I isolated the lock ups to one peripheral, my Logitech Marble Mouse (trackball).

The reason I think it didn’t lock up until recently is that Windows released some Vista updates, and I am assuming that the updates made the “plug and play” features of the trackball (which works fine as “plug and play” in my office with XP, by the way) partially inoperable. Once I found the correct Vista update, and installed it, the lock up problem went away.

When I took the computer to Circuit City’s “Firedog” technical support company, they did not isolate this problem. The tech’s summation was, “you have a failing hard drive.” I ran out and bought a second, cheaper laptop computer later that day, getting ready for the eventuality that I would have some unfortunate down time while waiting for a new hard drive. Meanwhile, my original computer is working perfectly; in fact, faster and smoother than ever. As a result, I am planning to return the second computer, although I might have to suffer the indignity of a restocking charge as a result of this purchase due to misinformation.

Actually, the word is that Vista’s architecture is designed to be much more secure than XP. I just wish it were more stable.

I don’t know what experiences others have had with the Geek Squads and Firedogs out there, but I can tell you that Firedog is only suitable for routine maintenance and upgrades. They are very unreliable with troubleshooting.

http://geoff-caplan.com, email geoffcaplan@comcast.net