Nibblenstein!!!!
It took a couple tries, but I installed all the new parts that the awesome guy from Dell sent, in an effort to make this laptop usable again. Opening it up was almost as tedious as the dashboard on my old Celebrity station wagon… but since it didn’t immediately work after I closed it up the first time (no power), I went back in and checked everything, eMailed the guy from Dell and then went in again and replaced the motherboard a second time. So, I’m pretty familiar with the process, now. The second time went way better than the first, it booted up and I installed a fresh windows installation. I made the mistake of saving the anti-virus for last, though, so I don’t know which sketchy old install that nasty little virus came from. It’s all gone, now. It wasn’t too hard to track down once I ran one deep scan. The verdict? Nibbler is much quieter and hasn’t had any “heart attacks” with the new hardware. Neil the Dell guy definitely rocks for “owning the problem.” Now I’ve gotta figure out which box all this stuff that has to be sent back goes in and how soon I can get DHL here to pick it up.
woot