Laptop Screen Non-repair

In Case of Emergency ... get them from the source :)

(I can't always get my PVR to stop frame-accurate, and worse, our broadcasters tend to squish "those boring irrelevant titles and credits" into half the screen so it's unreadable anyway).

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screen

Yeah, Hulu puts crap on the screen while it's paused and doesn't time out a nd go away, so the bottom line or two have to be read in real time, lol.

I was watching credits on some show and saw a name that ticked my memory. I don't recall what show it was, but it was nothing like D&G, but I'm pret ty sure Chuck Lorre was on it. Either that or Peter Lorre and I don't thin k he's made many shows lately.

Seems with the warm weather the yahoos have found the lake a day ahead of t he weekend. I've been hearing bass boats since before sunrise. Crap. May be I'll head out and get some breakfast. Can you get fried eggs to go? I fell asleep around 9 last night, woke up around 11 and haven't been able to get to sleep.

I can stop at the supermarket on the way back and get some freshly stocked vittles!

ge was loose, almost to the point of bothering me. Our ever lovable Jeff s uggested I should attack it with implements of destruction like screwdriver s and such to tighten the hinge screws. See, that's why Jeff gets the big bucks, he knows stuff like this.

e I attempt to do work with screwdrivers and other implements of destructio n, I am as likely to permanent destroy something as I am to fix it. Slight ly less so if I turn off the power first.

s head screws (is that capitalized? My spell checker seems to think so) on the sides of the top. Prying plastic from metal is always the hard part a nd this was no exception. Not having an adequately large crowbar I used th e very sharp points of a pair of fine, wire cutters (the flat, very sharp, stamped kind, not the forever blunt forged kind) and pried it apart both ge ntly and when still not succumbing to my efforts, not so gently. Ultimatel y the ends of the top were only slightly marred and the touch screen was la ying on my keyboard revealing the assorted screws.

e hinge screws with glee. Several were quite loose along with some screws holding the LCD to the heavy part of the lid. All were tightened, but one was missing! Well, maybe not actually missing, more like broken off. I gu ess that is why this laptop found its way to eBay, it had already been open ed for repair and someone even more ham-fisted than myself managed to sheer a #4 screw! (btw, ham-fisted seems be spelled with a hyphen rather than o ne or two words, but the verdict is not unanimous, rather the weight of the Google first page hits say so).

isassembled array of parts and only had one left over. Well, three if you count screws. They aren't back in yet mostly because they seem to be windo w dressing. I could have sheered the screws more easily than prying the pl astic open. That and the plastic one screw holds is broken off. But I gue ss I'll put the screws back in to attach the broken piece of plastic so I'l l know where it is when I want to show it to my friends as an example of sh oddy workmanship in US made products... or Chinese made products depending on whether I'm showing it to my American or Chinese friends.

ift key on that side (not so easy) and to press the ELL key I have to press a little rubber knob sticking up, but hit is just right (I just had to pok e one pinky in the hole and press the rubber knob just right to type ELL, h ey! I did it again!!!)

ead you would have had to video tape and freeze frame. This spiel reminds me of one of those. Now with the miracle of Hulu I can freeze frame D&G wi th my space bar. Watch, that will be the next key to go!

Laptop repair is fun! Just get the right tools and instructions (e.g. iFixit), use an ice cube tray to put each type of screw in its own tray compartment. Some screws are extremely similar but not exactly the same (in length).

I had a great(for its time) Dell E9500 with a 17" 1920x1080 LCD. Beautiful display. But the friction-clutch hinges on the display frame just gave out, into crumbled pieces cast metal. So sad to get rid of it.

inge was loose, almost to the point of bothering me. Our ever lovable Jeff suggested I should attack it with implements of destruction like screwdriv ers and such to tighten the hinge screws. See, that's why Jeff gets the bi g bucks, he knows stuff like this.

ime I attempt to do work with screwdrivers and other implements of destruct ion, I am as likely to permanent destroy something as I am to fix it. Slig htly less so if I turn off the power first.

ips head screws (is that capitalized? My spell checker seems to think so) on the sides of the top. Prying plastic from metal is always the hard part and this was no exception. Not having an adequately large crowbar I used the very sharp points of a pair of fine, wire cutters (the flat, very sharp , stamped kind, not the forever blunt forged kind) and pried it apart both gently and when still not succumbing to my efforts, not so gently. Ultimat ely the ends of the top were only slightly marred and the touch screen was laying on my keyboard revealing the assorted screws.

the hinge screws with glee. Several were quite loose along with some screw s holding the LCD to the heavy part of the lid. All were tightened, but on e was missing! Well, maybe not actually missing, more like broken off. I guess that is why this laptop found its way to eBay, it had already been op ened for repair and someone even more ham-fisted than myself managed to she er a #4 screw! (btw, ham-fisted seems be spelled with a hyphen rather than one or two words, but the verdict is not unanimous, rather the weight of t he Google first page hits say so).

disassembled array of parts and only had one left over. Well, three if yo u count screws. They aren't back in yet mostly because they seem to be win dow dressing. I could have sheered the screws more easily than prying the plastic open. That and the plastic one screw holds is broken off. But I g uess I'll put the screws back in to attach the broken piece of plastic so I 'll know where it is when I want to show it to my friends as an example of shoddy workmanship in US made products... or Chinese made products dependin g on whether I'm showing it to my American or Chinese friends.

shift key on that side (not so easy) and to press the ELL key I have to pre ss a little rubber knob sticking up, but hit is just right (I just had to p oke one pinky in the hole and press the rubber knob just right to type ELL, hey! I did it again!!!)

read you would have had to video tape and freeze frame. This spiel remind s me of one of those. Now with the miracle of Hulu I can freeze frame D&G with my space bar. Watch, that will be the next key to go!

I enjoy tearing things apart when I'm not worried about putting them back t ogether. I find the way things are assembled means taking them apart is an adventure and I recall playing that game and dying a lot.

I take it you can't buy hinges?

My thing with computers is the keyboard. The trend over the last few years is to keep the outline in a rectangle which means the four arrow keys no l onger can be in the classic diamond shape. In fact, many aren't even willi ng to stick with the T configuration. They shrink by half the up/down keys and put the combination in a row as an afterthought. Let the designers th ink about it a bit and they shrink in half the left right keys as well maki ng them equally inconvenient to use. The number keypad keys often are shru nk to 3/4 width and a long time ago they shrunk the function key row to 60% height or 50% or whatever it is.

That is why my current laptop is a used machine and I am repairing it rathe r than replacing it. The only real PITA with it is that it is a barn burne r and can become so hot I just can't keep it in my lap which is where it is used 99% of the time. I looked for cooling pads, but never found one I th ought would work worth a damn from a true laptop experience. Many are so l arge I wouldn't be able to cart them around easily.

I guess I could just give up and use a separate screen at home, but there's really no place to put it and it would need to be ginormous to look the sa me size as a 17" screen in my lap. Right now if I hold my laptop up it cov ers a five foot piece of wall and two doorways! In my room the wall is les s than five feet between two doors.

I guess I could try sitting at a desk or something like the rest of the wor ld does.

Ricky C wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

I have an old laptop that got hit by a fork truck right thru the box it was in on its way to Virginia when I moved there. I had to use the VGA out and then later, the HDMI out on it, and use it to this day as my main dual boot machine. It has Ubuntu Studio and Windows

Nice ACER mavhine, holding up well.

I've also had bad luck with laptop hinges, my former Lenovo took a 3 foot fall off the bed onto tile floor and hit at just the right spot to crack an internal plastic standoff where the two metal "bars" for the LCD and their hinges screw into.

Once that happens its days are numbered, and I've tried using various epoxies and glues to hold the cracked standoff together, but its a very high-strain point and no expedient repair lasts more than a couple weeks of regular use before the glued area fractures again.

I haven't so far tried say automotive Bondo in a situation like that but not optimistic about success, eitheer

hinge was loose, almost to the point of bothering me. Our ever lovable Jef f suggested I should attack it with implements of destruction like screwdri vers and such to tighten the hinge screws. See, that's why Jeff gets the b ig bucks, he knows stuff like this.

time I attempt to do work with screwdrivers and other implements of destruc tion, I am as likely to permanent destroy something as I am to fix it. Sli ghtly less so if I turn off the power first.

lips head screws (is that capitalized? My spell checker seems to think so) on the sides of the top. Prying plastic from metal is always the hard par t and this was no exception. Not having an adequately large crowbar I used the very sharp points of a pair of fine, wire cutters (the flat, very shar p, stamped kind, not the forever blunt forged kind) and pried it apart both gently and when still not succumbing to my efforts, not so gently. Ultima tely the ends of the top were only slightly marred and the touch screen was laying on my keyboard revealing the assorted screws.

the hinge screws with glee. Several were quite loose along with some scre ws holding the LCD to the heavy part of the lid. All were tightened, but o ne was missing! Well, maybe not actually missing, more like broken off. I guess that is why this laptop found its way to eBay, it had already been o pened for repair and someone even more ham-fisted than myself managed to sh eer a #4 screw! (btw, ham-fisted seems be spelled with a hyphen rather tha n one or two words, but the verdict is not unanimous, rather the weight of the Google first page hits say so).

e disassembled array of parts and only had one left over. Well, three if y ou count screws. They aren't back in yet mostly because they seem to be wi ndow dressing. I could have sheered the screws more easily than prying the plastic open. That and the plastic one screw holds is broken off. But I guess I'll put the screws back in to attach the broken piece of plastic so I'll know where it is when I want to show it to my friends as an example of shoddy workmanship in US made products... or Chinese made products dependi ng on whether I'm showing it to my American or Chinese friends.

shift key on that side (not so easy) and to press the ELL key I have to pr ess a little rubber knob sticking up, but hit is just right (I just had to poke one pinky in the hole and press the rubber knob just right to type ELL , hey! I did it again!!!)

o read you would have had to video tape and freeze frame. This spiel remin ds me of one of those. Now with the miracle of Hulu I can freeze frame D&G with my space bar. Watch, that will be the next key to go!

Gee, I just buy a new one when they break - didn't know you guys were so po or!

hinge was loose, almost to the point of bothering me. Our ever lovable Jef f suggested I should attack it with implements of destruction like screwdri vers and such to tighten the hinge screws. See, that's why Jeff gets the b ig bucks, he knows stuff like this.

time I attempt to do work with screwdrivers and other implements of destruc tion, I am as likely to permanent destroy something as I am to fix it. Sli ghtly less so if I turn off the power first.

lips head screws (is that capitalized? My spell checker seems to think so) on the sides of the top. Prying plastic from metal is always the hard par t and this was no exception. Not having an adequately large crowbar I used the very sharp points of a pair of fine, wire cutters (the flat, very shar p, stamped kind, not the forever blunt forged kind) and pried it apart both gently and when still not succumbing to my efforts, not so gently. Ultima tely the ends of the top were only slightly marred and the touch screen was laying on my keyboard revealing the assorted screws.

the hinge screws with glee. Several were quite loose along with some scre ws holding the LCD to the heavy part of the lid. All were tightened, but o ne was missing! Well, maybe not actually missing, more like broken off. I guess that is why this laptop found its way to eBay, it had already been o pened for repair and someone even more ham-fisted than myself managed to sh eer a #4 screw! (btw, ham-fisted seems be spelled with a hyphen rather tha n one or two words, but the verdict is not unanimous, rather the weight of the Google first page hits say so).

e disassembled array of parts and only had one left over. Well, three if y ou count screws. They aren't back in yet mostly because they seem to be wi ndow dressing. I could have sheered the screws more easily than prying the plastic open. That and the plastic one screw holds is broken off. But I guess I'll put the screws back in to attach the broken piece of plastic so I'll know where it is when I want to show it to my friends as an example of shoddy workmanship in US made products... or Chinese made products dependi ng on whether I'm showing it to my American or Chinese friends.

shift key on that side (not so easy) and to press the ELL key I have to pr ess a little rubber knob sticking up, but hit is just right (I just had to poke one pinky in the hole and press the rubber knob just right to type ELL , hey! I did it again!!!)

o read you would have had to video tape and freeze frame. This spiel remin ds me of one of those. Now with the miracle of Hulu I can freeze frame D&G with my space bar. Watch, that will be the next key to go!

I had a cracked cupholder slide out tray in my old truck. I tried gluing a washer or two on the back across the crack but they would always let loose . Makes you wonder how they could make the tray strong enough in the first place. Maybe they didn't. I don't recall why it broke, but it was a PITA once it did. That truck didn't have all that many cup holders and let's f ace it, mostly they aren't used for holding cups anyway.

I had the misfortune to get a lenovo Y15, these came from the factory with overtight hinge nuts, resulting in universal hinge-lid attachment failure. I didn'r catch this during the warranty period and now the digitiser is cracked and inoperable and the hinges are attached using pop-rivets through the skin of the lid, ugly end out.

hinge was loose, almost to the point of bothering me. Our ever lovable Je ff suggested I should attack it with implements of destruction like screwdr ivers and such to tighten the hinge screws. See, that's why Jeff gets the big bucks, he knows stuff like this.

time I attempt to do work with screwdrivers and other implements of destru ction, I am as likely to permanent destroy something as I am to fix it. Sl ightly less so if I turn off the power first.

ilips head screws (is that capitalized? My spell checker seems to think so ) on the sides of the top. Prying plastic from metal is always the hard pa rt and this was no exception. Not having an adequately large crowbar I use d the very sharp points of a pair of fine, wire cutters (the flat, very sha rp, stamped kind, not the forever blunt forged kind) and pried it apart bot h gently and when still not succumbing to my efforts, not so gently. Ultim ately the ends of the top were only slightly marred and the touch screen wa s laying on my keyboard revealing the assorted screws.

d the hinge screws with glee. Several were quite loose along with some scr ews holding the LCD to the heavy part of the lid. All were tightened, but one was missing! Well, maybe not actually missing, more like broken off. I guess that is why this laptop found its way to eBay, it had already been opened for repair and someone even more ham-fisted than myself managed to s heer a #4 screw! (btw, ham-fisted seems be spelled with a hyphen rather th an one or two words, but the verdict is not unanimous, rather the weight of the Google first page hits say so).

he disassembled array of parts and only had one left over. Well, three if you count screws. They aren't back in yet mostly because they seem to be w indow dressing. I could have sheered the screws more easily than prying th e plastic open. That and the plastic one screw holds is broken off. But I guess I'll put the screws back in to attach the broken piece of plastic so I'll know where it is when I want to show it to my friends as an example o f shoddy workmanship in US made products... or Chinese made products depend ing on whether I'm showing it to my American or Chinese friends.

e shift key on that side (not so easy) and to press the ELL key I have to p ress a little rubber knob sticking up, but hit is just right (I just had to poke one pinky in the hole and press the rubber knob just right to type EL L, hey! I did it again!!!)

to read you would have had to video tape and freeze frame. This spiel remi nds me of one of those. Now with the miracle of Hulu I can freeze frame D& G with my space bar. Watch, that will be the next key to go!

I had a Lenovo and it was crap in multiple ways. It didn't even last 2 yea rs while I normally use a machine for 4 years.

It did have the conventional keyboard layout and full size keys. Maybe I c ould cobble the keyboard onto a new machine! lol

Flyguy wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Gee, you could be a little more retarded, just not in this life.

Maybe the next time, God will give you three functioning neurons, as two is obviously not enough.

I buy laptops off eBay for $150 or so, mostly Lenovo T-series, which work fine.

I'm going to have to get another one, because the firmware mitigation for the Spectre/Meltdown-class vulnerabilities effectively halved the number of cores on the T430S that I'm typing on, so that it's now too slow to run Zoom under Qubes OS.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

He must have been born into money, as 5000 posts later it's still unclear what skill he has that anyone would be willing to pay for.

I believe it, I found a video of you unboxing your newest PC:

Laptops are known to work best when all the parts and pieces are present and accounted for.

The next step is for the screw to strip out and the hinge to fall apart. That is usually accompanied by breaking plastic, shredded video/camera/antenna cables, flickering LCD display, and simulated violence. I suggest you fix it before it reaches total collapse.

Is this your Dell Precision M6800 laptop or some other laptop? If it's the M6800, here's how to remove the LCD bezel: Hint 1: I use several thin guitar picks to pry off the bezel. Hint 2: Use Loctite Blue 242 on the screws. More:

I should thank you for the compliment and for remembering my suggestions from at least a year ago. Big bucks are in the past. I'm trying to move my junk out of my formerly palatial office into my house. So far, I've got half the junk move, and the house is full. Next step is a storage locker. I'm still doing a few low paying service calls for friends, but nothing that would support my former decadent and lavish lifestyle. I guess I'm now officially retired.

Good luck.

You can glue that back together if you can find all the broken parts that were once the standoff. For glue, I suggest: Shove some wax or a greased screw into the threaded brass insert so that the glue doesn't get into the threads. Make sure that you don't have a puddle of glue on the bottom of the standoff that might cause the screw to bottom out before being tightened. If you can't find all the pieces, make a reasonable facsimile of the standoff from brass on a lathe and glue it to the cover in place of the broken standoff. You might need to use a hand grinder to make the cover reasonably flat.

You can also try plastic welding: I use my SMD hot air reflow soldering gun with a tiny tip. Plastic welding works best for fixing cracks in thin sheets of plastic. I haven't tried it with a crumbled standoff.

Try the Loctite stuff I recommended. Give it 24 hrs to harden. The data sheet says 12 to 24 hrs but I've found 12 hrs to be insufficient at cold temperatures. It literally won't harden at temperatures below

Bondo is made for doing body work on automobiles. It's major claims to fame are that it sticks to metal, has the same thermal coefficient of expansion as steel, does not shrink or expand while hardening, can be polished, and paint sticks to it. The one thing it doesn't have is much strength. It doesn't need to support a load, handle torque, bending, or tension when use to fill dents in car bodies.

Yes, it is the lap warmer M6800. I don't know if you didn't read to the en d of my post or what, but I completed the repair as best I could. The hing e itself seems to be the original issue and the screws only came loose in t he last months/year.

It was a bit of a thrill to find the touch screen and frame in my hands, li ke having someone's chest open and their heart out. Well, not really, but I never am sure it will get back together.

I'm not sure I got all the smudges off the touchscreen, but only because I don't remember where they all were before the disassembly. There's one tha t isn't much but I don't recall it for sure. It's just that I kept cleanin g the screen trying to get every smudge and speck of dust off it before it was closed up. I don't know how anything could have remained that was remo vable.

You are the man when it comes to these sorts of things. I literally can't find anyone in this area who is willing to tackle such matters. I found on e shop who was only interested in one solution to all problems. Wiping the disk and reinstalling the OS. Everything else was your problem. Hell! W ho can't do that themselves???

In honesty, there was another shop in town, but I kept messing with the bea st and got it working again without drastic measures.

Life goes on and computers continue to bug us.

I wonder if this is what it was like around the turn of the century, the OT HER century I mean - when they had phones and cars, both still new and very cranky. They were widely adopted, but only after a period of reluctant ac ceptance. Cars in those days were beasts to be reckoned with! Much like c omputers today.

Hey! No storage rentals. Too much money and all that stuff isn't worth it . It's like smoking. You get started and it's hard to quit. You likely w on't even remember what all is in it after a few months.

You're right. I didn't read to the end. I was writing my comments while engaged in a boring Zoom conference and on the phone with a friend. He had just gotten some work and wanted to borrow my CATV and telco install kit and tools, which I had just hauled up my 45 stairs. Between the boring Zoom conference and the phone call, I lost interest in your question, so I just tacked on "good luck", and hit send.

I have the same problem, but have learned never to display panic or fear in front of a customer. I just pretend like everything is quite normal and act like I know what I'm doing. Fear is normal. Panic, not so normal.

Last week, I bought 4 Acer CB3-431 series Chromebooks on eBay for about $35/ea. All has a bashed in LCD screen. Two had some damage to the aluminum case. Repairing an aluminum case is quite difficult if the aluminum has stretched. I sold one to a customer at cost (because I overcharged him in the distant past). I forgot to check the power supply, which didn't work. Moving the LCD hinge causes the display to die (loose connector). So, I go fix it. I've also learned to like intermittent displays and dead power supplies are also normal.

The 4th Chromebook arrive mostly working. The display was good, but the aluminum case was mangled. I decided to update the OS before attacking the mangled aluminum. The display section only had a small section that was bent, so I stupidly bent the aluminum frame with the LCD panel still in place. Crack. One dead LCD panel and $51 down the drain. I had a difficult time convincing myself that this was also normal.

The best way to make mess is to try and clean the screen with an aggressive cleaner. That takes off the hydrophobic and oleophobic coatings from the LCD. It's a problem with smartphones. If your display is the touch screen flavor, it likely has such a coatings. There are kits available to replace the coating on smartphones, but I haven't seen any made for touchscreen laptops.

There are repair shops that do mail in repairs. There's some additional cost, risk, effort, and delays required to ship a computer to and from a repair shop. It also has to be fixed correctly the first time.

Before "personal computers", there were much larger computers managed by MIS (management information services) departments. The early cars were driven by chauffeurs and required a mechanic as co-pilot. Before that, typewriters had many of the same type of computah user problems and required regular expert attention. Not much changes except the technology.

I know and that's what everyone is telling me. I spent a long time accumulating all that junk. It's really hard to let go.

Yuck. The Tandy 1000 was an IBM PC(jr) clone. Brings back fond nightmares from the early 1980's.