When I called the Technical Support for the company that made the laptops, I was asked if I used the "Thump method" on them. Having worked with computers for years, I had never heard of the "Thump method". I told this to the person on the phone and he said, "As you are turning the laptop on, take your knuckle and just thump the laptop right over where the hard drive is." I tried this, and sure enough the laptop would boot up just fine. I thought this was a little unorthodoxed, but as long as it worked, I was ok with it.

Well about a month later, I was going to take a two week vacation. I explained to the Administrative staff that if the laptop freezes up while I am on vacation, try thumping it with your knuckle when you boot it up.

I came back from my two weeks vacation and the first thing I got was a call from the Admin shop saying, "Our laptop doesn't work." I asked him if he tried the "thump method". He said, "Yes! It worked for a couple of times but then it stopped working." I went over to the Admin shop and sure enough right next to the smashed laptop was a hammer. He said that his knuckles were getting sore, so he improvised. Needless to say the "Thump Method" wasn't going to work on this laptop anymore.