When I saw this picture of the Fanatec heäd$h0t mouse/mousepad combo, I first thought it was a parody.

I couldn’t figure out whether this description from Crunchgear was inspired satire or straight-up rave-up:

[T]his mouse is designed for gamers with OCD and is comprised of the mouse, the mousing surface (mousepad), and an arch to hold your mouse cable. The base itself is a two-port powered USB hub, which means it needs an AC adapter.

[,,,]

All in all the mousing action is really smooth thanks to the mouse + mousepad combination, and is a great deal for $100. If not for the fact that we already have a few Logitech gaming mice sitting around here, we’d pick up one of these in a heartbeat. But if you don’t like making your desk look like the Joel Schumacher Lego Batman Starter Set, this may be a bit garish for you.

And then I looked at the folks who run Crunchgear (be sure to scroll down). Ah. Now I understand.

Thanks to everyone who played along in yesterday’s troubleshooting quiz.

The consensus answer was correct: My video card had come loose and needed reseating in its slot.

Clue number 1 was the complete absence of display on the screen. That could have meant that the monitor(s) had become unplugged, but the power lights were still on, so that clearly wasn’t it. Any kind of software failure or a corrupted hard disk would have allowed the Power-On Self Test routine to appear on screen before failing.

It had been a warm day, so I considered the possibility that the machine had overheated. But if that were the case I would have known it, because the fans would have been working overtime right before the failure. And the fact that it didn’t restart even after a proper cooling-down period ruled that out.

Memory errors? Those usually result in visible failures – random crashes and misleading error messages. I wouldn’t expect bad RAM to shut down the whole video subsystem.

That left two options: Motherboard failure (bad) or problem with video card (not so bad). I strongly suspected the video card because of the three beep tones. This is an Intel board, as I pointed out obliquely in the description of the problem. I turned to a handy list of error messages associated with each beep code on this machine. (If you have a different BIOS, visit that page and follow the links in the sidebar.) Three beeps – one long, two short – means a video adapter problem.

I unplugged both monitors, removed the PCI-e video card, visually inspected it to make sure nothing was obviously wrong, and reseated it in its slot. When I turned the computer back on, I had a signal to both displays again. If this step hadn’t worked, the next option would have been to try another video card.

So, how does a card come loose in the first place? Well, this machine has been jostled around a fair amount in the past few months as I’ve swapped out various components (network cards, hard drives, TV tuners) while testing Windows Vista. In all that moving, I never fiddled with the video card. But it obviously had come loose enough (a micron here, a micron there, pretty soon you’re up to half a millimeter) that one slight motion did it in.

Props to Carl, who was first to suggest this solution.

No prizes this time, but next time I’ll give away a book or two and make the challenge a little tougher.

Ah, the joys of hardware!

Last night, as I was reaching the end of the first shift (5:00PM, which is followed by a dinner break and then the second shift – ah, the joys of writing books about beta software), my computer screen suddenly went black. A second earlier, I had a half-dozen apps open, and then … nothing.

After trying in vain to make something reappear on the screen, I pressed the power switch, held it down for five seconds, and waited as the computer restarted. This time I heard, from inside the case, three faint beeps. Nothing appeared on the screen, however. And I mean nothing. No BIOS messages, no Intel logo, no prompts from a storage adapter … nothing.

I took the cover off the computer, powered it on again, and checked inside. Everything looked normal. All fans were working, I could hear chattering noises from each hard drive at startup, and nothing was emitting smoke.

Eventually, I solved the problem. What troubleshooting did I have to do, and what was the solution?

All the information you need is in the post above.

Update: I have two monitors attached to this system. Both went black at precisely the same time, and the power light remained on for each one. So no, the solution wasn’t as simple as plugging in the monitor.

There have been some good comments so far. The correct answer might even be in there already. I’m going to leave comments open for the rest of the day to give working folks (especially those who can’t check this site during the workday) a chance to take a crack at it.

Update #2: This is not the same computer that experienced memory problems a few weeks ago. That was a Dell server. This is a desktop machine that was built by Mwave in August 2005.

OK, here’s the answer.

Who knew that Macs have their own Blue Screen of Death? 

Update 24-Jan-2010: The Customer Advocate e-mail address mentioned later in this post has been discontinued. However, Dell still accepts comments from customers and will act on them in timely fashion. If you’ve been through the regular support channels and things aren’t working, go to the Outstanding Issues page and fill in the form. This is not a first-line support alias. You’ll need a case or reference number.

It looks like Dell has officially launched its Cluefulness 2.0 program. I got wind of the pilot program last April when I received an unsolicited phone call from a Dell support executive over a horrible support experience I had had. My issue had eventually been resolved, but it had left a bad taste in my mouth.

In the past few days, I’ve seen more signs that Dell is figuring out how to find unhappy customers and try to make things right. This November 2004 post, Memo to Dell CEO Kevin Rollins, turns up at #1 on the Google search results if you look for Kevin Rollins email address. As a result, the comments section has grown into an impressive collection of complaints about Dell service and support. Last week, a Dell employee named Richard added this comment to the thread:

Ed, we are reading comments like this. In fact, we have a specialized team that reaches out to fix individual customer issues, and then goes back to look at where we made mistakes internally. We arent where we want to be yet, but we will get there. Just in last few quarters we have committed over $150 million to improving customer service, recognizing publicly that we had let issues like these get away from us. We have hired more staff, opened new support sites, retrained staff and are very focused on regaining our leadership by solving the custtomer issues the first time they call.

They’ve even gotten some grudging praise from Jeff Jarvis (here and here), whose foray into Dell Hell has been well documented.

And today I got a personal e-mail message from the same executive who contacted me last April:

I want you to let us know if there are any customers in need on your blog.  Our outreach team will be glad to help them as quickly as possible.  They are some of our very best people and are ready to help.  Their email address is Customer_Advocate@dell.com. 

I would be glad if you shared this email on your blog for any in need.

Consider it done. I’m nearly ready to purchase a new PC, and Dell has made it back onto the short list.