I had the power problem on my laptop fixed (sorted of), I offered the work to several companies.

Philips X53 CORE DUO T2050 80GB PC

• Two companies never replied to my email.
• One company declared they needed the laptop for at least 7-10 days.
• The final company reckoned I could have it back next day if I dropped it after 4pm (it would therefore be first in the queue the following morning!).

Reluctantly I popped out the Hard Drive (I’ve not had time to back it up and it contains a lot of customer data), and took it down to them.

The guy who would actually be working on it had a look at it and said he thought I’d need an entirely new DC socket and it would be 4-5 days minimum before I could get my machine back. Nevertheless I let them have it, and trundled off, safe in the knowledge that most of the data that I use daily is on my USB memory stick!

Surprisingly the next day I receive an answerphone message that my machine is ready for collection!

I get it home and trial it for an hour or two, seems fine but I do have it on a desk.

About 10pm I discover that a push upward on the cable still results in a power outage – Not Good!! I emailed them – slightly annoyed.

It took another 3 days to get a reply, they now need it in for an extended period of time to order an entirely new DC socket (why didn’t they take note of it when they were repairing it, that way they could just bring it in when they actually have the part!!).

I guess it’s time to backup the data and get it onto the old 17″ lappy, the little one is going to be out of action!