[olpc-help] I think my laptop is defective

Richard A. Smith richard at laptop.org
Tue Nov 25 02:49:39 EST 2008


Melanie Light wrote:


> Your suggestion that I find someone to help is excellent, but it took me 
> about 2 hours - I had to go through the onelaptop site which doesn't 
> address my issue, then find groups, sign up, etc.

Here's where you can help.  Suggestions on how this can be made easier 
are welcome.

> If I were a kid in the bush my guess is that I would have some grown-ups 
> who gave me the laptop who could show me how to use it. In addition
> to not having the computer work, not being able to find someone in a 
> timely fashion to help me is the source of a great deal of my frustration.
> My guess again is that if no one in the bush could get online to get 
> information about how to get online they would pretty much be stuck.
> My only saving grace is that I have another computer.

Ok.. I'm just trying to make clear that the deployments are much more 
structured than the environments that the G1G1 user has.  G1G1 users are 
the "worst case".  I want to reassure you that "in the bush" kids aren't 
sitting around waiting on wireless to work.

Plus for a child there are a great many things on the laptop that they 
can do that does not involve any connectivity at all.

We do have some wireless issues out in the deployments but they are 
opposite of yours.  Rather than no connectivity we have too much.  Most 
of our wireless problems are due to having too many XO's on wireless at 
once.   A class of 100 kids can completely swamp the wireless network if 
you aren't careful about how its managed.

> adaptable. However, I really do think this computer is defective.  I would
> like to know if I can return it or get another one.

Based on the info I've seen so far I don't think you have a hardware 
problem.  You have indicated that you can associate to your AP.  For 
this to happen a whole lot of wireless stuff has to work.  There's 
nothing special about web traffic that would make the hardware not work 
for http: data. So I think this is more of a software issue.

My first question is what version of the OS is currently on your XO?
You can tell by following instructions here:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_check_the_OS_and_firmware_versions

If you are not running 8.2 then thats step 1.  A great many wireless 
issues were fixed in the 8.2 release.

-- 
Richard Smith  <richard at laptop.org>
One Laptop Per Child


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