After having been my constant travel buddy and work companion for more than two years, my HP dv2518 Pavilion laptop (belonging to the dv2500 entertainment series), which I fondly nicknamed Pavi, surprisingly failed me. This happened the day after our evening plane trip from Manila. After unpacking my bags and arranging the stuff in my room, I excitedly opened my laptop and turned it on, only to be greeted by a blank black LCD screen staring back at me. It sure did boot up but the screen is just too dark. I can make out a silhouette of the Windows Vista login window, thus I can conclude that it was not the hard disk that was damaged.

I bought Pavi last June 2007 at IT City in Thailand and it has been my trusty work companion since then. It has also been with me on my trips here and abroad, whether they’re work-related or not. It has undergone through countless airport checks and x-ray machines already, thus I’m quite used to bringing it with me during my travels, safely kept in my laptop stroller bag.

When I found out its LCD screen refused to light up, I had so many questions running through my mind that time as I really cannot pinpoint what caused the damage. Could it be because I placed the laptop bag under the seat in front of me and our plane had a rough landing? Yup, that Cebu Pacific Air pilot gave us a startling jolt when we hit the ground, we felt like the plane was being dropped from the sky! It could have made the laptop jump from the floor and damaged the LCD. Or could it be that something heavy dropped on the laptop during that trip? Ugh. I thought it was just a temporary LCD screen failure, but the more I tried to turn it on and reset its power button, the more I realized I’m just wasting my efforts in a futile attempt to recover it. My mind was in a denial stage as I keep telling myself, “Noooo, it just can’t be so lifeless and unresponsive like that!”

Few days later, I brought Pavi to a computer repair shop. The technician attached the laptop to another LCD monitor and we saw the Windows Vista login prompt showing up. So my first guess was right, the hard disk was not damaged, and my precious files are still intact. The computer store manager suggested that I take Pavi to an authorized service center for HP, and I did. Too bad my laptop was not under warranty anymore, I shuddered at the thought of costly parts replacement.

I was hoping for a positive finding from the HP technician after leaving the unit for weeks as he ran some tests. Unfortunately, I was met with more disappointment as the technician gave his verdict – display controller is damaged, mainboard needs to be replaced. The cost of replacement was almost half the price of brand new laptops, clearly it was not a practical option for me. So I had no choice but to give up my laptop. Sigh.

Few hours later, I found myself surfing the web for a new laptop, as I sadly let go of Pavi.