mightly toaster wings

[melannen]

I am writing this entry on my laptop. That might not seem like it's worth an entry -- after all, I have had this laptop several months -- until you take into account that last night, I finally got sufficiently frustrated that I decided to disassemble it.

Simply taking the cover off a laptop should not be an all-night job requiring several dozen tools. Yes, I see the point in trying to keep people (like me) who don't know what they're doing from idly taking it apart, but a bit of advice to any evil engineers out there? Once a tinkerer has spent time and sweat taking out the two dozen *visible* screws, and superglued and drilled out the stripped ones, she's *not* going to just give up because she can't find the rest of the screws: at that point it's me vs. them, and I'm going to win if it requires a *sledgehammer*. So I finally found the hidden screws (and hey, the keyboard needed cleaning anyway) and got it apart.

Mind you, I'm pretty sure I didn't fix whatever was wrong, but this was less a matter of "ooh, maybe I could fix it" than "ooh, it's sufficiently broken that I can't possibly break it any worse, I get to tinker!" So now I know what the inside of a laptop looks like. Mom & sister both agree that I should have just bought new batteries or taken it in for repair. But seeing as how I could buy another one for less than $150, it didn't seem worth it: so I look at it this way: waste time, hassle and money trying to get somebody else to fix it/get replacement parts, which probably won't work anyway, or waste the time and hassle having fun and learning things instead.

Also, I am of the brute force school of electronics repair: if it doesn't work, smack it really hard; if that doesn't fix it, turn it off and turn it back on; if that doesn't fix it, take it apart and put it back together; and if *that* doesn't fix it, you've probably messed it up so badly by now that it's not worth fixing anymore anyway.

Although I shocked myself by not messing it up too bad. There's only one extra piece and one missing piece, and it still works! The fan hasn't come on yet, though, (I'm using icepacks as a stop-gap) and it won't make any sound, so I'll probably open it up again and poke at those (I've only put about a fourth of the screws back in.) I don't think I fixed the main problem-- but even getting at the thing that seems to have the loose connection would have required dealing with another dozen or so ecdysiast screws, which was totally not worth the trouble, and just shaking it up does seem to have it working mildly better. While I was at it, however, I cleaned the keyboard out, put a coat of nail polish over the clit mouse, which had been getting scrapy on top, and trimmed and spliced the fraying, melting power cord. (Yes, I may get electrocuted at any point: however, considering that the other day I found myself so frustrated that I was chewing on the end of it-- *while the other end was plugged into the wall socket* -- I think it was worth the risk.)

Anyway, that was my day yesterday.

Comments

[aurora77]

Opening stuff up and tinkering with it is fun, unless it's your new PS2 that fell out of a ripped bag and stopped working. At that point, it gets a little stressful. But otherwise it's fun. ^_^

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Heh. That would be why I often prefer old used stuff, since I know I'm going to break it eventually anyway, and I don't need the stress.

[zodiaccat.livejournal.com]

PS2's insides are not very complicated, but there's a certain amount of "argh" involved with getting into a position where you see them.

Hope you got it working/replaced. XD

[melsmarsh.livejournal.com]

Also, I am of the brute force school of electronics repair: if it doesn't work, smack it really hard; if that doesn't fix it, turn it off and turn it back on; if that doesn't fix it, take it apart and put it back together; and if *that* doesn't fix it, you've probably messed it up so badly by now that it's not worth fixing anymore anyway.

I like you. You are funny!

[melannen.livejournal.com]

It's funny because it's true!

[katrianya.livejournal.com]

Were you there the day Mike had obtained a laptop at crew that had a password on it and we spent the night disassembling every little piece that pulled apart in an effort to disconnect power from whatever batteries the thing might have to whatever might be storing the password? I believe we were only armed with a knife and a screwdriver or two...

[speakerender.livejournal.com]

I remember that!

[melannen.livejournal.com]

No, I wasn't-- this was the first time I've been inside a laptop. Wow, did it work? I would never have expected it to...

[katrianya.livejournal.com]

yeah, it actually did work. we had everything apart and somehow managed to actually seperate whatever from all of its power sources and put it back together sucessfully and everything worked. speakerender-this was my jr or sr year, mike was a bus driver, you happened to be visiting this day?

[aelkiss.livejournal.com]

Also, I am of the brute force school of electronics repair: if it doesn't work, smack it really hard; if that doesn't fix it, turn it off and turn it back on; if that doesn't fix it, take it apart and put it back together; and if *that* doesn't fix it, you've probably messed it up so badly by now that it's not worth fixing anymore anyway.

The funny thing is that despite being a CS major who might in theory know a teeny-tiny bit about electronics, this is more or less my strategy too.. although if I'm lucky, I might be able to point out the burnt bits..

If it makes you feel any better, my shiny PowerBook now has a nice dent in the case, and I don't think the headphone output works quite right.. probably a side-effect of failing to properly account for inertia and angular momentum and all that fun stuff. Luckily the screen isn't broken (yet).. I should see what all my warranty actually covers, and perhaps pony up the $30/year to insure it if "ignorance of physics" isn't covered.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, that's about where I am, too. Hey, I'm firmly of the opinion that computers are more scared of us that we are of them.

I'm shocked I haven't managed to mess up the screen on this one yet...

[aelkiss.livejournal.com]

The last laptop I had before that one was a cute little Sony Vaio (about the same specs as that one but only 64 megs of RAM, though it probably could have been upgraded) - I bought it used from a friend, but the screen randomly decided to break after about 6 weeks. My dad and I managed to take the screen off, after which it worked fairly well hooked up to an external monitor. Computers are silly..