Tags: | laptop | repair |

2007-04-17 21:29

Repairing my Freshly Broken Laptop

I never knew how incredibly hard it was to gain access to the innards of a laptop computer; of course, until last night I have never had need or opportunity to do so - but now that I've done it, I know how frustrating it can be. Last night my Averatec 3250 took a dive off of the armrest of a recliner, and landed squarely on the power input. This isn't the first time that it's fallen a few feet onto the floor, but this time something actually broke - the pin in the AC adapter port got jammed back into it's hole, at an angle, making it impossible to plug it in and charge the battery. Maybe needle nose pliers could be used to pull the pin out and back into position? No, it wouldn't budge. After examining the injury and trying to think of other possible fixes, it soon became clear that if it were going to be repaired, I would need to take apart the case and get to the adapter itself. Not having ever taken a close look at the bottom of my laptop, I was amazed by the number of screws that faced me once beginning this task - a total of 20 in all, 4 different types, in a variety of different screw holes. Not wanting to miss anything, and to properly disassemble everything, I searched for a guide or specification on how to get inside an averatec 3250. I found this very useful guide with great pictures explaining exactly how to get to the exact part I was trying to fix, the AC adapter. In all, I had to remove the 20 screws on the bottom, the DVD drive, and the keyboard (to get to a hidden screw on the top) before I could pry the case open enough to get to the DC power connection board and remove it for examination.

As it turns out, the plastic housing that goes around the power adapter pin had broken into a few pieces in the fall, but two large pieces were still intact, and all I needed to do was bend the metal attached to one of the large pieces, and re-fit it where it goes. It didn't even require glue, as the two pieces fit together well and were held in place properly without it. Before re-assembling everything I re-attached the battery and made sure that it would charge when plugged in, and it did. Re-assembly went pretty smoothly, and I only made one mistake - I put a too-large screw in one of the holes, and it got stuck. I have yet to figure out a way to get the screw out, but the computer seems to be holding together fine without it. I imagine a mere five to ten screws would do the job just fine, the more the better I guess, unless of course you want to take the case apart. Everything is running just fine again, and the only difference is that the power cord fits a bit more loosely in the adapter port than it did before. Thankfully nothing was damaged too severely and I am happy to have more experience in laptop repair, but I hope that from now on my laptop avoids anymore jumps to the floor.

- Kevin
Kevin (at) Upcsite (dot) Net

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