One of those laptop threads

[stevo1210]

Re: One of those laptop threads

Are Sandisk and Kingston SSD drives of good quality? They seem resonably priced. $89 for 120GB!

On another note, upon closer inspection of my L500, it seems like someone has spilt some form of beverage into it... maybe coffee. The smell and nicotine residues indicate a smoker as well. Keyboard has definitely copped it. Motherboard looks very clean, no stickiness and I can only see the usual dust bunnies and light nicotine staining. I haven't checked the back bit of the board closest to the LCD yet though. Now... what should I do here?

More like, what should I wash the bottom half of my laptop with? Isopropyl alcohol and water or car washing detergent and water? Just looking for a light cleaner which won't attack my motherboard and keyboard. Yes, I will be drying it out for a few days. I am aware TC uses mean green to clean his boards... but we don't have "mean green" here in OZ.

[ratdude747]

Re: One of those laptop threads

I'd say yes, go for kingston. Sandisk is OK (I've had less than stellar luck with their flash drives in the last 5 years).

[c_hegge]

Re: One of those laptop threads

Kingston are probably OK. I normally recommend Samsung or Intel, but we have sold a couple of Kingston SSDs at work and they've been fine. Once you get an SSD in one PC, you'll want one in all your PCs.

As far as cleaning it is concerned, I usually just wipe laptops down with a cloth and some window cleaner. That gets most of the dirt off. Sometimes, Isopropyl may be required, but it can take paint off. It's fine to use on motherboards, though.

[ttt9090]

Re: One of those laptop threads

Hey Stevo,
I refurb & repair computers for a living.
Mostly laptops & tablets these days.
I can't tell you how many laptops I receive from folks who just want to ditch them for parts, because they've had a hdd crash & went out & bought a new one.
Just a guess, but I'd say that around 50% of the time, tere isn't anything wrong that a bios update, format & re-install doesn't cure.
Then maybe another 25% of them are cured by re-seating and or replacing one or more Ram chips, blowing out fans with compressed air, etc.
Out of the remaining ones, maybe 15% have a de-soldered or cold joint on the graphics chip. and finally about 10% have an actual (beyond repair) faulty hard drive.
If I suspect a faulty hdd, I pull it out & shake it. If it has a rattle, I throw it in the parts bin. If it doesn't I attach it to one of my external hdd carriers (which I leav out of the case all the time to ease attaching various drives), and plug it into a USB port on another machine & boot up G-Parted.
I attempt a wipe & format (don't forget to set boot flag).
If that doesn't work, I try hddllf & select low level format but only choose a quick wipe, (full llf takes forever).
AFter this I do a re-partition using mini partition tool, then attach to windows box & test.
This is only my experience & I know you'll get lots of people telling you these are not good methods.... each to his own.
My business is in an area of many small towns scattered over aprx. 200 mile area and I can't afford to have customers have bad experiences.
I have zero complaints on such issues that have ever been a result of hardware that I have refurbed.
Take it for whatever it's worth, as I said, just my personal experience.
Good luck with your machine and if you need any help feel free to PM me.
I'm happy to try to share as I get good help from others here.