After Christmas Present

December 30, 2021

The last few weeks, my laptop started dying. This was a big problem to me because I use my laptop for work. I had connected a keyboard and mouse to the laptop so I could work effectively. The keyboard on the laptop works fine, but the touchpad on it causes me all sorts of problems. I am always touching it by mistake and the curser moves to someplace it shouldn’t. I had lost work I was typing due to the random curser moves. Trying to work by using the laptop keyboard and touchpad just wasn’t feasible for me.

My level of frustration due to the USB ports not working kept rising. I would spend 15 to 45 minutes every morning trying to get the USB ports to recognize the keyboard, mouse, and my phone. I find tethering the phone with a cable for the hotspot works better than having it connect by Wi-Fi.

The laptop is 11 years old, so it having problems isn’t much of a surprise. It may have been a Windows patch that caused the problem. It just may be age. Since it was all the ports, and not just one, I believe it to be a software issue. I tried many things to get the laptop to recognize the USB ports consistently. No luck.

Bruce would hear my laptop beeping away as it told me it couldn’t recognize the devices plugged in the USB ports. Bruce asked me if I wanted a new machine and I said yes. He asked me what I wanted. I told him I didn’t need another laptop, that I wanted a computer that I could fit on my desk. I looked up the specs for memory and storage on the laptop because I did want more.

On Monday, Bruce did some shopping and found that most places were sold out of computers. They just had demo models out, but no computers to buy. He did find the Costco had some computers to buy, so after looking at the specs and the price, he decided it would do for me.

He came home and brought in the groceries; he was telling me about trying to find a computer to buy while putting away the groceries. I thought that he hadn’t been able to find one, which was his purpose. He wanted to draw out the surprise.

He went back out to the truck and I thought he was bring in more groceries. He brought in an enormous monitor, 24″x14.2″. That was my first clue that he had found a computer. He went back to the truck and came back with the computer. He then happily told me that Costco did have some computers on their shelves.

Bruce unboxed the computer while I watched. He wanted to set it up to make sure everything worked correctly. I told him to go ahead. I even helped get it set up.

Everything worked on the computer, so after I finished the workday, I remove the laptop, keyboard, and mouse from my desktop and made room for the PC on the desktop. I want to be able to access the USB ports on the front of the computer, so having it on the floor was not going to work.

Bruce turned off the PC and moved it for me.

I spent some time with my new computer and found an issue right off. It would connect to my phone hotspot using Wi-Fi, but wouldn’t connect when I tried to connect with a cable.

After much bad language on my part, I gave up trying to tether to my phone hotspot with the cable. The next day, I continued trying various searches to understand why my phone hotspot would not connect with the cable.

Someone on one forums mentioned getting the iPhone to connect without iTunes. This allowed me to do some additional searches. It turns out that Apple requires the install (or at least a partial install) of iTunes on the Windows OS to allow the connection to the iPhone hotspot with a cable.

When Bruce was trying out the computer, he just plugged in his Galaxy phone with a cable and he could use his hotspot without any additional installs.

I have my new machine up and running and I am loving it! The massive screen is a joy to use! I did connect my other monitor I was using with the laptop to the new computer.

Bruce seem to be considering replacing his monitors with new ones after seeing how nice my new monitor is. 😁