Guts

Backblip

My mini laptop has not been well for a while, it was having trouble charging the battery or working from the ac power, a bit of wire wiggling usually did the trick but then the cord wiggling stopped working too and the battery died, and the laptop was no more :0(

So I bought a new battery & waited 2 weeks for it to arrive. It got here with 25% charge and the laptop worked, for a little bit...but it wouldn't charge, and soon it died :0(

So I bought a new charger cable/plug & waited 2 weeks for it to arrive. It came and I excitedly plugged it in....and nothing happened :0(

So I found a .pdf service manual in the deep, dark recesses of the dell website and I took it apart - completely! Apparantly, to get to the ac adaptor connector (that's the technical term for the bit where you plug it in), one has to remove every single part from the inside of the laptop - figures!

I was very nerdy about it, the manual jumped around a lot, so I wrote a list of each part that I removed, as I removed it. That way I'd have the order correct for putting them all back.
And on another sheet of paper I carefully placed and labeled each screw as I removed it, so I'd know which was which.
...Mr.Tex kept coming by and laughing at me...he thinks Im a nerd :0)

I finally pulled out the ac 'bit' and handed it to Mr Tex. And one of it's 2 little wires promptly came off - "aha!" says he, "that'll be your problem right there, loose wire." (I might add that this one statement led him to believe that he fixed the laptop?)
My neighbour welds tiny wire things in her garage for a living, so I ran down to her house, with my little wire/plug thing in hand and she stuck that wire right back where it belongs - hooray for neighbours!
And so I put it all back, carefully following my list - and to everyone's suprise (mine included), the laptop gasped and whirred back to life (that may have been me that gasped?!)
Quite proud of myself on Monday :0)