New computer saga continued

I did some troubleshooting and at this time I have no idea if my computer will crash again. I would like for it not to. I want to be done with this crap. I've been using the computer since I got out of class and so far it's been fine. But last night it performed properly for quite some time before crashing, so I don't know. I've tried one last batch of troubleshooting in Windows 7 and if the display driver ever crashes again, I'll contact HP or someone for help, because this is just too much for me. Anyway, as with the last post, I'm liable to cut myself off and end with, "Argh! It crashed again."

Now where was I? Well, I suppose I should point out that I initially suspected that Fry's was responsible for my problems. You see, I bought this computer off a shelf that had "manager's specials" or some such thing. It was there because it was the last of its exact model the store had. It looked like a pretty good deal. I didn't get the box, but I did get the UPC from the box, which I sent in for my rebate. Unlike everything else associated with this mess, that rebate worked quite smoothly by the way. I used to think of rebates as being all, "mail the blue form to this address in an envelope with your 50-digit code written on the inside of it, attach the red form to an albatross and release the bird to deliver it to our secret fortress, bring the green form to a crossroads and perform the ritual of the ancients, after which the rebate demon will appear and engage you in mortal combat..." but this was rather straightforward.

Anyway, in the envelope the stuff came in, aside from my power cord, rebate materials, receipt, remote control (I didn't even know computers had remote controls), battery, and whatever else, I also had some mysterious paperwork for some guy named Grant Smith. Initially, I thought this meant he had purchased my computer and returned it to the store. But there was a rebate receipt for him and it clearly showed that it was an entirely different model of computer he'd bought. I figured Fry's had accidentally put some stuff from this guy in the same package for my computer. No problem.

Well, after I finally got a clear picture of the sticker on the bottom of my computer (I don't have a camera and it has a glossy plastic protective sheet over the actual sticker that makes photographing the numbers difficult) and sent it to Arvato, someone there placed my order and I received a confirmation email. In the confirmation email, I found out that my upgrade would be sent to me. Well, my address anyway. And my phone number was there too. But my name? "Grant Smith." That's not my name! And then I remembered the junk in the envelope from Fry's. The plot thickens. I received a second email, again calling me "Grant." I checked the "track your order" feature and found my name there instead of this mystery person's name. So I called Arvato to ask about it, and ended up being on hold until I had to leave the house. I tried again the next day and, after explaining this oddity, was told to disregard the emails. Um, whatever.

And then I got a third email, again calling me "Grant." But when the discs finally arrived, the package did have my name on it. I still have no idea what happened and I don't really feel like contacting Fry's over this one, but it's definitely weird. I thought, "Whatever. I got my rebate and I got my upgrade and life is good." But there was still that one last problem...

Early on, I began to notice that sometimes the computer would crash for no reason. It was due to a display driver called "atikmdag." Sometimes I would get a blue screen and sometimes it would "recover" and after a minute or so everything would be back to normal. A couple of times I had to manually shut the computer down and turn it back on. But this was a Windows Vista issue. Soon I would have Windows 7. So I waited. I would have done a clean installation rather than the "upgrade" version that was recommended by the materials in my kit, but there was an error the first time around (easily corrected) and when I restarted and proceeded I just went with the recommended version of the installation. A few hours later, I was on my computer, everything seemed fine, and then...

That's right, the display driver crashed. A different display driver. This time it was "ATI Radeon Family." But the error was pretty similar. Worse, actually, because it would keep giving me a message that it had stopped responding and recovered over and over until I manually shut the computer down. After I installed some Windows updates, it seemed to go away, but then while typing the previous entry in this blog, the problem returned. This morning, it happened twice. But I did some troubleshooting thing and now I've been on the computer for over an hour with no sign of the problem. I seriously expected it to recur while I was typing this, just because (almost certainly by coincidence) it has happened a lot while I was using Blogger.

Man, this is too good to be true. I wish I had more time today to get this figured out, but I have work and then judo and then once I get home I have some homework that takes priority over this. Still, it would be nice to know for sure so that I could know whether or not to continue pursuing the issue. I guess if it's all better now, I'll know by the fact that nothing is happening. So, the computer saga is over?