cyrnel

Ignore my laptop comment. I have three dead ones on my bench. Sigh.

Doesn't sound like it's getting better. Too many failures after a restore/install. Does any old linux livecd work with the hardware? If it has troubles with that I'd run a memcheck. Before writing more to the disk. You could have dropouts that the POST isn't finding.

Or...

You have business insurance, right?

Set the system somewhat near a table edge. Leave a bit of your lunch on it.

Invite that cat you just adopted into the room.

Oops.

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There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195