I give up

[elfs]

So, after having the laptop for exactly a week, it dies again. I can still get to it, but the screen is once again broken. This time, it appears to be the inverter card. The light comes on, briefly, on startup, and it's brilliant, and then it dies. This is not like the fluorescence failure; this is full-blown inverter card death.

And I can't remove the inverter card. One of the dumbshit things that happened the last time I worked on it is I stripped the screws that hold the inverter card in place.

Now what am I gonna do?

Comments

OH my

[tonyawinter.livejournal.com]

I bet those screws are TINY too...
What I do to remove stripped screws is to try to get a chisel small enough to fit on the head and tap it into the metal with a hammer, then turn... but that may not work with such delicate stuff.

What about putting a drop of super-glue in the hole and then the screwdriver and letting it set before turning then breaking the screwdriver off of the screw?

[funos.livejournal.com]

If you mean a stripped head, a carefully applied Dremel with a cutting wheel can make a workable slot.

For stripped threads, you may be able to pull it out with good longnose pliers, else, a Dremel with a conical cutting head can bore out the head (works wonders for cleanly removing rivets).

Needless to say, using a Dremel takes a bit of practise, and no small concern for safety. (30000 RPM ain't friendly, if only because of the ear-splitting noise)

Re: OH my

[http://users.livejournal.com/dominic-m-/]

the super glue trick ALMOST always works. I used it last time I had to take apart my ps2 controller. But make sure yor very very carefull you dont glue the screw into place.

[ysabel.livejournal.com]

If it's a stripped head, and you can get a standard-sized screwdriver bit into the space, there's a little tool you can buy for very cheap that's entirely for pulling out bunged up screw heads. Just get one of the smaller ones, if it's a smaller screw.

How much is it ?

[flying-pegasus.livejournal.com]

How much it is going to cost you to get it professionally fix....Mr. Tim Allan. Cause Al would like to know.

Re: How much is it ?

[http://users.livejournal.com/dominic-m-/]

somebody has been watching too much home improvement,heheh joking. He is not planning on turbo-charging it like tim.lol. But I must say omaha should keep an eye on him ;-)

I've no idea how much or how little you'll appreciate this.

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

Ages back, in fact years, I asked for the source code to the Java applet you were using to display the Pendorian time on your Journal Entries web-page.

Well, earlier I bought a paid account here on LiveJournal, which meant I could make Styles, including 'S2' ones, which include some simple processing abilities.

As a first exercise, I figured out how to get all the dates and times on the entries in my journal to appear in Pendorian. And, for no particular reason, I thought I'd mention it to you, in case you cared or were interested in what I'd done with the applet you had been nice enough to let me have a copy of the source code too.

If you're interested in seeing it, my friends page is the easiest place to spot it. The code is rather ugly, as I'm still learning how the style system works, but it seems to generate correct times.

As for your laptop... unfortunately what most folks here have said is true. Many laptops, especially older ones, are far too cost-prohibitive for repairs, which is unfortunate since the actual damage is often not that great, but any one component failing brings the whole laptop down.