I agree that Mikel2 should take his computer back to where he got it. A computer ought to work for more than a few months.

But I have something to share about a computer that's long out of warranty. We went on vacation recently, and I turned the computer off completely (shut it down and hit the Big Red Switch.) Came back, turned it on, and nothing happened. I thought I was looking at a trip to the shop.

However, I have a friend who has an IBM service person for many years. Her advice was to 'unplug everything but the keyboard and the mouse and turn it back on.' My husband was skeptical, asking how he could tell what the computer was doing without the monitor.

Obviously not a musical man. I told him we would recognize the sound of Windows coming up, (La da ta da TUM tum) and if it did, the first thing we would re-connect would be the monitor. He looked dumbfounded at the idea of using ears instead of eyes to run a computer.

Just for good measure, we unplugged everything and left the puder off all night to rest its fevered circuits.

In time we followed the friend's advice, and the computer came up and is now working fine. No trip to the shop, no $ for repairs.

This procedure might help somebody else in the future.