I Win!
Bwahahaha!
So, the power button on Patrick's laptop broke. We didn't know why, and I couldn't find anything on the internet about his specific model, so we just took the thing apart.
Patrick took allll the screws out of the back. (Turns out only two needed to be taken out, but whateva. You learn as you go!) Then he fiddled around until he figured out how to pop out the bit between the monitor and the keyboard. (Apparentely called the "keyboard cover", for no really good reason.) This wouldn't have come out if two of the screws hadn't been taken out, so the first part was still mostly worth it. Anyway, we fiddled around with that piece and managed to get the backing off the control buttons. Turns out that the buttons are in two "parts." One big part that you push on, which is fused to one little part that actually pushes on the pressure switch. Little, bitty, tiny part. Just a piece of plastic sticking off the edge of the piece of plastic you push. The button you actually push is *not* over the real pressure switch, but slightly offset. I assume this is so that people pounding the power key will only break the button and not the switch, but I still think its a terrible design. 'Specially since you have to replace the entire keyboard cover to fix it, anyway. (At least, unless you work at Gateway.)
So. A replacement keyboard cover would cost $75. Yech. So we decide to try to fix the button ourselves. We started by trying to hot-glue the little piece back to the big piece (cyanoacrylate can't handle torsion.) But, I tried it about three times and it wouldn't stick, so we gave up on that. It seemed like we were going to have to buy the keyboard cover. But then, I took the cover back off and looked at the buttons and figured, well, it may not be as nice, but you can still press the pressure switch to turn the computer on, as long as you leave the plastic bit off. So we wouldn't need to replace the thing. We decided that was the thing to do.
Buuuttt.. I didn't like it. Using it like that would mean leaving the plastic bit off, and some of the circuitry slightly exposed. Not so bad, really, considering that desktops are like that anyway, but it bothered me. Plus, the buttons don't stay in place without the plastic bit, which would make closing the computer a hassle. PLUS, I'm big on aesthetics. :D So, I decided to improvise. I had Patrick fetch me some stuff, and used electrical tape to attach a sliver of old credit card where the little plastic bit used to be. This worked until I popped everything back into place, but then it was in too snug, and the button was constantly depressed. So we took that out, and Patrick went and found some plastic packaging that was alot thinner than a credit card. I cut out a sliver of this and tried again, but it wasn't strong enough. So we taped a second sliver on top, and it works perfectly! Patrick says it actually feels like a button, again. :P Its got just the right sensitivity.
Bwahaha! No $75 part for ME! I win!
So, the power button on Patrick's laptop broke. We didn't know why, and I couldn't find anything on the internet about his specific model, so we just took the thing apart.
Patrick took allll the screws out of the back. (Turns out only two needed to be taken out, but whateva. You learn as you go!) Then he fiddled around until he figured out how to pop out the bit between the monitor and the keyboard. (Apparentely called the "keyboard cover", for no really good reason.) This wouldn't have come out if two of the screws hadn't been taken out, so the first part was still mostly worth it. Anyway, we fiddled around with that piece and managed to get the backing off the control buttons. Turns out that the buttons are in two "parts." One big part that you push on, which is fused to one little part that actually pushes on the pressure switch. Little, bitty, tiny part. Just a piece of plastic sticking off the edge of the piece of plastic you push. The button you actually push is *not* over the real pressure switch, but slightly offset. I assume this is so that people pounding the power key will only break the button and not the switch, but I still think its a terrible design. 'Specially since you have to replace the entire keyboard cover to fix it, anyway. (At least, unless you work at Gateway.)
So. A replacement keyboard cover would cost $75. Yech. So we decide to try to fix the button ourselves. We started by trying to hot-glue the little piece back to the big piece (cyanoacrylate can't handle torsion.) But, I tried it about three times and it wouldn't stick, so we gave up on that. It seemed like we were going to have to buy the keyboard cover. But then, I took the cover back off and looked at the buttons and figured, well, it may not be as nice, but you can still press the pressure switch to turn the computer on, as long as you leave the plastic bit off. So we wouldn't need to replace the thing. We decided that was the thing to do.
Buuuttt.. I didn't like it. Using it like that would mean leaving the plastic bit off, and some of the circuitry slightly exposed. Not so bad, really, considering that desktops are like that anyway, but it bothered me. Plus, the buttons don't stay in place without the plastic bit, which would make closing the computer a hassle. PLUS, I'm big on aesthetics. :D So, I decided to improvise. I had Patrick fetch me some stuff, and used electrical tape to attach a sliver of old credit card where the little plastic bit used to be. This worked until I popped everything back into place, but then it was in too snug, and the button was constantly depressed. So we took that out, and Patrick went and found some plastic packaging that was alot thinner than a credit card. I cut out a sliver of this and tried again, but it wasn't strong enough. So we taped a second sliver on top, and it works perfectly! Patrick says it actually feels like a button, again. :P Its got just the right sensitivity.
Bwahaha! No $75 part for ME! I win!
posted by Patrick and Melanie Zabawa at
7/22/2006 04:28:00 PM
1 Comments:
So! I've got 3 (YES 3) expensive headphones that kitty killed. She was just trying to help keep the rodent population down. She thought their cords were really long mice tails.
Think you can fix them!?!
-Mom :-D
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