Go on Robbo, share your Dell experience. It will serve as a warning to others and might even by theraputic for you?! :diablo:

I’m not exactly sure what my biggest problem with Dell is because I have yet to understand anything that I conversed with them about during my entire purchasing experience (or should that be nightmare).

Judging by what others have already posted I think if my PC Dell 4700 breaks down then the best option for me will be to bin it and find another more reliable system! Or I could be really mean and go and retrieve my old system from my kids :dev2:

Incidentally, my old system was also a Dell, purchased in 1999, and I was very pleased with it and had very satisfactory service when buying it. I would have kept going with it but technology moved on and it wasn’t man enough for the job anymore.

Todays update………

Well, I’ve replaced my optic mouse with a good old bog standard Microsoft mouse and so far so good…….seems to be stable, early days yet though. I’ve connected it using the PS/2 port instead of the USB.

John, having recently purchased a new Dell you now have me very worried. You are not the only customer they have lost, I’ll never go to them again and I know a lot of others who feel the same. My dealings with them during the purchasing of my computer left me literally weeping with total frustration and despair. It’s hard enough trying to get your head around all the technical stuff you need to consider when buying a PC without struggling to understand what is being said to you supposedly in your own language.

Hmm Frank, you may be right in thinking that Dell is the problem, I wondered about this myself. However, nothing in the world will entice me to pick up the telephone and talk to them. Ordering the PC by phone was the most excrutiatingly painful thing I have had to do in a long while and I will never, ever buy Dell again. They used to have lovely helpful Irish people to talk to but not now. I simply could not understand the English? with a heavy accent that their telephone operators have and I was very angry with Dell for having put me in a position where I had to admit this to the person I was talking to. It was very uncomfortable.

Flood, is any of your kit Dell?

I’ll have a rake about and see what other mice I have kicking around and will have an experiment then report back – may take a day or two.

Thanks for the input so far. It’s nice to know I’m not alone in owning a ‘mad mouse’ and also that I’m not thick for not having been able to solve the infuriating problem.

Is the surface on which you use your mouse gloss? or is it glass? If so, yi will never work. In that case, use a mousemat. Also, they should be no hairs or such in the optics of the mouse.

Hi Frankvw, thanks for your reply. The mouse is only a week or two old (just a baby!) and I am using it on a mouse mat. I’ll have a good look for hairs etc in the optics next time I switch off just in case something has sneaked in there. Have also tried using mouse on different surfaces to see if it helps – it doesn’t.

Oh, I should also have mentioned in my original post that yes, I have considered it might be a virus but have scanned and scanned and found nothing. Also, from having read various posts after googling, it does appear to be a known XP issue (surprise surprise) but there does not seem to be a widely advertised fix for it anywhere that I can see.

Great programme, just one thing I picked up from the narrator, was the Halifax really as unreliable as he seemed to portray ?

Absolutely not, the Halifax was a most reliable and versatile aircraft, the man was speaking through a hole in his bomb bay :diablo:

Apart from that, it was a great programme. Can’t wait for next week. I sent in an application when they were looking for participants for the programme but I was too old 🙁 Looks like they picked a great bunch of recruits though, will be watching their progress with interest.

From Bomber Command Losses 1941 by W R Chorley

8/9 August 1941 op Kiel the following a/c were lost over Germany:
Whitley Z6815 ZA-?, 10 Sqdn, lost in target area
Hampden X3127 QR-?, 61 Sqdn, believed crashed near Kiel
Hampden AE263 QR-?, 61 Sqdn, lost without trace

Also on same night on op to Hamburg
Wellington T2625 GR-B, 301 Sqdn, crashed just inside German territory opposite Dutch town of Nieuwe Schans (Groningen).

15/16 September 1941 on op to Hamberg the following a/c lost over Germany:
Stirling N6021 LS-O, 15 Sqdn, crashed at Hemslingen, 13 km ESE of Rotenburg
Halifax L9503 TL-P, 35 Sqdn, you already have details for this one
Whitley Z6957, 51 Sqdn, two died and buried in Hamburg, no location for crash
Wellington X3205 AA-?, 75 Sqdn, crashed in target area
Wellington X9759 AA-?, 75 Sqdn, crashed near Hartenholm
Hampdon AE232 ZN-?, 106 Sqdn, crashed Wilhelmsberg
Wellington R1015 KX-L, 311 Sqdn, crashed Andervenne
Hampden AE249 UB-?, 455 Sqdn, crashed Winkeldorf

Isn’t that where the dinghy was stored?