Upgrading & Fixing Laptops DUMmIES

it as very fragile and tricky to work, a 10–12-inch long pencil-like bulb with

metal connectors at each end.

His company stocks four types of backlights, which work with something like

90 percent of all LCDs. If he has to repair a machine that uses one of the rare

10 percent of other lamps, he has to special-order a new bulb or find a recy-

cled replacement scavenged from a similar machine. More tricky to keep in

stock are inverters, which are mostly proprietary to each maker’s combina-

tion of motherboard and LCD; it’s very rare to find one inverter that works

with two different notebook models, even similar series from the same manu-

facturer, according to Forrester.

After the LCD and its associated components, the next most common type

of laptop problem is failure to boot up. This problem is most often with the

motherboard. Perhaps the most common source of failure here comes when

power connectors or ports break off the computer itself, a problem more

common with some brands of laptops than with others.

The most vulnerable laptops are those where the power connector (which

attaches to the external power supply) or the ports are actually part of the

motherboard itself. A misattached cable or an unfortunate bounce or move-

ment of the laptop can cause them to crack the motherboard or snap off. In

some cases, a professional laptop repair shop can reattach or resolder a dam-

aged connector; if you’re not lucky, the sort of problem demands a new or

refurbished motherboard.

The failure of a laptop’s hard drive or CD or DVD drive no longer automati-

cally demands the services of a repair shop, Forrester said. Modern laptops

mount their drives in removable, plug-in carriers that attach to connectors in

bays. Consumers can easily do this sort of repair.

The Good, the Bad, and the Cheaply Made ................................................

I live in a tourist town, and it’s interesting to watch the comings and goings of

restaurants. The places that offer the best food or the best prices have been

in business for years and years, and are easy to recommend. Word spreads

very quickly about any place not worth visiting and by summer’s end there’s

a For Rent sign in the window.

To some extent, it’s the same story with computer makers. (Were you

wondering where I was going with the restaurant business analogy?) The

companies that have been around for a decade or so are still selling machines

60 Part II: Explaining What Could Possibly Go Wrong