Thought my computer woes were over

Just fifteen days after delivery, my shiny new laptop has developed a hardware fault. It's the keyboard, to be precise. The number two key is buggered, not to put too fine a point on it. The first indication I had that anything was wrong, was when the system froze. Nothing unusual about a Windows machine freezing, I thought, so I rebooted. Horror of all horrors, my laptop started making a noise like a car alarm, and equally as loud. So I tried rebooting a couple more times to see if I could clear the problem.

Unable to resolve the issue, I called Acer's helpline. A gentleman called Jim identified the problem as soon as I turned the laptop on for him to hear it, a jammed key. All attempts to successfully unstick it failed. When unstuck, the noise stopped, but the key alternated between not responding at all, or jamming again, to produce an endless stream of twos. To my surprise, Acer immediately said they would replace the whole laptop, not just the keyboard, as the fault occurred within twenty eight days of purchase. I didn't have to beg, plead or wheedle, it's their policy, apparently. I'm just waiting for Comet to call back to arrange a date for the exchange now.

Luckily, the laptop is still operational, but every time I turn it on, it screams at me for about three minutes, until the motherboard decides to shut up. This delays its normally very fast boot time, and of course, the number two key doesn't work, which is somehow a very appropriate key, given the circumstances. Also, touching an adjacent key, such as W or Q can trigger off an endless stream of twos, so it's not fun to use right now. But at least I can get into the machine to copy all my data onto CDs and then erase all my personal stuff before I return it. I'm starting to think I'm cursed where computers are concerned.