The repair of a dell laptop. The title is a lie, it started as a quick fix but turned into something far greater than you can ever imagine, too extreme? It went smoothly.
So laptop arrived on my doorstep with a power supply and no explanation. The owner was a friend and unable to shed any light so I was left to draw my own conclusions.
Analysis:
Boot up........damn password protected, two options available to use from my usb bootable "katana". Since I knew it was running Windows XP I could either run "Ophcrack" and see if it can get the password with its rainbow tables or edit the SAM file in the windows directory to remove the password. I chose the latter as it would not disclose the private password and it could be reinstated after the job was finished.
Boot up......every thing seems fine, check the logs....good. Right well ill do some cleaning.
Fix:
- Antivirus up to date
- chkdsk -R
- Defragmentation
- Antivirus full disk scan
- Malware scan
My work here is done ill leave it on charge and return it later. Boot up.....what? There is no power, the power supply is switched on.
Analysis:
Ill start with the power supply.
IEC lead - plugged into another device. It works. plugged it back into the laptops block.
Power supply output - Multimeter on the power jack and receiving the correct voltage stated on the block.
This only leaves one area to test. The problem is going to be the power in jack or the charging circuit, either way access to the mainboard is needed which means the laptop needs to get naked.
Fix:Getting to the mainboard was relatively simple, the dvd drive was removed, expansion slot covers and all screws on the underside except the hinges. The back then slips off. With the mainboard exposed i get the multimeter out and check for continuity from the jack connector to the board. It was found the center pin was faulty, visual inspection found there was a dry joint on the connector and some play. I got the solder iron out and fixed that. Before putting it back together i tested the continuity again and then plugged in the charger. Success, screw it back up and job done.
Additional:
The customer no longer wanted it so it was decided it would be a gift for my father so that I could Skype him. The box was running windows XP but was running dog slow, I wanted to put Linux mint on it as it is lightweight and I can tailor the services that it needs. Before Windows was wiped a full disk backup was done using my friend clonezilla which kindly transferred a compressed copy to my storage server. The Windows cd key was nowhere to be found and I used a tool on katana to grab that and keep it safe.
Stay dramatic