

Wanted: a XO heartbeat

So, I was a first day donor (bought online about two hours in) and finally got my XO this morning... and it is DOA! No lights, no power.

Like many of us, I've been reading the blog posts from folks who'd gotten theirs already, and I've been dying to get my hands on one. You can only imagine the horror as it slowly set in that I wasn't doing anything wrong, but that my XO was actually completely non-functional (no charge lights or power up or errors, no activity at all).

It turns out, to the best of my knowledge, that mine is the first brick that's been reported to OLPCNews. Not a distinction I'd like to have, but there it is. After the initial fury/disappointment, I remembered that this is a charity organization, and I started to understand why they were hesitant to sell to consumers in the US.

Understandably, they don't really have the infrastructure for consumer support since they're not a commercial organization, and the usual anger I'd have for tech- support on a bricked product melted away a bit at that thought, I felt a sort of peace.

I was on hold for about 50 minutes with OLPC support (the hold music is a 4 minute loop, but at least it's not Christmas music!), and got a volunteer that had me try the standard things (reseat the battery, power on without the ac adapter, etc), before taking my information and telling me that a technician would call me back at some point.

Due to the grass-roots nature of the project, I'm resigning myself to the fact that a replacement is most likely a long way off, and that it most likely won't be here before Christmas. But, it's about the kids anyways, right?

As long as the donated-half of my order gets there fine, I can wait a while. And considering that I'm the first report of a brick, they're still doing a pretty great job.

My XO is dead. Long live the XO!

If you think you can help Charles Hoey, then follow up with him in the OLPC News Forum