Just broke a customer's laptop...

[dood]

Guess I was due to make a mistake. Was disassembling a customer's laptop and the antenna wires caught on the case as I lifted the hinges out of the lower shell. The shell picked up and swung off the desk, and I lost my grip on the screen, and dropped it. Fell on its back, but it was enough to put a nice diagonal crack across the screen.

17" screen... $90 out of pocket. Guess I should make sure that I can fix what it originally came here for before I order the screen, but I'm almost certain the original problem was old dried up CPU paste that wasn't replaced by the last place that diagnosed it.

Ugh. Just not my day today.

[dood]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

Yep, that's not working so good.

[ratdude747]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

too bad it is a large widescreen...otherwise I would have a panel to fit your needs... (from a dead HP nc6000). (OT- I wonder if that panel has value)

don't feel too bad... all but 3 of my prior working laptops have died from smashed screens caused by falling on the back...out of those, only one was ever fixed. out of the 3 survivors, two were magnesium bodied Dell latitudes, and the third was lucky enough to have been bought after I stopped being quite as clumsy.

[dood]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

Was just thinking about it, and I think I'm going to go ahead and order the screen so that it's on the way. Chances are, I'll be able to fix the laptop anyway.

[Topcat]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

I'd be lying if I said I never hosed a customer board.... it's the nature of this imperfect world we live in.

[mockingbird]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

Once I was working on an Acer laptop with an "InsydeH2O" (Weird phoenix hybrid) bios. I routinely flash BIOS on computers to keep them up to date. This time, however, Acer's utility locked up the keyboard and mouse and failed to flash.

Not a big deal I thought. Insyde BIOS have recovery through the use of CDs. Guess what? Laptop is completely dead! No power whatsoever. I don't know how Acer did this, but some chip on the motherboard will not allow current to pass through if there is a corrupted BIOS. No lights even with adapter plugged in.

$100 later, everything was working. Still have that motherboard. Maybe I'll ship out the BIOS chip one day to get re-programmed.

[b700029]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

Once I was working on an Acer laptop with an "InsydeH2O" (Weird phoenix hybrid) bios. I routinely flash BIOS on computers to keep them up to date. This time, however, Acer's utility locked up the keyboard and mouse and failed to flash.

Not a big deal I thought. Insyde BIOS have recovery through the use of CDs. Guess what? Laptop is completely dead! No power whatsoever. I don't know how Acer did this, but some chip on the motherboard will not allow current to pass through if there is a corrupted BIOS. No lights even with adapter plugged in.

$100 later, everything was working. Still have that motherboard. Maybe I'll ship out the BIOS chip one day to get re-programmed.

That sounds more like the EC (embedded controller) flash got corrupted. The EC is what controls system power, the indicator lights, and the keyboard.

[stevo1210]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

Guess it's part of fixing things for people to accidentally break one or two every now and again :P

Now... this happened 3 days ago when a client came in to get the old cracked LCD replaced. She bought a white LCD + digitiser in so I could put it in... but it got caught on the screen cable as I pushed it in and this is what happened.



$36 later (out of my own pocket) and this was the end result.

[ratdude747]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

It is like baseball... even those with the best batting averages do occasionally slip up and get a strike out... or in american football when the best QBs accidentally throw a pick-6 (interception plus defensive touchdown). Sometimes, you just screw up.

[mockingbird]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

What are solder barrels for? I was unsoldering a broken audio jack and the jack came out with this cylindrical copper-colored thing around the pins. The new jack I put in didn't work at all. I'm thinking those barrels actually did something.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

What are solder barrels for?

Uh, weren't those the vias in the board?

[c_hegge]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

I've accidentally damaged stuff lots of times in the past. Once I was trying to test an nVidia GF 7950GT I had just re-capped for a customer. It was working until I bumped it, which fried the card.

[digge]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

I would have a look at the back of the display and look for manufacturer/model. Most of the time you can buy the same display for roughly half price compared to buying from the laptop manufacturer.

[Ami Sapphire]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

I was fixing a Dell XPS M1530 laptop which had a cracked right hinge, a ruined WIFI antenna, a locked BIOS, a dying hard drive, a recessed left touchpad button, and a filthy keyboard with one missing key. Yeah, what I heard from the customer was that someone sat on the computer. (And somehow did not damage the screen!)

I fixed most of those problems then. Then I decided to clean the keyboard. While doing so, I cracked two keys' hinges, and the result was that they were unusable. That was only $7.50 total to replace them, including the missing key. Nothing compared to the rest of the thread. I, however, almost overheated the laptop in more that one occasion while working on it.

[dood]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

I would have a look at the back of the display and look for manufacturer/model. Most of the time you can buy the same display for roughly half price compared to buying from the laptop manufacturer.

I've never ordered a screen from the laptop manufacturer... Always grab one off eBay from some importer in NYC.

[smason]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

What are solder barrels for? I was unsoldering a broken audio jack and the jack came out with this cylindrical copper-colored thing around the pins. The new jack I put in didn't work at all. I'm thinking those barrels actually did something.

Thru-hole plating?

[ratdude747]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

What are solder barrels for? I was unsoldering a broken audio jack and the jack came out with this cylindrical copper-colored thing around the pins. The new jack I put in didn't work at all. I'm thinking those barrels actually did something.

Uh, weren't those the vias in the board?

yes.

rip the entire hole liner out like that and you can kiss that part of the PCB goodbye...

what happens is after drilling and before etching, they plate the vias and through holes with copper... then they etch the board... that "barrel" was essentially a trace.

the reason for this is that is a few things:

1. stronger though-hole joint (copper to copper is stronger than copper to solder)

2. solder has a relatively high resistance compared to copper and other trace materials.. increasing the surface are of the copper reduces this effect.

3. getting solder to reliably wick to such thin traces on the inner and top layers of the board is difficult, especially when boards are mass produced in a wave solder process... the plating ensure all layers have a good connection to the component lead.

[mockingbird]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

Thanks for the info...

In retrospect, what I should have done, with my limited equipment, is take the cover off the jack and solder some wire to the jack contacts or even run the wire from the jack leads underneat to a female jack routed outside the case...

Oh well. Hindsight is 20/20.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

friends sons ipod touch 4th generation.

Was going by youtube video, heat, cut the glue, take off. easy (well mostly easy, even with a phone pry tool). Taking off the metal plate that sits ontop of the motherboard, when for some reason, THIS ipod touch 4th generation has glue keeping them together, not something shows in the video. pulled the board up, snapped the ribbon cable hooking to the buttons on the side. Ok mybe I could replace THAT. Didn't realize in the cursings of mine that the power connector from the battery (actually it looks like a ferrite filter that sits next to the battery) has beenz pulled off too. you live you learn. and lean apple devices might neat, but a pain to take apart, as with a lot of phones/pdas

[ben7]

Re: Just broke a customer's laptop...

My 4th gen Ipod randomly stopped working one day, the chips inside somehow fried themselves. But when I took it apart, the lcd screen went 'click', and it had a nice big crack in it. Oh well, the thing is dead anyways. xD

I lol'ed a lot, when I saw how tiny the battery is. Apple says it will make the Ipod play for 24 hours straight, but that is a big lie, it would never go more than 3 hours before dieing.

I am never buying an Ipod again xD I just feel dissapointed, also that the thing costed like $200 bucks, and lasted almost 3 years of not much use.

Made in China.
:P

-Ben