Just took took my Dell laptop appart

[LowThudd]

Nice design actually. The only other laptop I've pulled appart was my AMS Tech that I bought in '98. The dell is a much better design. It has a really cool CPU/Video processor cooler. A flattened copper tube starting at the vid board and then across the CPU and then to a heat exchanger. I am surprised my AMS even functioned. It justr had a standard box fan on top of the CPU heat sink. No wonder the fan nakes a horrible noise and the fan guard melted. lol

And I found the culpret of the keyboard dieing. It appears some dumb .... was doing Mezcal shots to close to the comp and dumped a shot on the keyboard.

I didn't remember untill I saw the evaporation stains under the keys. That'll teach me. And booze goes no where near my acer...ever.

Now the question is, is it fixable? I have found the keybaords new for @$15. Since the comp powers up, I am assuming ther res is good. Don't see any stains on the motherboar, RAM, WLAN or anything else on the underside. I am pretty sure that the shot evapped quickly as it leaked past the keys. The keyboard is a lost cause obviously, so I'm gonna gamble that the comp guts are OK, and it is in need of a $15 part.

YEAA, I have two laptops. Gonna look for an IDE blue ray drive, a bigger hard drive and two 2gig sticks and get it happy again.

Probably gonna run Ubuntu on it to try it out. Might as well.

Great learning experience, and I love my new acer comp.

 

[foggy1]

sounds like your enjoying yourself.. wanna come north some and fix mine ?
shut it down (thru the start button) and went to work 2 years ago
it won't restart, tried different battery, power supply, no go
the little lites flash while pushing start button..thats it
it was less than 2 yrs old..HP Pressario 15-17 " Vista model
shop said possible mother board burn-out ?
said it would be too $$$ to fix, but I could donate..yea sure
oh hey, what is a Ubuntu ?

 

[LowThudd]

sounds like your enjoying yourself.. wanna come north some and fix mine ?
shut it down (thru the start button) and went to work 2 years ago
it won't restart, tried different battery, power supply, no go
the little lites flash while pushing start button..thats it
it was less than 2 yrs old..HP Pressario 15-17 " Vista model
shop said possible mother board burn-out ?
said it would be too $$$ to fix, but I could donate..yea sure
oh hey, what is a Ubuntu ?

Could be just the CPU is burnt out. Depending on who made it and when, you may be able to get a used/new one for not too much. But if it's more than a few years old I wouldn't bother. Worth a google search for parts for the particular model. You might be able to find all the parts for it online, like I just did for my dell. Parts-People - Dell Inspiron 1545 Laptop Repair Parts

Ubuntu is a Linux GUI. Like windows, but better. I haven't run it yet, but I think I will.

 

[LowThudd]

HP Compaq Presario Parts That was the first link that popped up on google. See if you can find your model number, and look for the parts. The copy and past the part number into google and look for a lower price. ebat is a good place to look for comp parts, but the cheap parts always come direct from china.

 

[LowThudd]

Ha! Thanks dude, you just made my day. I found a docking station for my dell for $25 at that link I posted for you. Glad you made me look.

 

[foggy1]

I just knew I was good for something, despite what my friends tell me
thank you for the link LT, I'll look into it
paid $800 for it 4 yrs ago, < 2 years use..
now I will learn from it...

 

[rogerdugans]

Laptops are.... interesting.
Side joke:
Want to know the best way to pay the most for a computer and get the least possible return?
Buy a laptop. (Slower, lesser and so on- the price you pay for portability.)

They are a pita to work on: little tiny screws of varying lengths that all have to go into the EXACT right hole or else.

But there IS a lot than can be replaced- keyboards are fairly cheap and easy- just be careful with the ribbon cable that connects to the motherboard. Those connectors sometimes pull off. There is usually a sliding portion with slightly raised edges that locks them into place. Pull that up gently and its out, slide the cable in and gently press down to lock it in again.

CPUs can often be upgraded too but some are soldered on the board and can not. Most full size laptops nowadays do not have soldered cpus, but most netbooks do. But finding a compatible cpu is more finicky than with most desktops- while an upgrade is possible, you may not find much of a speed boost is possible.

Many laptops have how-tos and suggestions for dis-assembly posted online- a search will often help out with some of the hard to figure out tricks with some models- hidden screws, clips and so on.

As for Ubuntu- yeah, a VERY popular linux distribution in recent years and pretty compatible with most hardware.
Somewhat different from Windows in many ways, most of which I find a good thing.

I'm pretty sure you can run it from a dvd/cd drive to try it out without installing it too.
I am not sure how windows 7 or Vista work with dual-booting linux, but I do know XP or earlier is easy. (I use linux exclusively so haven't messed with dual boot with windows in a long time.)

Nice thing about messing with an older laptop- if you can find parts they should be pretty cheap.

 

[LowThudd]

Laptops are.... interesting.
Side joke:
Want to know the best way to pay the most for a computer and get the least possible return?
Buy a laptop. (Slower, lesser and so on- the price you pay for portability.)

They are a pita to work on: little tiny screws of varying lengths that all have to go into the EXACT right hole or else.

But there IS a lot than can be replaced- keyboards are fairly cheap and easy- just be careful with the ribbon cable that connects to the motherboard. Those connectors sometimes pull off. There is usually a sliding portion with slightly raised edges that locks them into place. Pull that up gently and its out, slide the cable in and gently press down to lock it in again.

CPUs can often be upgraded too but some are soldered on the board and can not. Most full size laptops nowadays do not have soldered cpus, but most netbooks do. But finding a compatible cpu is more finicky than with most desktops- while an upgrade is possible, you may not find much of a speed boost is possible.

Many laptops have how-tos and suggestions for dis-assembly posted online- a search will often help out with some of the hard to figure out tricks with some models- hidden screws, clips and so on.

As for Ubuntu- yeah, a VERY popular linux distribution in recent years and pretty compatible with most hardware.
Somewhat different from Windows in many ways, most of which I find a good thing.

I'm pretty sure you can run it from a dvd/cd drive to try it out without installing it too.
I am not sure how windows 7 or Vista work with dual-booting linux, but I do know XP or earlier is easy. (I use linux exclusively so haven't messed with dual boot with windows in a long time.)

Nice thing about messing with an older laptop- if you can find parts they should be pretty cheap.

Actually, I got the keyboard out fairly easily. That clip is a little confusing though. This laptop is only a year old Dell, and there are TONS of parts available. I am thinking of running an SSD, and see what that does for it. Should unload the CPU a little running apps. The older laptops were expesive and slow. But these days, you end up paying about the same or MORE for a desktop w/ equivelent features. Unless you build it your self, in which case there is no comparison.