Hittring the Fan...

Well...

Yeah, here we go.  I knew I shouldn't have made that Nixie Pixel/Open Source joke...  The Gnu Gods were displeased...

Was getting ready to head out this afternoon to do some running, and thought to take the T60 with me to do some tests with public wifi spots.  When I picked it up, I noticed the battery light was yellow and blinking quickly.  Thinking this might not be a good thing, I kicked it out of Suspend and checked.  The battery indicator icon in Ubuntu looked like it was charging, and I thought maybe it had been accidentally unplugged or something.  But when I clicked on the icon for information, I was informed that the battery was not installed.

Oh yeah...

This lead to general panic and checking, and nothing seeming to be wrong, but all the indicators showing nothing to be right...  I finally did a boot test off the battery alone.  The machine booted and ran fine, but the icon appeared to show the battery completely dead.  And, when I clicked on the icon, I was informed that the battery was not present...

The obligatory desperate Google check showed a possible problem, a need to upgrade the BIOS.  Great, save that all the BIOS upgrade jiggerypokery involves having Windows installed on the system.  Uh huh...  A further check showed a possible Linux-centric workaround, but involving having a bunch of things I don't have, along with a level of patience I'm lacking at the moment.

'Course, it could just be that the $20 eBay special battery just gave up the ghost a little early.  Or maybe there's a problem with the slightly more expensive eBay special power adaptor...  Or...  Etc., etc., ad nauseum.

I finally did the all-too-easy, but probably smartest thing for me to do.  I dropped the laptop off at the little computer shop across the river.  Of course, they were going to have to wait on their "Ubuntu guy" to come in (???), and it might be this evening, or it might be tomorrow, before they could get 'round to it...

So, no word so far.  I think we're pretty close to closing time for them, so they'll have me sitting on their doorstep tomorrow, fairly early.  I miss my new favorite laptop.

Right now, I'm on the Toshiba.  May get the MBP out this evening, to have something smaller to tote round the house.

In a word, phooey.  This has not been a good week at all...