Part I: Intro and Failure One

The zd7000 is a big, bulky mass of a laptop. Measuring 16 inches across and weighing in at 9.3 pounds, it is less a laptop, than a portable desktop. I purchased this clumsy beast in November of 2004. For an architecture student, it packed a lot of computing power into a generously student-reduced price. Aesthetically, it was less offensive than others, forgoing the flashy neon trim of the top of line Dell, and HP's industrial designers had apparently seen a Powerbook and many superficially minimal qualities from that laptop found there way onto the zd7000. But most importantly it performed well, at least for the first four months or so.

Now it can be debated whether what's come to be known as the "Black Screen of Death" is actually a design flaw of the zd7000 or just a statistically minor occurrence experienced by a few disgruntled customers. Though multiple internet users have reported similar symptoms - simply that the screen remains off, or black, while the rest of the computer turns on. Possible reasons for this malfunction range from the massive amounts of heat the laptop generates frying the motherboard to the geforce 5700 video card being unable to handle game playing. I find a certain measure of irony that the zd7000's most common error revolves around its two main selling points - the 17-inch screen and the laptop's self-declared status as a gaming machine.

What is indisputable though, is that this humble blogger's own zd7000 has a major design flaw. The BSoD first reared its ugly head in April 2005, four weeks before my final senior review. Not a good time to say the least, when two spare weeks to wait for repairs would have been impossible. After getting the black screen on six continuous restarts, the screen flickered to life on the seventh. That was the last time I restarted the computer for the next four weeks, part of my attempted workaround that also included keeping the lid open at all times so the computer would not go into sleep mode. If carrying a 9.3 lb laptop to and from school everyday is difficult, walking with an open portable desktop in your arms for four weeks is a major test of endurance.

Graduation passed and, at this point, HP performed as I had hoped they would. After explaining the problem to Technical Support, they immediately acknowledged the display issue and agreed to repair the laptop under warranty. Almost as if they were intimately familiar with the BSoD. While this probably should have worried me more than it did at the time, I was content to have a working computer. Nevertheless, two weeks later the repaired laptop returned to me, complete with replacement system board.