to sit outside and use the laptop and these new style screens just have too much glare.  I hate them.

Any suggestions for brands?  Processors?

I saw one online, with the icore processer 2nd generation, I think it was called.  What should I look for….specifically.  I know to get as much memory and hard drive as I can find.  Of course I want to keep the price down.  I prefer a 15 inch monitor.  I had one of the larger 17 inch screens (Toshiba) and hated it.  I always have the laptop in my lap and the extra weight made it very uncomfortable.  I want the numeric keypad and a cd/dvd burner.  I don’t care about anything else.  Or do I?  

I’m hoping for some suggestions, so I don’t have to spend a lot of time looking.

I have another question.  This time is about our Norcold refrigerator.

When we were traveling Wednesday, we kept the refrig on electric since we were using the generator for the air conditioning.

When the generator went off, I turned off the Norcold to stop it from beeping.  It beeps when it gets no LP or power.  I forgot to turn it back on for a few hours, and it might have been off 4-6 hours.  It wasn’t getting real cool, so we decided to defrost it, since it was pretty frosted up.  We thought maybe that was keeping it from cooling properly.  We did one side of the freezer at a time and turned it off when we did.  It seemed to take forever to get cool and is only now back in the upper 30’s.  I checked our Norcold manual and noted a step in the defrosting process that I hadn’t done.  It said to take the hose out of the little overflow cup in the back of the refrigerator and put it in a gallon bucket while defrosting it.  We didn’t do that, but we did put towels in the bottom to absorb the water.   Remember this is a brand new refrigerator.  We had a Dometic before and if this is normal for a Norcold, then I’m not impressed.  I know they take a long time to cool, but it was 48 hours!  Did the fact that we didn’t pull the drain hose cause this problem?  Al checked it last night and there wasn’t any water in the little cup behind the refrigerator.

 

Little no name kitten is doing just fine.  He seems to be getting more playful every day, which is not always good.  Last night he didn’t want to go to bed when we were ready, so he spent most of the night in the living room.  I worried about what kind of trouble he was getting into, but I think I have the place pretty well kitten proofed.