My Computer Problem (Friday Five Edition)

I had a few days off last week and was going to write out the few posts that have been going around in my head, but then I had computer issues.

I had started writing a post last week and all the sudden the screen on my laptop started to flicker and I couldn't type or move my mouse.  The flickering lasted about 30 seconds and then I saw all of my typing and noticed that the mouse had moved.  That was weird.  Soon after it happened again, doing the same thing.  It was happening so often that I just had to turn it off.

Not the best picture, but you can see the lines at the top of the screen

Later I came back to it to try to do some troubleshooting.  No matter what I tried it just seemed to get worse.  I had the flickering on the screen while it was booting.

It even got so bad that almost the whole screen turned grey.

On Monday I took it to Apple's Genius Bar and they kept it to run some diagnostics.  They thought it might be the video card and because it was way out of warranty, I would have to pay to get that replaced.  Knowing the price of new MacBook Pros, paying to replace a video card is a lot cheaper.  When I got home, I realized that while I had done my taxes, I had not filed them and I had less than a week to do that.

On Tuesday they left a message to say that they had found the issue and I needed to call them back.  I planned on seeing if I could get my laptop back from them before they sent it out for service.  I called several times that evening and after being routed through the automated system it just rang and rang till I got a busy signal.  I just assumed that it was super busy at the store and they couldn't answer the phone.  But I was getting anxious as I needed my laptop back.

I finally got a hold of them on Wednesday.  They said it wasn't the video card, but the display itself.  They had ordered a new one and the repair would happen at the store.  They also said that there would not be any charge - Woot!  I didn't ask, but I assume that there might have been some sort of recall on it and that's why there was no charge.

I explained my predicament to him and he said that they had unplugged the display but they were unable to plug it back in.  I could come pick it up as long as I had an external monitor or HDMI cord and TV to hook it to.  I have a second monitor set up in my office, so that was no problem for me.  I stopped by the store after work and picked it up.

Yesterday I had my mom come over to look over my taxes.  She teaches taxes at a university here and I always have her double check mine, especially with big changes this year.  She said everything looked great and I was able to file them last night.

I will drop the laptop back off at the store today and hopefully the display will arrive soon.  Then I can sit down and type out the posts that I have in my head.  Thankfully I had a little time today to quickly type this up at work today.

I'm linking up with Fridays with Fairytales and Fitness and other healthy lifestyle bloggers.