Thursday, July 15, 2010

New Laptop Keyboard

One day, about 4 weeks ago, I was doodling around on my computer while sitting at my dining room table.  I had a glass of water sitting next to my computer.  And then oops!  I spilled on the keyboard.  ACKK!  I panicked and turned the laptop upside down and started shaking it, trying to get all the water out.  Then I got out the can of air and blew and blew under the keys.
Then I cried.

Well, after all that, and rebooting, the 1,2, E,R,T,I,O,U,S and _- keys didn't work.  My DH says, "well, you can just use my external keyboard".  But what's the point in having a laptop that I can move all around the house if I have to attach a big ol' external keyboard to it?
So I say to myself, "I know what I'll do, I'll call the geek squad people at Best Buy.  They'll tell me what to do."

So I did.  I called and talked to geek #1 who told me that I had probably short circuited my keyboard and they would have to send it out to their lab to replace the keyboard because they can't do it at the store.  He said it would probably cost $80-100.  Well that's not so bad.  It's not as much as a new computer.

So the next morning, I take my computer up to Best Buy and speak to geek #2.  This guy says that there isn't anything he can do and I just need to either get a new laptop or an external keyboard.  So I tell him what geek#1 said on the phone the night before and he says that guy was wrong that it would probably cost several hundred dollars to send it to the lab and they still may not be able to fix it.  I almost strangled geek #2.
In my fit of anger, I decided to take my laptop to a locally owned computer store right around the corner who has a big ol' sign in the window that says "computer repair".  I talked to the geek guy there who is the computer technician.  He said it wouldn't be any problem to order me  a new keyboard and it would only take him about 15 minutes to pop out the old one and put in the new one.  He said the new keyboard would probably cost about $80 and would take them about a week or so to get in.  (sounds alot like geek #1 at Best Buy, eh?)

I tell technicial guy to PLEASE go ahead and order the keyboard and to please call me when he's ready for it.  I even offered to go ahead and pay.  He said he had to contact his other store in Longview (about 1 hours drive from this store in Tyler) and would call me with the price of the keyboard.  I said I would be happy to give him my credit card # over the phone to cover the keyboard cost.
I waited all day for his call.  Then I waited the next day.  Then I called him and he said they were still waiting for the Longview store to contact them with the price of the new keyboard and that he FOR SURE would call me as soon as they knew the price so it could be ordered.
That was at least 4 weeks ago.

So how did we fix my laptop since Best Buy and this other store didn't seem to want to help me with this really easy, quick fix??
I looked up how to change keyboards out on a Toshiba on the internet.  I found a site where they explained it in detail with pictures.  Then I ordered a new keyboard for $25 from guess where?  Amazon.com. 
I kid you not. 
My hubby changed out the keyboards in about 10 minutes.  Then he listed the old broken one on ebay for spare parts (yes we said it was broken but it didn't sell anyway).

I don't know what I could have done differently.  I practically begged 2 stores to do this quick easy fix.  From now on, I'm going to search the net for any problem that comes up instead of taking it to computer stores who don't seem to care about their customers and just want to sell new computers.

Here's a pic of my new keyboard on my laptop:
Nice huh?

1 comment:

  1. What a hassle! I have recently been through some technological drama myself! I dropped my cellphone in a bowl of cereal, spilled water all over my keyboard, and dropped my camera on the floor...all in one week! Glad you got your keyboard fixed!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks so much for reading my blog and leaving a comment. I read every comment and try to reply to most of them although it may take me a couple of days - I'm a bit slow.