How to Repair a Laptop by yourself

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BEFORE WE BEGIN TROUBLESHOOTING 5

LAPTOP BASICS 7

WHAT’S MY LAPTOP WORTH? 18

SHOPPING FOR USED LAPTOPS 19

SHOPPING FOR NEW LAPTOPS 22

LAPTOP UPGRADES 26

THINGS THAT GO WRONG WITH LAPTOPS 29

BASIC REPAIR TECHNIQUES 34

SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS 39

TROUBLESHOOTING POWER PROBLEMS 43

TROUBLESHOOTING BATTERY PROBLEMS 47

LAPTOP VIDEO TROUBLESHOOTING 50

TROUBLESHOOTING LAPTOP OVERHEATING 55

TROUBLESHOOTING LAPTOP HARD DRIVES 57

TROUBLESHOOTING WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY 61

TROUBLESHOOTING MOTHERBOARD, CPU AND MEMORY 64

TROUBLESHOOTING LAPTOP DIAL-UP MODEMS 67

TROUBLESHOOTING DVD/CD PLAYBACK AND RECORD 70

TROUBLESHOOTING LAPTOP SOUND 75

WIRED NETWORK TROUBLESHOOTING 77

TROUBLESHOOTING KEYBOARD, POINTER AND USB 79

POWER FLOWCHART 83

BATTERY FLOWCHART 93

DISPLAY FLOWCHART 103

OVERHEATING FLOWCHART 113

DRIVE FLOWCHART 123

WIRELESS FLOWCHART 131

MOTHERBOARD, CPU AND RAM FLOWCHART 141

MODEM FLOWCHART 151

DVD/CD FLOWCHART 159

SOUND FLOWCHART 167

WIRED LAN FLOWCHART 175

KEYBOARD, POINTER AND USB FLOWCHART 183

The Laptop Repair Workbook

Before We Begin Troubleshooting

The author of this book is the proud owner of a 1986 Dodge

Omni that was purchased new and has never been taken to a

garage for repairs. But laptops aren’t cars and they are rarely as

cost effective to repair as desktop PC’s. A twenty or forty year

old car in good operating condition is just as serviceable as a

new car and may even get better gas mileage. But a ten year old

laptop isn’t going to run the latest Microsoft operating system or

even the previous version. Computers are no better than the

software they can run. You’re going to need an up-to-date

operating system if you are a mainstream user who wants to run

the same software you use in work or the current year tax

program. A laptop computer that cost as much as a new small

car in the 1980’s isn’t worth a gallon of gas today. Think of

computers as software appliances. Unfortunately, laptop

computers are among the shortest lived appliances found in the

American household today.

If you make an appointment with a doctor for a health

issue, the first thing you might expect to hear is, “So, what seems

to be the problem today?” This is the most important part of the

diagnostics process for a good physician, listening to the patient

describe the symptoms and asking some follow-up questions to

probe deeper. The patient who responds, “I don’t know what’s

wrong with me” might get a blood test or a psychiatric battery

but is unlikely to walk out of the office with a cure. When it

comes to diagnosing your laptop problems, the laptop is the

patient and you are the physician. The laptop usually can’t

describe its symptoms, so you have to be a keen observer of

laptop behavior if you want to nail the problem your first time

out.

Some health issues, like puncture wounds and broken

limbs, manifest themselves in an obvious manner so there’s no

difficulty with the doctor or patient diagnosing the problem. The

same is true if you’ve broken the hinges off your laptop, if the

battery burst into flames or if you knocked your orange juice

over the keyboard and it stopped working. The solutions are

generally both obvious and expensive, and since laptops aren’t

family members, replacement is often the most sensible

solution. But the majority of laptop symptoms, at least at first

Before We Start Troubleshooting

blush, may be attributed to any number of different problems.

And, just as human beings have pre-conceptions and neuroses

clouding the diagnostic picture, laptops have software issues

that pose as hardware malfunctions. In extreme cases, laptop

technicians will talk the owner into the “Nuke and Pave”

approach, using the manufacturer supplied software to restore

the laptop to its factory fresh condition to see if that solves the

problem. Sometimes this makes more sense than letting a

technician spend several hours (and several hundred dollars of

your money) trying to solve a suspected software problem. But

you can do this just as easily at home.

This book can’t make you into a professional computer

technician. It will help you troubleshoot your laptop problem

and take the most cost effective approach to repairing it, getting

it repaired, or replacing it. But the troubleshooting process

depends on your observations of the symptoms and your

willingness to keep your mind open to solutions other than your

first impression, or those suggested by friends who say they had

“exactly the same problem.” If the laptop is still usable but acts

up, pay close attention to when and where it acts up, whether

the problem always occurs after the laptop has been moved, or

shut-down for the night, or running all day. Even the weather

plays a part in troubleshooting some problems, so try to read

through all of the general troubleshooting sections, just to get a

feel for the things that go wrong with different components. If it

doesn’t make you into a laptop hypochondriac, it will make you

a stronger diagnostician.

You may notice we don’t talk about the razzle-dazzle

technology of computer components in this book. The reason is

simple. You can’t upgrade or repair your laptop by using the

latest technology available, nor can you save money by repairing

it with older technology rescued from a random laptop at the

recycling center. You have to use the exact parts your laptop was

engineered to work with. Hard drives and memory are the only

replaceable parts that are often compatible between models of a

similar vintage. For some readers, the lack of an illustrated

discussion on how hard drives store data bits will take some fun

out of the book, but that knowledge can’t help you when it

comes to troubleshooting. There are plenty of books with

beautiful color illustrations that try to explain basic computer

Information about

the book:

workbook.htm

The Laptop Repair Workbook

technology, but they do so at the expense of helping you solve

real laptop problems.

Two final notes about using this workbook. First, if your

laptop is in warranty, it doesn’t make any sense to take it apart

in hopes of fixing something yourself. This book can still help

you troubleshoot the problem to determine if it’s a software

setting or incorrect use, which may save you sending the laptop

out for repair. Second, feel free to cut out the twelve flowcharts

in the second half of the book and staple them together. This will

save on page flipping as you read the expanded explanations of

the decision symbols. It’s a workbook, not English literature.

Laptop Basics

If you’re already familiar with computer terminology, laptop

components and values, you can skip to the general

troubleshooting section. The discussion here will be strictly

limited to describing the function of basic laptop components

and the acronyms used to describe them. You don’t need to

remember what individual words the acronyms represent

anymore than you need to remember that FBI stands for Federal

Bureau of Investigation if they’re knocking at your door.

Acronyms are only a tool for describing certain computer

components and functions, so think of them as labels and don’t

get caught up in the alphabet soup.

Operating System (OS)

We’re confident that readers are familiar with the term

operating system, but the acronym OS may only be widely

recognized by Apple iBook and PowerBook users, since Apple

operating systems have long been branded with “OS” and the

version number. We always use “OS” on the flowcharts in order

to fit operating system related decisions into the flowchart

symbols, so it’s the most critical acronym in this troubleshooting

book. Also, when we refer to operating systems in this book, we

refer to Microsoft Windows components and tools, since it’s far

and away the most widely used OS on laptops. There are

excellent help groups online specific to Apple OS releases and

Linux, especially the Ubuntu release which is gaining popularity

as an alternative laptop operating system. The hardware

Before We Start Troubleshooting

troubleshooting procedures are as generic as we can make them

in the absence of a “standard laptop,” since no such thing exists.

Basic Input Output System (BIOS)

You may already be familiar with the separate roles played by

hardware and software in computing. The hardware can be

viewed as the body of the laptop, including the brain. The

software can be viewed as the mind that controls the hardware

in response to your requests. Sitting between the individual

hardware components and the OS software that you use (most

likely a version of Microsoft Windows) is a small chunk of

hardware-specific software that allows the two to communicate.

This software is known as the BIOS (Basic Input/Output

System) and it is stored in nonvolatile memory on the main

circuit board, or motherboard, of the laptop.

The BIOS is the first software loaded into regular

memory (RAM) when the laptop is powered on. The BIOS

contains sufficient instructions to operate the screen in a basic

mode, to accept input from the keyboard, to read from the hard

drive and the DVD/CD drive, and to detect attached network

and USB devices. The latter is necessary because some laptops

in corporate or government settings are configured to boot (to

start loading the operating system) from a network or external

drive for security reasons.

The memory chip on which the BIOS software is stored is

a type of EEPROM (Electronically Erasable Programmable Read

Only Memory) known as Flash Memory. Using software

downloaded from the website of the laptop manufacturer to

upgrade the BIOS to a new version is called “flashing.” In many

instances, if you call tech support with a problem, they’ll ask a

few questions and then suggest that you flash your BIOS with

the latest version. Unfortunately, this standard procedure can

turn your laptop into a useless paperweight if something goes

wrong, like a power interruption or accidentally downloading

the wrong BIOS for your model. The process isn’t reversible

without special equipment to reprogram the EEPROM. You only

get the one chance.

We never recommend flashing a laptop BIOS unless you

have specific information from web research that it is the exact

The Laptop Repair Workbook

and only cure to the problem you are trying to solve. It should

never be necessary to flash the BIOS in order to recover some

lost functionality. There are three common scenarios which may

require you to flash the BIOS. The first scenario is if you are

installing a specific software or operating system application

that has a known problem with the original BIOS and for which

a fix has been introduced. Laptop manufacturers often

concentrate their efforts on getting Microsoft Windows right

and only correct problems with Linux and other alternative

operating systems at the BIOS level when reported by user

groups. A new or upgraded version of Windows may also require

a BIOS upgrade. The second scenario is an ACPI (Advanced

Configuration and Power Interface) issue that may manifest in

charging problems, fan management, or trouble with on/off,

sleep or hibernation. Modern operating systems take charge of

all of these functions from the BIOS soon after the laptop boots,

but again, don’t try flashing the BIOS when troubleshooting a

power problem unless you have specific information that it must

be the solution. The third scenario is if you choose to upgrade

an internal hardware component with a part that wasn’t

supported by the original BIOS, such as a faster CPU or a Blu-

Ray optical drive, you may find evidence that it will only work if

you flash the BIOS with the latest version.

CMOS Setup

Another term that we’re forced to use in this book is CMOS

Setup. The CMOS acronym stands for Complementary Metal

Oxide Semiconductor, the type of memory chip used to hold the

user modifiable hardware settings. The CMOS Setup program is

part of the BIOS and can be accessed before the operating

system loads. Some manufacturers allow for CMOS settings to

be altered through the operating system as well, through a

hardware setup icon in Windows Control Panel, but the setting

won’t take effect until the next time the laptop is rebooted. After

this brief description, we’ll try not to mention CMOS Setup

unless you need to access it for troubleshooting purposes.

It’s entirely possible to purchase a laptop new and own it

for years without ever knowing or caring that CMOS Setup

exists. The most common reason the average user will ever have

to enter CMOS Setup is to set a BIOS level password for the

laptop, one that is required before the operating system will

Before We Start Troubleshooting

even try to boot. If your laptop comes equipped with a finger

print scanner or other hardware based security, it’s likely that

the failsafe password is created and stored in CMOS Setup.

Since the vast majority of laptops are sold with the operating

system installed, the CMOS settings are preset to work with the

operating system. However, if you wipe out the current

operating system, or attempt to set up a dual boot system with

Linux or another operating system version, you may have to

change some CMOS settings. Many troubleshooting scenarios

will require a CMOS Setup option that appears in the main

menu under a title similar to “Restore BIOS Defaults” or

“Restore Safe Settings”. This option will restore all of the

settings in CMOS Setup to the factory defaults, which can cure

many problems if they’ve been corrupted or accidentally

changed.

CMOS Setup is normally accessed before the operating

system boots, using a key combination that is often displayed on

the screen by the BIOS during the power on phase. Common

access methods are hitting DEL key, ESC key or the F1 or F2 key

immediately after you power on. Some laptops suppress the

BIOS generated message in order to minimize user errors, but

you can always go online and Google the right key combination

if it's not in your manual. Note that the terms “BIOS” and

“CMOS Setup” are often used interchangeably online when

you’re searching for the key combination.

Drivers and Device Manager

There are two types of drivers in laptops, hardware and

software. The focus here will be on the software device drivers as

the other type of drivers are board-level integrated circuits that

aren’t user replaceable if they fail. Software drivers, which we’ll

refer to as device drivers from here on, are the bits of

programming that allow the operating system and other

software applications to communicate with and control the

hardware in your laptop. Since laptops are sold as whole

functioning computers, rather than as expandable kits, all of the

device drivers the laptop needs to function will be preinstalled.

However, if you purchase an expansion card or add any external

devices other than a few very standard components, such as a

keyboard, mouse or memory stick, the laptop will require a

device driver to work with it properly.

The Laptop Repair Workbook

If the new device is widely used and has been around for

a while, it’s possible that the operating system will include a preloaded

driver for the device, which it will find and install on its

own when the device is connected. But in most cases, any device

or peripherals you purchase, such as printers, cameras, USB

speakers or broadband modems, will come with their own driver

disc and specific instructions for how to install them.

Frequently, the instructions will require that you install the

software before hooking up the device for the first time. This is

to make sure that your operating system doesn’t try to install a

seemingly compatible device driver for the hardware before the

proper device driver is made available.

The drivers can be manually checked for problems and

updated or disabled in the Device Manager view, which is found

through Control Panel. The appearance of the Device Manager

view and the way it reports potential problems varies between

Windows versions, and in more recent versions it’s a tab under

the Hardware category behind the System icon in Control Panel.

In all versions it will quickly give you three critical pieces of

information about the status of your attached or installed

devices. First, if it doesn’t show up in Device Manager at all and

no unidentified devices are shown, Windows doesn’t know it’s

there, which means it’s a hardware troubleshooting job. If the

device doesn’t work, but Device Manager shows it and indicates

that it needs a driver, you haven’t got the proper software driver

installed. Finally, if it shows up with the right driver but

Windows displays a specific error, like the hardware isn’t

responding, you need to troubleshoot that error.

Motherboard

Laptops are very close to being single board computers, where

that single board is most commonly called the motherboard.

Any additional circuit boards in the laptop that connect to the

motherboard are known as daughter cards, so it’s clear who won

the computing gender wars. Unlike desktop PCs, where

motherboards can be easily and inexpensively replaced in all but

the most unfriendly systems, laptop motherboards are

proprietary. The only replacement motherboard that will

physically fit into your laptop is a motherboard of the same

brand and model family.

Before We Start Troubleshooting

If the motherboard fails and the laptop is out of warranty,

it will rarely make sense to repair it. A new motherboard

ordered from the manufacturer usually costs more than a new

laptop purchased in chain store. If you’re very happy with the

laptop, except for the motherboard being dead, you might look

for a used replacement part on eBay. If the failure is with a

simple connector, like the power jack with its limited solder

connections, it may make sense to repair the board yourself or

to send it out. Just make sure you remove the hard drive before

sending your laptop to some cheap power jack repair place you

find online.

Central Processing Unit (CPU)

The brain of any computer is the CPU (Central Processing Unit).

This is a single, large silicon chip which is usually manufactured

by Intel or AMD. It can be replaced as long as it is socketed,

rather than soldered to the motherboard. Total CPU failures are

relatively rare, but the CPU may misbehave or shut itself down if

it gets too hot. It’s fairly common for desktop PC hobbyists to

upgrade their CPU with a faster model when the prices come

down but it’s rarely practical or possible with laptops. Unless the

laptop motherboard was designed to support the faster CPU, it

won’t work at all. If you are able to find a faster CPU that will

work in the laptop, it’s unlikely to offer a performance difference

that you can notice in normal usage.

Modern CPU speeds are measured in GHz (Gigahertz), or

billions of cycles per second. If you own an older laptop, the

CPU speed might be measured in hundreds of MHz

(Megahertz), which expresses millions of cycles per second.

CPU speeds used to increase rapidly from year to year and offer

a reasonable estimate for system performance. Unfortunately,

the CPU manufacturers hit the wall a couple years ago in terms

of upping the clock speed, so performance gains are now

achieved by cramming multiple brains into a single CPU. How

much additional speed you see from employing multiple brains

depends very much on the software you are using and the tasks

you are working at. If your main applications are web surfing

and e-mail, the speed and power of the CPU are nearly

irrelevant. If you are editing video or recalculating spreadsheets

with thousands of columns, CPU performance can turn a five

Surface mount vs

socketed CPU

laptop19.htm

The Laptop Repair Workbook

minute rendering task into a two minute render, or a 20 second

calculation into a 5 second calculation.

Your laptop may contain multiple heatsinks, which are

finned metal structures that help conduct the heat away from

hard working silicon components. The heatsinks installed on the

CPU and the video processor are often active heat sinks,

meaning that there’s a little fan bolted right to the top of the

heatsink to help cool it. This is a key reason to rethink upgrading

your laptop CPU even if it turns out there’s one available for the

motherboard. The faster CPU will likely generate more heat, and

the laptop may not be designed to cool it. If a heatsink fan fails

or is unable to provide sufficient cooling, the laptop will display

overheating symptoms, like random freezes or shutdowns.

Random Access Memory (RAM)

The memory in your laptop is, by definition, the RAM (Random

Access Memory). It’s worth making a point of this because even

some long time computer users confuse memory with storage,

which leads them to ask the wrong questions at stores and

purchase hardware they don’t need. When computer

professionals and salespeople talk about storage, they are

talking about devices that save data when the power is turned

off. This can include hard drives, magnetic tapes, optical discs

such as CD, DVD and Blu-Ray, even the old floppy disks. What

makes it more confusing is that the Flash memory technology

mentioned in our brief BIOS discussion is a form of permanent

storage used by digital cameras, cell phones, and portable USB

storage devices. But the main memory in your laptop is the

super fast RAM that forgets everything when the power is

turned off.

Memory in modern laptops is measured in hundreds of

megabytes (MB) or a couple gigabytes (GB). The standard

Windows operating system can’t work with more than 4.0 GB of

RAM, and the minimum suggested for running Microsoft Vista

is 1.0 GB, so the overall range today is extremely narrow and

memory is getting cheaper all the time. In general, the only

laptop upgrade we recommend is the memory, but only if you’re

starting from a low amount. Most laptop motherboards only

have room for two RAM modules, the little circuit cards that

carry the individual RAM chips. We could feed you a lot more

SODIMM RAM in

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Before We Start Troubleshooting

acronyms referring to different types of module technologies

and speeds, but all you need to know is that you can only install

the RAM that is specifically supported by your motherboard.

Hard Drive

The primary storage device in your laptop is the hard drive.

Modern hard drive capacities are measured in hundreds of

gigabytes, though just a couple years ago, they were limited to

tens of gigabytes. It’s enough space unless you load up on video,

audio or pictures. If you do run out of space, clean up your

existing hard drive by copying most of the junk onto DVD’s or

an external hard drive. It will be much easier than to upgrade

the existing hard drive to a higher capacity and reinstalling all

the software. It’s usually possible to upgrade the hard drive with

a higher capacity model, but the only practical method is to use

special software to image your existing hard drive onto the

replacement drive in an external USB enclosure, and then swap

the drives.

Solid-state hard drives are now available in some highend

laptops and will slowly trickle down into consumer models

over the coming years. Since solid-state drives have no moving

parts, they should prove more reliable, will be more tolerant of

physical shocks, and will use less power. But no technology is

perfect, and it’s probable that solid-state drives will prove

vulnerable to certain hardware failures, such as electrical

shocks. Unlike standard hard drives, when a solid-state hard

drive fails, it’s unlikely any data recovery will be possible.

DVD/CD Burners

Everybody has long known DVD and CD discs from home

entertainment, but it’s only in the past couple years that DVD

recorders became standard items in laptops. The DVD recorder

software will come with an option for recording data, which is a

great way to create permanent back-ups of your important files.

Most laptops also ship with a utility that allows you to create

emergency restore discs, if they don’t provide you with a factory

recovery disc. The restore discs are a set of DVD’s that record a

perfect image of the hard drive and allow you to restore the

laptop to its factory fresh condition should the hard drive fail or

Inside a 2.5” hard

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The Laptop Repair Workbook

the operating system get hopelessly corrupted by viruses and

malware.

The majority of complaints about DVD recorders are

about their playback, not the recording. Many users use the

DVD exclusively for playing movies, but the evolving copy

protection schemes and encoding used by the various movie

studios complicates the issue. Sometimes, a laptop will be able

to play old movies, but not new ones. Other times, only movies

from a certain studio will fail. It’s even possible for an

automated software update to result in a loss of capability,

where a movie that played yesterday won’t play today.

Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)

The LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) was the display technology

breakthrough that made laptop computers possible. Before

LCDs, there were some portable computers known as

“luggables” that employed a small tube display that took up half

the room and power. LCD screens are lightweight, consume

minimal power, and unlike the old-fashioned tube displays, are

well suited to getting bounced around. The LCD panel itself acts

as a sort of electronic color film, but the images it produces are

nearly invisible to the eye. If you remember the old 35 mm slides

that used to be popular in photography, you’ll remember how

hard it was to make out the picture without a slide projector or a

light table.

The light source that turns the LCD “film” into a bright

display is called the “backlight.” The current generation of

laptops employ a special type of fluorescent light, a CCFL (Cold

Cathode Fluorescent Lamp) tube, which provides a bright white

light that is evenly distributed behind the LCD screen by

reflective surfaces. The CCFL tubes are very thin and relatively

long lived, but they require a special power source to light them.

This power is provided by the inverter, a circuit that transforms

the low voltage DC power your laptop runs on into a high

voltage, high frequency electronic signal. Inverters are the

Achilles heel of laptop display systems. If the LCD only displays

the faintest of images, it means the backlight isn’t lit. Inverter or

wiring failure is more common than actual backlight burn-out.

Taking apart a

laptop screen:

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Showing inverter

and backlight

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Before We Start Troubleshooting

Laptop Batteries

It’s worth mentioning battery technology in laptop basics just to

point out that laptops contain more than one battery. The

battery everybody knows is the main battery which is easily

removed from the laptop, costs around $100 to replace, and can

power the laptop for a few hours when fully charged. All laptops

also contain a small battery, similar to the batteries that power

wrist watches, to maintain the time, date and the CMOS

Settings. In addition some laptop models employ a nonremovable

battery for backing up the contents of main memory

when the laptop is switched into hibernation. Higher end laptop

models with a hot-swap bay offer the option of a second main

battery for extended operating life, at the expense of removing

the DVD drive or second hard drive.

Universal Serial Bus (USB)

Many years ago, laptops and PCs sported special connection

ports for printers and slower external devices like dial-up

modems. These ports have long since been replaced by USB

(Universal Serial Bus) ports. Most laptops feature at least two or

three USB ports, and on newer laptops, these are all the highspeed

USB 2.0 and soon to be 3.0 variety. The USB ports on

your laptop are even more valuable than the USB ports on your

PC because they save you from expensive and impractical

repairs by serving as a bypass for failed laptop hardware. The

only downside of replacing failed laptop components (such as

the keyboard, touch pad, DVD, modem, network and sound

adapters) with external USB devices is that they slowly turn your

portable laptop into a stationary desktop. But when your laptop

is a couple years old and you are faced with a multi-hundred

dollar repair that you might not be up to doing yourself, the

ability to plug in an inexpensive USB device is a lifesaver.

PC Cards

Unlike standard PCs, most laptops aren’t designed to accept any

internal expansion cards. Those laptops that do employ a mini-

PCI slot are usually sold with that slot already filled by some

standard option. With the advent of USB 2.0, this has become

less important, but you may want to add functionality to your

laptop that requires more power or speed than USB provides.

The Laptop Repair Workbook

This option is available through the one or two external

expansion slots on your laptop known by the unfortunate name

“PC cards”. The earlier version, which you may see in a handme-

down laptop, were called PCMCIA cards, which is too long

an acronym to break out here. OK, it stands for People Can’t

Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms. The current standard

in most laptops is Type II PC Cards, and they are primarily used

for plugging in cellular modems, which allow your laptop to

communicate at a modest speed over the cellular phone

network, for a steep price. The latest generation of laptop

expansion cards are called “Express Cards” but they have seen

limited adoption so far.

Wireless Technology

Since we just mentioned cellular modems, it’s a good time to

bring up the wireless technology, WiFi. WiFi networking for

computers is distinct from the cellular phone network; WiFi and

cellular simply refer to different wireless technologies. WiFi

networking is strictly a short distance solution. Current

standards support ranges from a few tens of feet up to a few

hundreds of feet, depending on the generation of wireless

equipment used. The most common WiFi implementation used

in laptops today is the “G” standard, which is generally

backwards compatible with the older “B” standard. That means

a laptop with built-in B/G will be able to operate on either type

of network. The most recent release to achieve popularity is the

“N” standard, and the newest laptops and after-market adapters

support wireless B/G/N. While “WiFi” and “wireless” may be

used interchangeably by computer professionals, “wireless” is

rarely used when referring to cellular communications.

Bluetooth

Bluetooth adds another communications dimension to laptops,

though it’s not commonly used for local connections despite its

wide availability. Bluetooth is another wireless standard that

offers simplicity combined with relatively low capacity. It’s

currently the favored technology for wirelessly connecting

cameras, cell phones and headsets to laptops, but this could

easily change if WiFi hardware becomes cheaper or Bluetooth

hardware gets faster. In most applications, Bluetooth is a

convenient way to eliminate a cord as opposed to the only way to

Before We Start Troubleshooting

get the job done. Most laptop users with built-in Bluetooth

capability probably never use it, or even know that it’s there.

What’s My Laptop Worth?

When a laptop suffers a major failure, the first thing to do is

estimate both a repair cost AND a replacement cost. We aren’t

fans of the disposable culture or the waste involved in replacing

equipment that can be repaired, but we’d be doing you a

disservice by ignoring the cost trade-off between repairing and

replacing a laptop. When calculating the replacement cost, it

should be based on the cost of a brand new laptop that meets

your needs, not on some high-end model that has everything

you could possibly dream of and only weighs three pounds.

What you paid for your current laptop two or three years ago has

no relationship to the value. You may have gotten a great deal,

you may have been ripped off, but laptop technology has been

advancing rapidly and prices have fallen dramatically, especially

if you know how to shop.

You may save a lot of money by troubleshooting and

repairing your own laptop, especially if the cost of having it

repaired for you is so high that the only logical alternative would

be to buy a replacement. Yet it turns out that you can usually

find a new laptop that will suit most purposes for between $400

and $500 in the U.S., by shopping for new laptops that are

nearing the end of their product cycle and thus have rebates.

Not only will it come with the latest operating system installed,

but the battery will be new and the unit will be covered by a

manufacturer’s warranty. The best comparison shopping source

to locate laptop bargains at the major electronic chains is

www.salescircular.com, which simply aggregates the Sunday

newspaper specials with rebate information from the major

electronics outlets in every state. We specified the U.S. above

because laptops in many countries are subject to special duties

or sold through exclusive distribution networks that double the

price and greatly impact the repair/replace calculus.

In case you decide to go the route of buying a new laptop,

don’t buy with the intention of upgrading or the attractive price

will dissolve like a desert mirage. Never buy the extended

warranty from the store. While you’ll occasionally run into

somebody who bought the extended warranty and ended up

The Laptop Repair Workbook

with a lemon they had replaced, the stores sell these warranties

because they are profitable for the stores, not for the consumers.

It’s difficult for people to let go of their original purchase

price as a starting point in assigning a value to their laptops. But

new cars that famously lose a percentage of their value when you

drive them off the lot don’t age as quickly as laptops, and you

can still drive a fifty year old car on the highway. You can’t get

on the Internet with a twenty year old laptop, and you need to be

a little eccentric (and very patient) to do it with a ten year old

model. The built-in wireless which allows you to access the

Internet from public places or anywhere in your house with a

wireless router has only been around for a few years, and the

same is true for laptops capable of running Microsoft’s Vista

operating system.

Shopping For Used Laptops

Shopping for used items is a passion for some people, but if we

could only give one word of advice about buying a used laptop, it

would be "Don't." Fortunately, talk is cheap so we'll go on at

length about when it does or doesn't make sense to buy second

hand and how much to pay for different capacity models. But

remember you can almost always find a new laptop for under

$500 in the U.S. at a local big-box retailer. You'll get a brand

new laptop with the latest Windows installed and enough

memory to run it, a big hard drive, a combination DVD/CD

recorder and player, built-in USB 2.0, WiFi, 56K modem and a

wired network connection as well. The battery will be new, so

you'll actually be able to work untethered for a few hours at a

time, and you’ll be able to expect two or three years of trouble

free operation if you don’t abuse it.

New laptop purchasers often have an old one to sell, so

they’re available everywhere from eBay to newspaper ads,

company-to-employee sales to PC shops, and of course, Internet

sites. The major used laptop sellers on the Internet are usually

selling reconditioned or remanufactured units, where

reconditioned basically means they turned it on and it worked

and remanufactured means something was broken so they

replaced it. The term “factory second” means it failed the final

test at the factory, so instead of shipping it, they reworked it on

Before We Start Troubleshooting

the spot and didn't sell it as new. Sort of like buying scuffed

shoes at a discount clothing outlet.

There are more brand name laptops than desktops sold

these days, with some popular models being the Dell Latitude,

Toshiba Satellite, Sony Vaio, HP Pavilion, Lenovo Thinkpad,

Acer Aspire and Apple iBook. Most of these models have been

around forever, which means you can't just buy a Satellite and

assume that you're getting a recent Toshiba laptop. The

Thinkpad, Sony Vaio and the Apple laptops probably hold their

value a little better than the other brands, because they are

rarely sold at deep discounts, even on closeout. However, there’s

no reason to pay for name recognition in a used laptop, and

notebooks that have operated long enough to be sold used are

well beyond any initial quality concerns.

Second hand laptop prices are often advertised as

discounted from their list price. Their original list price! You

couldn't find a laptop priced for less than a grand a few years

ago. A company that bought a bunch of cheap laptops a few

years back for a $1000 each and is now replacing them with new

laptops will offer them to employees at 50% off. The employees

believe it's a great bargain and pay $500 for obsolete junk with

worn out batteries (with the software removed if the company is

conscientious) when they could be buying a brand new laptop

for the same price that's several generations better. The same

thing happens with the used and reconditioned notebooks sold

over the Internet or on eBay. The seller says, "List price $1,699"

or "I paid $2,349" but they're talking about retail laptop prices

without rebates that are two or three years old.

Look carefully at the capabilities of these notebooks.

Their CPU speed probably doesn’t meet the latest operating

system requirements, they won't have much memory installed,

nor a DVD recorder, and if they include wireless, it may be an

external adapter. The battery will be on its last legs, and the

screen will have dead pixels, and the USB ports will be the older

1.1 version. The keyboard and mouse pointer will be old and

unresponsive. The model that "listed" at $1,699 will be

promoted as a steal at $795, and the $2,349 laptop (with

"$1,000 of software I added") will have a minimum bid of

$1200. They may get it too, but not from you. You could be

The Laptop Repair Workbook

buying a new high-end laptop for that kind of money, with a new

warranty, the latest legal software and all the bells and whistles.

Then, you finally find some cheap used laptop prices,

between $200 and $400. Sounds a lot better on the face of it,

but here’s what we found doing a little Internet shopping today.

The "Special" on one of the Internet's top sites was a 650 MHz

HP notebook Pentium III with Windows 98. They were selling it

for $429 before shipping and handling. That's eight year old

technology! No wireless, an 18 GB hard drive (cheap new

notebooks ship with 100 GB hard drives, five times the

capacity), and while Windows 98 was a good release, Windows

XP or Vista are required to install most new software. The same

store offers a whole range of used laptop models for $299, all

with tiny hard drives (6 GB), less than a fifteenth of what you'd

get in a $500 new model), Windows 98, 128 MB of RAM and

CPU speeds under 400 MHz!! These are typical prices for used

notebooks, and you're paying 60% to 120% of the price of a new

laptop for one that won't run software you need and can't be

upgraded. All over the Internet you’ll see second hand laptops

with Pentium III CPU's selling for between $500 and $1000,

advertised as bargains, it's just insane.

Price Range Advice

$400 - $500 Buy a brand new laptop with factory and store rebates.

Make sure you fill out the rebate paperwork correctly,

stick with in-store rebates if possible.

$300 - $400 The only used laptop we would recommend buying in

this range is a lightweight or desktop replacement

model running Windows XP or Vista, with built-in

wireless and a DVD recorder, and then only from

somebody you know.

$200 - $300 If a friend or family member has a laptop less than one

year old that they want to sell you because they’ve

bought a better one, just make sure it suits your needs

and check the battery life.

$100 - $200 You can gamble a little in this price range, meaning if

you’re buying a beater laptop to drag around, as long as

it has wireless and works, you might get what you paid

for.

$0 - $100 Before you accept a free laptop, understand that the

local landfill will probably charge you $10 or $20 to

dispose of it if you find it’s not any use to you.

Before We Start Troubleshooting

This value analysis ignores one major factor; the software

and data on your hard drive. If you’ve installed software and no

longer have the original installation discs, or programs that

won’t function under a new operating system, you may be

willing to spend more on repairs. If you have data on the hard

drive of a dead laptop you haven’t backed up, treat that as a

separate issue. If the hard drive is still alive, the data can be

easily read off in another machine. Just remember these two

things. First, your laptop is going to die or become obsolete

sooner or later and probably sooner, so at some point you’ll be

throwing good money after bad. Second, one of the most

common and cost effective laptop repairs is to replace a failed

hard drive. Unfortunately, a failed hard drive means the loss of

your programs and data unless you have back-ups.

Ironically, the most sensible purchase of a used laptop

you can make is purchasing a broken one, providing it’s the

exact same model as yours and you need the good parts. For

example, if your laptop experiences a motherboard failure, it’s

normally a death sentence since new motherboard prices are

prohibitive. If you can find somebody selling the exact model on

eBay with a dead hard drive and a cracked screen, needless to

say, you’ll get it cheap. Then you can move your hard drive and

LCD to the replacement laptop, and you’re back up and running,

with parts to spare.

Shopping for New Laptops

Shopping for a laptop based on how much you can afford is a

mistake that normally leads to spending too much. You need to

determine what functionality you require before you start

shopping for a new laptop. For some users, the style and the

color of the laptop will be the deciding factor, and nothing we

can write in this book is going to change your taste or priorities.

But if your interest in purchasing a laptop is to acquire a tool for

accomplishing certain tasks, we can probably save you some

money.

We aren’t going to refer to specific CPU brands and

speeds, memory technologies, hard drive access times or the

latest generation of anything. In the context of this book, we’re

assuming you’re shopping as an alternative to gambling on an

expensive repair that may not solve the problems with your

The Laptop Repair Workbook

current laptop. Getting you fixed up with your dream laptop

isn’t the point, we just want to make sure that if you do buy a

new laptop, you buy one that will meet your needs for a couple

years.

Laptop manufacturers design their different model lines

to appeal to different markets, though the basic functionality of

all the units when sitting on a desk and plugged into a power

outlet is very similar. The processor speed and the hard drive

capacity are far less important to the average user than the builtin

options, such as digital film readers, a web cam, or extended

life battery and hot-swap capability. Despite the best efforts of

the manufacturers to segment the laptop market into distinct

audiences with increasing price points, they do a fairly poor job

at explaining the differences between their model lines. So your

principal homework before you start shopping for a new laptop

is to determine which of the following groups you fall into.

Basic Consumer Model

The least expensive laptops, the ones we keep referring to as

being available new with or without rebates in the $400 to $500

range, are the basic consumer models. These laptops generally

represent the state of the art - of the previous year – and are

designed primarily for low manufacturing cost. Despite the lessthan-

exciting design goal, these laptops are still very capable

and powerful machines because they are sold in a very

competitive environment. They normally weigh in the five or six

pound range, come standard with the latest Microsoft operating

system, and are unfortunately loaded with “free” trial version

software.

The basic consumer model laptop will run any standard

software you buy. It simply won’t run that software as fast as a

model that’s designed for high performance. The standard

laptop will happily connect to the WiFi hotspot in your home or

local café, and will offer high speed USB connectors for hooking

up printers, scanners, cameras, etc. It will have a practical

battery life of two or three hours, and a reasonably good LCD

display. It probably won’t have any advanced security features,

such as a fingerprint scanner or face recognition, but these

features are less practical than showy.

Before We Start Troubleshooting

The Home Entertainment Laptop

Once the province of desktop PCs, laptops have pushed into the

home entertainment market, especially with younger consumers

who may move frequently and appreciate the all-in-one

approach of having the screen, computer, DVD player and

Internet connection all in one small package. Laptops designed

for the home entertainment market tend to have faster CPUs

and larger screens, employing the 16:9 letterbox format which is

ideal for movie playback and some gaming applications. They

may also feature brand-name video processors and better sound

reproduction than standard consumer models. However, there’s

only so much you can get out of tiny laptop speakers and limited

amplification, so most people using a laptop for home

entertainment will purchase USB speakers. More serious

gamers, at least for the near future, will stick with desktop PCs,

as a high performance video adapter for gaming requires more

power than an entire laptop, and costs more than a low-end

model as well. Home entertainment laptops run from $600 to

$1000.

Business Laptops and Tablets

Laptops targeted at business users are more likely to feature

docking station connectors. Docking stations allow the laptop to

be quickly installed in a base that ties it into all of the business

systems in your office, such as the network, printers, a standard

keyboard and mouse, all without fooling around with multiple

USB connectors and networking cables. Docking stations may

also offer a DVD recorder, or other devices missing from a super

lightweight laptop. Business models are also more likely to

support hot-swap bays for flexibility, so you can install a second

hard drive in place of the DVD drive, or a second battery for that

eight hour flight. They also tend to ship with less junky trial

software, since corporate IT departments have less patience and

more say in the matter than the average consumer.

A hybrid laptop/tablet design is becoming more popular

with students and businessmen alike, although the original

tablets were quite distinct from laptops in their design. The

hybrid laptop/tablet employs a screen with a single hinge point

in the middle that allows the touch screen capable LCD to be

swiveled all the way around and laid back over the keyboard,

The Laptop Repair Workbook

with the screen facing up. At this point, the laptop functions like

a very capable tablet, and can be used for taking notes longhand,

drawing, or stepping through checklists and forms with a stylus,

a popular business application for field representatives. Prices

for tablets and business laptops range from $700 to $1500.

Desktop Replacements

Laptop manufacturers struggle to draw a line between their

home entertainment and desktop replacement lines, but that

line is rapidly disappearing. The key design goal of desktop

replacement laptops is to come as close as possible to the

performance and capacities of desktop PCs without sacrificing

portability. This results in heavier laptops that draw more

power, have shorter battery lives, and often sport outrageously

large screens. The assumption behind desktop replacements is

that they will usually be placed on a reasonably sturdy desk or

table, plugged into the wall, and stay in the same place most of

the day. But, unlike desktop PCs, you can actually take these on

the bus or the plane if you need to, and specially designed

backpacks and rolling luggage are making this a more practical

option. For the salesperson who travels by car and sets up shop

in a motel room every night, it is the next best thing to bringing

his entire office with him.

Desktop replacement users will often opt for a port

replicator. A port replicator is the poor man’s version of a

docking station, and port replicators sold by the manufacturer

often use the docking station connector. Aftermarket port

replicators that use the PC card slot or USB port can’t offer quite

as much functionality, but they are portable between systems

and may meet your needs better. Port replicators allow you to

connect USB devices, a keyboard, mouse, wired network, etc, by

plugging them into the port replicator rather than attaching four

or five cables to the laptop. That way, when you want to take the

laptop to the coffee shop, you only have to pull one connection,

and you’re on your way. Desktop replacements are priced in the

$800 to $2000 range.

Lightweight Travel Laptops

Finally, we come to the luxury cars of the laptop world, the

lightweight travel models. For starters, you can expect to pay

Before We Start Troubleshooting

between three and five times the cost of an entry level consumer

laptop for a reduction of about 50% in weight. Lightweight

laptops may weigh as much as four pounds, if they feature a full

size keyboard, a reasonable size screen and a permanently

installed DVD recorder. But as you move up in price and down

in weight, the screens and keyboards become smaller, and the

standard options you have come to expect in even the cheapest

laptops begin to drop away. The first feature to go in lightweight

laptops is normally the DVD drive. Rather than featuring a hot

swap bay for flexible configuration, the lightweight laptops are

more likely to offer an extended life battery as an option, one

that adds size and weight to the laptop.

You won't find a lot of choice for true travel notebooks

when you check your local big box retailer, though they may

have a small Sony Vaio for around $2,000 and some version of a

light Toshiba. Shopping for serious lightweight notebooks is best

done on the manufacturer websites. After you zero in on the

exact model that suits your needs, you can try shopping other

websites on price, but there’s usually not much variation in the

high end models. Sony, Dell and Lenovo (Thinkpad) are the

lightweight or sub-notebook leaders, but Toshiba, HP and Acer

also sell models that come close to the four pound limit, and

don’t leave you stuck carrying around an external DVD drive.

Lightweight laptops can cost anywhere from $1000 to $3000.

Laptop Upgrades

First, let us reiterate that you should never buy a used laptop

with the intention of upgrading it. If you've owned a laptop since

buying it new or if it was given to you as a hand-me-down, an

upgrade may be worth looking at if you need a little more

functionality.

The easiest and most effective upgrade most laptop

owners can make is upgrading the RAM. A ancient second hand

notebook with 32MB of RAM will see a major performance

increase (especially when you open multiple windows) if you

upgrade it to 64MB, and an old notebook with 64 MB will run

"like new" if you add 128MB for 192MB total. Newer laptops

with 256 MB or 512 MB installed can often be upgraded to 1 GB,

but if your plan is to install Microsoft Vista, make sure the rest

of the hardware, especially the CPU, is up to speed.

The Laptop Repair Workbook

Laptop RAM is usually upgraded by removing an access

panel on the bottom of the notebook that’s secured by a single

screw, and snapping the new module into place. However,

upgrade capacity is normally limited to a single module unless

you remove the factory installed RAM, and the size and

technology of that memory module is fixed in advance by the

laptop manufacturer. Consult your owner’s manual or visit the

memory guide at crucial.com before attempting to upgrade. The

trick is to first make sure your laptop doesn't already have the

maximum amount of RAM installed, and to buy the right

module. Also, some laptops don’t feature easy access to the RAM

slots, and you’ll have to remove the keyboard or open up the

body.

Now comes the bad news. The RAM is the only internal

laptop component that can be easily upgraded. The problem is

three-fold. First, laptops are highly proprietary, and an upgrade

part like a DVD burner that will fit the physical form, provide

the right connector and be supported by the laptop BIOS may

not exist. In some instances, you may be able to use the outer

plastic bezel and metal frame from the original CD/DVD-ROM

to match a new recorder to the body of the notebook, but it still

has to be a supported model. Second, these parts are so much

more expensive than desktop components that it's not funny.

Your best bet is to buy "pulls," components scavenged from

broken or discarded units, but even these aren't cheap. Your

current laptop BIOS may not support the new CD or DVD drive,

or even a larger capacity hard drive. Never fool around with

flashing the laptop BIOS unless you are absolutely desperate,

because if it goes wrong, you'll be left with a brick. Third, while

you can generally install a larger hard drive, it probably won’t be

any faster and transferring all of your software is quite a job and

rarely a simple task.

You can't upgrade the motherboard in your laptop. In

most cases, you can't even replace it cost effectively if it fails.

The same goes for the LCD screen, though you can hook up to an

external monitor if your screen is failing and you aren't ready to

replace it. You may be able to upgrade the CPU if you’re

desperate for performance, but it’s better to start by installing

the maximum amount of RAM and to clean up your operating

system. The reason laptop manufacturers design some

motherboards with a CPU socket rather than soldering the CPU

Illustrated RAM

upgrade:

laptop_2.htm

Before We Start Troubleshooting

to the motherboard is it allows them to use the same

motherboard in a wide range of model-price points, with the

CPU speed being the main differentiating factor. By designing

the laptop with a replaceable CPU, they can avoid committing to

manufacturing fixed quantities of each model before they see

how sales go, and keep their options open should CPU prices fall

dramatically. But unless your laptop was one of the lowest

performance models in the family, it’s unlikely that upgrading to

the fastest CPU available will make much difference. It’s also a

more delicate job than upgrading the memory, and may require

a dreaded BIOS upgrade as well.

So, have we eliminated any hope of recording CDs or

increasing the storage capacity of your old laptop? Absolutely

not. Laptops are designed to work with peripherals, and as long

as you have a USB 2.0 or even an older USB 1.1 port, you'll have

no trouble finding inexpensive external drives that will also be

portable to any other computer you own or may purchase in the

future. For moving data between computers or storing a few

gigabytes of data, USB JumpDrives are a great solution. You can

carry a JumpDrive on your key chain (and many are designed

for just that), and read the data on almost any computer in the

world. You can also connect to a router for high speed internet

access through your USB or the network port. Another handy

notebook upgrade is an external mouse and keyboard. A simple

USB splitter for less than $10 will provide both ports in one

convenient rat tail, especially handy if your notebook has only a

single PS/2 port for a keyboard or a proprietary keyboard port.

If you’re feeling depressed about the limited upgrade

options for your laptop versus a desktop PC, look on the bright

side. Laptops are “green” computers, in the sense that they are

designed to use the minimum amount of materials (for reasons

of weight) and to run on batteries. The requirement for all

laptops to run on batteries makes them far more power efficient

than desktop PC’s, where manufacturers compete on

performance. Most laptops run on appreciably less electricity

than a 60 watt light bulb, while the power demands of desktop

PC’s can be five to ten times as much. Of course manufacturers

of expensive laptops want to compete on performance as well,

and in some cases they might actually dip into the battery

reserves for peak power demand even when the laptop is

plugged in.

The Laptop Repair Workbook

Things That Go Wrong With Laptops

The main selling point of laptops is that they are portable and

can operate on batteries. Not surprisingly, two of the main

drawbacks of laptops are that they are portable and can operate

on batteries. Portability leads to a whole series of problems that

you don’t normally encounter with desktop computers. About

the worst of these problems is that laptops are easily stolen or

lost, simply by forgetting them in funky places, like on top of the

car or on the bus or train. Beyond losing the whole laptop,

portability introduces the problem of getting banged around and

stepped on. You won’t encounter too many desktop computers

with cracked LCD screens, but people often treat closed laptops

like a plank of wood, which they aren’t. Stacking things on top of

laptops, especially in overhead baggage compartments, can

result in enough point pressure on the lid to crack the screen.

Component or board level damage is also possible when

sufficient violence is done to a laptop.

For most electronic products, high reliability is achieved

by reducing the number of moving parts. Unfortunately, laptop

designs universally feature a hinged screen that is opened and

closed each time the laptop is moved somewhere. While the

engineers have gotten very good at designing the hinges and the

cables that bring signal and power to the LCD screen and

backlight in the lid, they are still moving parts. Intermittent

problems with notebook screens that seem to come and go at

random after you move the laptop are usually related to the

opening and the closing of the lid. One time the wire twists the

right way, next time the wire twists the wrong way. The wiring

bundles are no fun to fix, and doing any repair job on a laptop

that requires working with the hinges can lead to wires getting

broken or shorted. All this means that if you aren’t going to be

carrying your computer from place to place, you’re better off

buying a desktop.

Batteries, which make laptops such popular café and

classroom accessories, are another Achilles heel that desktops

do without. Battery technology has advanced tremendously in

the last 20 years, but the same basic problems still plague all

high power battery devices. Battery packs achieve a high enough

voltage to operate a notebook computer by including multiple

battery cells connected in series. This makes it very difficult for

Before We Start Troubleshooting

the computer to fully comprehend the state of discharge of the

battery pack as a whole. Additionally, with some technologies,

user behavior makes a huge difference in how long the battery

will remain viable. The most recent battery technology to

achieve wide acceptance is Lithium-Ion. These battery packs are

the least demanding in terms user lifecycle management, but

they have issues of their own, like limited shelf life and

occasionally bursting into flames.

Another generally unremarked flaw of laptops is the

moral hazard. The convenience and portability of laptops

promotes reckless behavior on the part of their owners. Who

hasn’t been guilty of working on shaky tables in cafes while

traveling, with a tall Pilsner glass or a paper cup of coffee just

inches from the keyboard? If somebody bumps into the table or

elbows over the glass, it could be curtains for the computer.

Eating and drinking over a desktop computer normally only

puts the keyboard at risk, a $10 replacement part. Eating and

drinking around a laptop puts the whole unit at risk should

liquid find its way past the keyboard membrane and cause a

short circuit. A sticky desktop keyboard is easy to clean or

replace, while a sticky laptop keyboard is a nightmare to clean,

and will cost around $80 to replace if you do the job yourself,

and as much as $250 if you pay somebody else.

If you do spill something on your laptop, the best bet is to

hold in the power button (and your breath) for three or five very

long seconds to turn it off. The normal human reaction of

pulling the plug after spilling a liquid on electronics doesn’t

accomplish much when the battery is installed. After it shuts

down, unplug it if it’s plugged in and sop up as much of the

liquid as possible with a paper towel. Once it’s turned off, if you

have to turn the laptop upside down to remove the battery,

sopping up most of the liquid before it gets past the keyboard

membrane is probably a better choice. In any case, when you’ve

cleaned it up as good as you can, remove the battery and let the

laptop dry out overnight. If it was anything worse than a little

splash of water or coffee on the keyboard, remove the keyboard

to check for any signs of wetness underneath before attempting

to power it up again. You should find some well illustrated

disassembly instructions for your model online.

The Laptop Repair Workbook

Leaving laptops in cars is another killer. You don’t want

to leave your laptop in a hot car anymore than you want to leave

your children or your dog. Well, there are laws against leaving

children and dogs in cars, and unless you’re a cloning advocate,

they can’t be backed up. Backing up your laptop is your only

defense against all of the awful things that await it in the world.

The only critical component in your laptop when it comes to

preserving your data, your programs, your favorite websites and

e-mail addresses, is the hard drive. A nasty jolt at the wrong

moment, a bad power surge, too much heat or an overturned

cup of coffee can all lead to a hard drive’s premature demise.

There are services that can recover most of the data from hard

drives that aren’t too badly damaged for a cost between a few

hundred and a few thousand dollars, but making it happen in a

hurry costs extra.

Backing Up

Backing up your important data on a DVD on a regular basis

means you can walk into any electronics store, walk out with a

cheap new notebook, and be up and running again within a

couple hours. If you run a business, are in the process of writing

a novel, or have other information that you need to back up

every time you use the computer, there are two more choices.

One is to buy a cheap JumpDrive (a USB memory stick with four

or eight GB of storage) and copy your most frequently used data

onto it whenever you’ve made substantial additions. The trick, of

course, is to keep the JumpDrive in your pocket when you aren’t

using it and not the USB port, where it could walk off with the

whole laptop. The other option is to sign up with a remote

backup service that uses the Internet combined with software on

your computer to incrementally backup every change you make.

Of course, it means another password to remember and another

monthly bill. The poor man’s version of online backup is to

simply create a free account at Yahoo!, Google Gmail or MSN

Hotmail, and e-mail yourself attachments on a regular basis.

Moving beyond the hardware, the most frequently

encountered laptop problems are due to software. This situation

isn’t unique to laptops, as a profusion of software is equally as

bad for desktop PCs. A huge number of laptops are replaced

because they’ve slowed down so much they’re barely usable.

Laptops don’t get slower with age, the clock that ticks along a

Before We Start Troubleshooting

billion or so times a second to drive the digital brain of the

laptop never changes speed. Laptops get slower when they are

overloaded with software or attacked by malicious programs.

The new and often unwanted software gives the laptop more and

more to do until it can barely finish anything.

If your laptop came with a factory rescue DVD or CD, and

it hasn’t gotten scratched up, you can always run the recovery

software to restore the laptop to the exact state it was in when it

was new out of the box. Of course, it didn’t have any of your data

or software on it when it was new out of the box, so you better

have a perfect backup before taking what technicians call the

“nuke and pave” approach.

Malware And Protection

When presented with a laptop that takes forever to boot and

runs incredibly slow for a period of time afterwards, the main

culprit you’ll encounter is improperly configured anti-virus

software. Anti-virus software is a necessity for protecting

Windows based computers that are connected to the Internet.

The problem comes about when the anti-virus software is

configured (intentionally or unintentionally) to run a full scan

every time the computer is booted. A full scan means that the

anti-virus software ignores the fact that it’s already checked

every file on your hard drive and checks them all again. This can

take anywhere from fifteen minutes to a couple hours,

depending on how big your hard drive is and the speed of your

laptop. During this time, the anti-virus software is not only

eating up processing power, it’s also continually accessing the

hard drive, and the little hard drive activity LED will be lit

almost continually. The operating system is happy to let you try

to do other things while all of this is going on, but the

performance will be so bad that you’ll be sure that you have a

virus when what you really have is too much cure. You’ll also

encounter laptop computers that have multiple copies of antivirus

software from different vendors trying to run at the same

time, or one after another. There’s such a thing as too much

caution.

The best way to meet your need for anti-virus software,

anti-spyware software, anti-adware software and firewall, is to

buy an all-in-one suite. Kaspersky, AVG and Avast are some of

The Laptop Repair Workbook

the more reliable and friendly suites, but you aren’t likely to see

them preinstalled on a new laptop. Technology columnists and

PC magazines like to produce articles comparing and rating the

various suites, and often give you the impression that not buying

the top rated package is like leaving your doors wide open. As

long as your suite does daily updates of the virus database, you

should be fine unless you spend all of your time exploring the

dark side of the Internet. The big brand-name security suites

used at your office or your bank (and which may be pre-installed

in a trial version on your laptop) are usually a lousy choice for

home use. These suites are often resource hogs, require a bit of

specialized knowledge to configure well, and can be extremely

unfriendly to honest software applications you install.

When the user of an unprotected laptop ventures into a

bad neighborhood, often after being misled by a search engine

result or a link on a social networking site, the result can be

some form of browser hijack. Your browser has probably been

hijacked if as soon as you connect to the Internet, ads start

popping up in your browser, or your home page has changed to

some innocuous looking directory site you’ve never heard of. In

milder cases, downloading and running a security suite after the

fact may fix the problem, though you might have to do the

download on another computer and copy the installation files to

CD or a memory stick for the stricken laptop. That’s only if

you’re lucky though. Security software is best suited to keep

malicious programs off your computer. Once they get in,

removal can be a long manual job, with you or the technician

constantly going back to Google and searching for the next piece

of the puzzle. It can take a computer professional six or seven

hours to clean up a laptop after a particularly nasty browser

hijack and trojan installation. Even then the solution depends

heavily on somebody else having figured out the cure and

sharing it online. Since an ethical computer technician doesn’t

want to charge you $300 to $500 in time for cleaning up a

malware infestation, the total reinstall, or nuke-and-pave

option, is often taken.

Aside from malicious software, laptops face the usual run

of software related problems. There’s accidental deletion of

program files and icons, registry corruption, poorly written

programs not playing nicely together and over-full hard drives.

While you could spend the rest of your life typing and not put a

Before We Start Troubleshooting

dent in your hard drive capacity, pictures and video from digital

cameras or music and movies downloaded over a high speed

Internet connection can eat through space at an amazing rate.

Your laptop counts on having some hard drive space available at

all times to use as a scratch pad while managing the data in

memory. If you don’t leave enough free space open, you’ll start

getting crashes and file corruption.

Perhaps the most annoying problem faced by the buyer of

a new laptop is all the undesirable free trial software the laptop

manufacturer has been paid to include. After booting up a new

laptop and registering the operating system, the first thing to do

is to get rid of all of the trial software, especially the anti-virus,

and replace it with a product of your choosing. This can take a

few hours, as many new laptops need an hour of clucking away

to themselves to unpack all of the software baggage pre-installed

on the hard drive in compressed form. The length of this process

depends on the manufacturer, and they usually include a slip of

paper in the packing box letting you know that the laptop will

need to spend a little time alone after it’s powered on.

Basic Repair Techniques

Before we move on to troubleshooting laptop hardware, it’s a

good idea to cover some basic techniques you can use to increase

the odds of actually fixing the problem, rather than making it

worse. Here’s the #1 favor you can do yourself. Before taking

apart your laptop, search online for an illustrated repair

procedure for your exact model family. Your best friend in

searching for online repair guides is Google, but be prepared to

spend a good hour or so looking for a well illustrated page.

You’ll need one that shows the procedure you need to carry out,

or at least how to get the body open without breaking anything.

Laptops usually ship with a User’s Manual in PDF format

on the hard drive, which can be read on screen or printed

through Adobe’s free Acrobat Reader. But the user’s manual is

normally limited to some simple upgrades or component

replacements and illustrated with a limited number of line

drawings. The actual repair manual is sometimes included with

the pre-installed documentation. If not, you can often find it on

the laptop manufacturer’s website or through Google. For recent

models, you should try the manufacturer’s website first, but

The Laptop Repair Workbook

don’t be surprised if you find the repair manual poorly

illustrated.

Getting Set Up

The next tip is to create your own illustrated guide as you go

along! You don’t have to do any writing or plan on publishing it,

but a digital camera can provide invaluable documentation and

help in finding your way back should the repair prove more

complicated than you hoped. It’s easy to forget whether a cable

ran to the right or left of a drive, or above or under another

cable. Yet these details are planned out by the engineers and

may be important to promote air flow or prevent abrasion.

Unless you’re doing a hardware hack, the laptop should go back

together exactly the same way as it came apart, and a couple

dozen photos from your digital camera can make all the

difference. Digital photos are free, so don’t skimp.

A large, flat workspace with good lighting is also a key

ingredient to a successful repair. You can’t expect to fix your

laptop working on your lap, unless you’re doing something

really simple, like replacing the RAM. Ideally, you should create

a workspace where you’ll be able to leave the disassembled

laptop for as long as the job takes. Keep in mind that the

troubleshooting process doesn’t always identify the right

problem, or the only failure. You don’t want to have to put the

whole laptop together again just because you’re waiting for a

part to show up, or a longer block of open time to work on it.

Although laptops are pretty rugged when screwed together,

many of the components are quite delicate when they are

removed from the laptop, or left hanging from a connector.

Moving a laptop around in a disassembled state is always a bad

idea, even if you put it in a box.

Screwdrivers And Screws

Screwdrivers are the only tools you need to do the majority of

laptop repairs, but you’ll often need more than one. Most

laptops are put together with Phillips head screws, but these are

the small electronics sizes. The Phillips screwdrivers most

people have around the house are #2 or larger. The largest size

that you might use on a laptop is the smaller #1, and you’ll

almost always need at least one of the #0 or #00 sizes. All three

Before We Start Troubleshooting

of these, the #1, #0, and #00 can be found in any decent

electrical precision screwdriver set. In a pinch, you can also use

jeweler’s screwdrivers, but jeweler’s screwdrivers have very slim

handles that make it difficult to generate the torque needed to

break some screws free. Laptop screws are installed with a little

thread adhesive to prevent vibration from loosening them up.

Most people doing home repairs don’t bother using new

adhesive when reinstalling screws, though you can purchase it at

your local hardware store.

Don’t fool around with trying to remove screws with a

cheap all purpose tool that comes with dozens of replaceable

screwdriver bits. Not only will the bits have trouble fitting in

some of the recessed holes, they tend to flake apart and they

often strip the screw or Torx head as they fail. A single stripped

screw head can stop you dead in your tracks on a laptop repair

job, so it’s important to use a quality screwdriver that’s the right

size for the screw and fits easily into any recessed holes.

A bigger problem than removing the screws is keeping

track of them. It’s important to know which holes screws came

out of when the screws are different lengths. If you put a screw

that’s too long in the wrong hole, it may punch through and

damage something. Even if they don’t do damage, screws that

are too long won’t hold the laptop closed properly, and screws

that are too short won’t hold anything. Sometimes the holes are

labeled with numbers molded into the plastic, where the

numbers might refer to the screw length, or they might refer to

the screws that must be removed for a specific procedure. If

you’re going to count on those numbers, label the first screw you

remove for each number and make sure all the following screws

match it.

Otherwise, you can take several approaches to tracking

screws, all of which can have their drawbacks. The first is to

label each screw hole with a pencil or a bit of masking tape and a

pen as you remove each screw. If you’ve never worked on a

laptop before, you can make a line that’s the length of the screw

for a label. If you’ve worked on enough laptops to be familiar

with screw lengths, you can use letter labeling, like “L” for long

and “S” for short. Unfortunately, you can end up with one of

those nightmare laptops that use six or seven screw lengths just

Tips for laptop

disassembly:

laptop13.htm

The Laptop Repair Workbook

to hold the body together, leaving you with extended labels like

“LL” for longer long, and “MS” for medium short.

Some people try taping the screws right next to the holes,

but this gets awkward if you take a bunch of screws out of the

bottom and then have to work with the laptop upside-up. The

tape can come loose and the laptop won’t sit level and will feel

unstable when you’re working on the top. Another approach is

to make a map of the screw holes on a piece of paper, either by

drawing it or by poking holes in the paper where the screws go.

Then you can tape the screws to the map as you remove them. If

you have a really large work area and aren’t worried about

disruptions from kids or pets, you can just lay the screws out on

the table in the pattern you remove them, but they are prone to

rolling out of position if you give the table a bump.

Static Electricity

Static electricity discharge is always a worry when working with

laptops, but you don’t have to rush out and buy an anti-static

mat if you’re not going to be doing repairs on a regular basis.

The main thing is to be sensible and not to work on the laptop in

an area where you get a static shock every time you touch the

doorknob. You should avoid activities that create static build-up

on your body, like removing clothing in the middle of the job

because you’re getting frustrated and overheated, pacing back

and forth on the rug, or stroking the cat in an attempt to calm

yourself down. Ground yourself before digging into the laptop

by touching a grounded appliance or the screw in the center of a

grounded outlet. You can purchase a static bracelet on a tether

for a few dollars online or at your local electronics store, but if

you aren’t used to working with one, you can end up catching

the cord on something and knocking parts off the table or into

the open laptop body.

Disconnecting The Power

Before you start any laptop repair, you should unplug the laptop

and remove the main battery. If your laptop is equipped with a

secondary battery in a hot swap bay, remove that as well. The

main danger of working with the battery installed is that the

laptop may be inadvertently powered on, which would lead to all

sorts of component damage if it happened at the wrong

Before We Start Troubleshooting

moment. Once the laptop is disassembled, you may need power

to continue with the troubleshooting, for example, if you’re

trying a spare backlight. At that point, it’s often better to use the

AC power than the battery power because the AC power adapter

can be quickly disconnected if there’s a problem. If you power

up with the battery, there’s no quick way to power back down

again in an emergency.

Windows Device Manager

Windows Device manager has been using the same symbols to

display device problems from early versions right up through

Vista. A problem is expressed by any extra symbol, like a "!" or a

"?" appearing next to a device. Double click on the problem

device(s) or else click on the little "+" to the left of any

questionable devices to get the expanded view. When you double

click on any specific piece of hardware in the expanded view,

you can select the Resources tab, where there's a little box in the

lower half that reports on conflicting devices. Write down any

information in the box, rather than trusting it to memory.

A red "X" means that the device has been disabled, but is

still eating hardware resources and may cause conflicts with

other installed devices. This information appears on the

"General" tab of Device Manager, the first screen that comes up

when you double click on a specific device or right click and

choose “Properties.” At the bottom of the screen there are two

check boxes or a pull down menu under the heading "Device

Usage." If the "Disable in this hardware profile" box is checked

or selected, uncheck it or select “Enable” and then reboot.

A black "!" next to a device means Device Manager sees a

problem, but the device may actually work. It could be caused by

a conflict or a version problem with the driver, so try updating

the driver from the manufacturer’s website. A blue "i" doesn't

indicate a problem as much as a warning that the device's

resources have been set manually. This could be the result of

your having cleared up a conflict by manually forcing different

resources on a device. A green "?" means that a compatible

device driver has been installed. The driver is the first thing to

check if you're having any problem with a device, and running a

compatible driver rather than an exact match from the

The Laptop Repair Workbook

manufacturer is often the fault. Device Manager also includes

an interactive troubleshooting wizard that’s worth a try.

The main Microsoft Knowledge Base article on Device

Manager codes at press time:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/125174

Searching for Answers

Internet search is the single most important tool at the disposal

of technicians and home users alike these days. Whether you use

Google or favor another search engine, a half hour of serious

searching and reading can save you hundreds of dollars and

many hours of frustration. Most readers will have quite a bit of

experience with search by this point, but we’re going to suggest a

simple model that may increase your efficiency when searching

on laptop errors or troubleshooting questions.

Let’s say you power on your laptop and get the error:

Pxe-E61: Media test failure, check cable

The plain reading of this error is that there’s a boot

problem because the BIOS can’t read the boot drive, and is

reporting a test failure. While the connector may really be the

problem, it’s also quite possible that the hard drive electronics

are failing or that it’s not spinning up. Before you tear out your

hard drive and put it in a USB enclosure to test on another

computer or try to recover data, it’s a good idea to search the

Internet for reports of the same error in identical circumstances,

to narrow down the possibilities.

When you go to search, the critical part of the error

message is not the text, it’s the code at the beginning, “Pxe-E61”.

In order to limit the search results to a reasonable number,

combine the error code with some information about your

model, or the circumstances surrounding your failure. For

example, you might Google:

pxe-e61 acer aspire

Before We Start Troubleshooting

pxe-e61 overheated

or even

pxe-61 spilled drink

The next step is to read the short descriptions Google

presents with search results (ignore the advertisements at the

top and the side of the screen unless you are searching for parts

to buy). Pay special attention to the bottom line of each search

result, which shows the website URL. The results you want to try

first are those from the laptop manufacturer or discussion

forums, including sites like: forums.cnet.com, daniweb.com,

geekstogo.com, forums.techguy.org, asklaptopfreak.com, etc.

Results from blog hosting sites are often pure advertising comeons,

populated with text scraped or stolen from discussion sites.

The next step is to quickly skim down the page to see if

the problem being discussed is identical or at least very closely

related to your own. However interesting the thread might be,

and many encompass tragic human interest, you can’t afford to

spend ten minutes reading every page that comes up or you’ll

fritter away hours or days without finding the information you

need. Do not try following links on the site in hopes they’ll get

you closer to your solution. A large number of the links are just

advertising or spam, and even the honest links are far less likely

than Google to get you where you need to go. So if the page isn’t

what you need, hit the back button, and try the next likely result

in Google. If the back button doesn’t work (some sites disable it

to capture you), just type the Google address back into your

browser bar.

You should be able to go through the first couple pages of

results in a couple minutes if you only visit the sites most likely

to offer real help. If you don’t have a good answer to your

problem at this point, rather than going to the fourth page of

results, or the fortieth, it makes much more sense to rephrase

your search. The general rule, if you are getting thousands or

tens of thousands of potential results when you do a search, is to

narrow down your criteria by adding more key words. So you

might now search on:

The Laptop Repair Workbook

pxe-e61 acer aspire overheated

pxe-e61 overheated acer spilled drink

It’s OK if you get zero results, you’ve only wasted two

seconds. But don’t start out with super specific searches or you’ll

end up limiting the search engine’s ability to show “quality”

results, in favor of showing results that simply match all the key

words. There’s a lot of automated spam on the web created by

programs that scrape text from different pages and string it

together to fool the search engines into believing it’s valid. Super

specific searches may end up excluding the most useful results

that have good discussions of the problem, but don’t appear

because they use slightly different wording.

Another source for illustrated laptop repair guides is

authority sites. In web parlance, authority sites are those that

collect links to web pages on a specific subject, and organize

them in such a way that you can quickly find a link to the

information you are looking for, if it exists. Many of the web

pages listed on authority sites were created by non-professionals

using a digital camera to document their journey into laptop

repair. The reigning champion of authority sites for photo

illustrated laptop repair guides is:

http://www.repair4laptop.org

Before We Start Troubleshooting

The Laptop Repair Workbook

Troubleshooting Power Problems

Because laptops are designed to be portable and function on

battery power, they are engineered to run on the DC (Direct

Current) power that batteries provide. But all of the power

distribution networks in the modern world utilize AC

(Alternating Current) because it’s a more efficient and

economical way to move electricity long distances. This means

that laptops are shipped with an AC adapter that plugs into a

regular outlet and converts that AC power into the proper DC

voltage for the laptop. Most modern AC adapters for laptops can

function on a power grid ranging from 100 to 240 volts AC. You

should take a look at the label on the AC adapter, often called a

“brick” before you go traveling around the world. All that’s

needed to plug a variable AC adapter into a different power grid

is a new end for the plug, purchased at a local hardware store for

around a dollar.

If your laptop doesn’t turn on when you hit the power

button, the power system is a logical place to begin the

troubleshooting process. The laptop power system can be

viewed as three separate parts: The A/C adapter that gets

plugged into a power outlet on one end and into the laptop on

the other end, the laptop motherboard or power regulation

daughter card that monitors and distributes power to the laptop

components, and the battery. The vast majority of laptops

manufactured these days can operate without the battery

installed. In some cases, the manufacturers will suggest that you

remove the battery and store it somewhere cool if using the

laptop in one location for extended periods of time, as in weeks

or months. In all instances, it pays to read the owner’s manual

on how to best extend the battery life for the particular model.

One of the oddities about troubleshooting laptop power

failure as opposed to PC power failure is that the battery gives

the laptop an independent power system for as long as the

charge lasts. If the PC in your home is plugged into a bad power

outlet or its power strip is accidentally switched off you’ll quickly

figure out why. But if the power strip gets turned off while you

are operating your laptop, or a breaker trips, or the local power

grid suffers a brown out, you might not even notice until the

battery runs down. That’s why it’s important to not jump to

conclusions about laptop battery failures, and to try charging the

Power adapter

connectors:

laptop16.htm

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

battery under different conditions before giving up and buying a

new one. Just because the battery didn’t charge while the laptop

was plugged in doesn’t mean the battery is bad. The power to

the AC adapter may have been interrupted, the AC adapter or

cable to the laptop may have failed, the connector tip may have

been partially plugged into the laptop, or the battery may have

become partially unseated. There could also be something

wrong with the laptop charging circuitry or software. Running

out and buying a new battery before investigating all the

possibilities will often mean a $100 or $150 mistake.

New laptops should have a status LED in a visible

location on the front or keyboard surface of the laptop that tells

you when the power input is good. However, that doesn’t help

you determine where the failure is if the LED doesn’t light, or

isn’t lit steadily. A simple DC voltage meter can be used to

confirm that the AC adapter is putting out the correct voltage,

though it will usually read a little high since there’s no load on

the output. A harried technician may stick the DC connector on

his tongue as a quick test to see if it’s live, but you can’t taste the

difference between 12.5 volts and 18.5 volts, and you probably

shouldn’t try. Another crude check is whether or not the AC

adapter gets warm while it’s plugged into the laptop and a live

power outlet. It shouldn’t get hot, just warm to the touch if the

battery is charging or the laptop is operating. Some AC adapters

are equipped with a status LED right on the brick that tells you

when the AC adapter believes it’s functioning properly. Don’t

forget to make sure that the cord from the wall outlet to the AC

adapter is firmly plugged into the brick.

Electronic devices often produce high frequency buzzes

and whistles under regular operating conditions. Some people

can hear these sounds, especially young folks and women, while

older men tend to have very limited high frequency hearing. A

high frequency whistling sound may indicate a capacitor in the

AC power adapter is beginning to fail, but it will often whistle

while it works for years to come. You don’t have to replace the

AC power adapter just because you can hear it, unless it gets

worse and worse over time or it gives you a headache. Because

AC adapters employ switching mode technology, they are more

likely to make noise when the battery is fully charged and the

laptop is turned off. AC adapter bricks are usually glued shut

and aren’t designed for consumer repairs, so unless you have

The Laptop Repair Workbook

solid electronic troubleshooting skills and a source for parts, it’s

a question of living with it or replacing it outright.

The most common laptop power failure is centered on the

junction between the connector on the end of the AC adapter

cord (the DC output) and the receptacle in the laptop. This one

inch length of wire and connectors costs pennies at the

wholesale level but leads to large numbers of laptops requiring

expensive repairs or being junked. Often the copper wires inside

the cord become frayed or broken right where they enter the

connector on the end of the AC adapter cord. Sometimes you

can struggle along for weeks or months by working on a flat

surface and getting the cord into exactly the right orientation so

that the wires maintain contact, but it’s not a smart way to go.

The wires (a number of very thin conductors twisted into a

heavier cable) are sized for the amount of power the laptop

requires. As thin wires break and lose contact, all of the power

must flow through the remaining conductors, leading to

overheating, which can cause damage or be a safety hazard. It’s

an easy enough fix, so don’t ignore it.

Starting with the AC adapter plugged into the wall and

unplugged from the laptop, there are number of clues to look for

when plugging it into the laptop. First, if it sparks, unplug it and

check for a short circuit with a multi-meter. No resistance (or

less than a few Ohms) between the conductors of the DC

connector on the laptop means there’s a short circuit inside,

which calls for taking the whole laptop apart. You normally can’t

get both multi-meter probes into the connector when the laptop

is assembled, so measure between the positive input and a

ground point of any exposed metal around the USB ports or

other motherboard connected ports. The positive DC voltage

input is usually the center pin of the barrel connector but you

can determine this by measuring the voltage on the AC adapter

to see if the outer or inner connector is positive. Often, short

circuits will have caused visible damage, like melted or burnt

chips or components on the motherboard. Other times, the

short will be in one of the attached daughter boards or drives, so

the standard procedure if you can’t see the damage is to strip the

laptop down to nothing except the motherboard, keep checking

with the meter, and see if the short goes away. If it doesn’t the

short is on the motherboard, and if it’s not obvious, the only fix

is to replace the motherboard.

Replacing an AC

Adapter connector:

laptop_7.htm

Multimeter tests

for voltage and

shorts:

laptop11.htm

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

If wiggling the cord causes the power status LED on the

laptop to blink, the problem is in either the cord or the

connector. Fortunately, all you need to repair the connector on

the AC adapter cord is a new connector and basic soldering

skills, or you can bring it to an electronics shop for a cheap

repair but get the price before agreeing. Some laptops use a

highly proprietary connector for which you can’t easily find a

replacement, in which case your best option is to find a failed AC

adapter for your laptop model, cut the end off (with plenty of

slack) and splice it onto your cable. But most barrel connectors

are easy to come by and your local Radio Shack often has them

in stock. Just bring your laptop along to make sure you get the

right size. If you work on irregular surfaces (like a lap) and allow

the cord to dangle, the wires may break just inside the connector

due to pulling, despite the fact that the factory connector is

encapsulated in molded plastic. You can carefully pick apart the

molded plastic with a razor knife to temporarily fix a connection

if you’re desperate, but it’s smarter to replace the connector end

as soon as you determine it is causing intermittent power

failures.

The real killer is when the connector inside the laptop

fails. Sometimes the center pin of the connector breaks off,

sometimes the solder joints on the main board fail, sometimes

there’s a break between the connector contacts and the

motherboard contacts. In all these instances, you or the

technician has to gain clear access to the main board in the

laptop to make the repair. Even with clear disassembly

instructions, it’s a big job to attempt on your own and requires

decent soldering skills. It might be worth the effort if your only

cost effective alternative is replacing the laptop outright. The

replacement connector usually retails for less than $10 (and

wholesales for pennies), but the repair charge can be several

hundred dollars for some models if you take it to a local shop.

Within the laptop itself, most components receive power

by way of direct connection to the motherboard or through very

short cables. In this way, laptops are less complicated than PCs,

where the drives and some power hungry video cards are

connected directly to the power supply by long cables with

multiple connectors. Because of this, power failure to the hard

drive or DVD player in your laptop is rare, and in most cases

would be corrected by reseating the drive in the connector. But

The Laptop Repair Workbook

power failures can occur if the main board is damaged when the

laptop is dropped or a foreign substance (like beer) is

introduced. However, the laptop screen, its supporting hardware

and any special features such as a web cam incorporated in the

lid, are powered by cables running through the laptop hinge.

When troubleshooting possible power failure to the components

in the laptop lid, you have to eliminate cable failure in the hinge

or at the cable connectors as a cause.

Troubleshooting Battery Problems

Laptop battery technology has come a long way from the early

NiCad packs that had to be carefully managed. Otherwise their

charge capacity would rapidly diminish to the point where an

hour of unplugged operation was a fond memory. Some

manufacturers did a better job managing NiCad battery life than

others, but the only reason for nostalgia about those times was

that the battery packs could often be rebuilt by the ambitious

do-it-yourselfer. NiCad technology was largely replaced by

NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) batteries in laptops, which have

excellent charging and discharging characteristics as single cells,

but which also proved to be tricky to recharge in a battery pack

and required some management on the part of the laptop user

for maximum life. Some technologists insist that NiMH batteries

don’t suffer from the same memory effects as NiCad, but nobody

argues about their weight, both types of batteries being heavy.

Most recent laptops are equipped with Lithium Ion (Liion)

batteries, which are much lighter and don’t require any

special behavior on the part of the laptop user. However, they

have a higher internal resistance which makes them prone to

overheating at a high rate of discharge, so they have to be

equipped with more sophisticated monitoring circuitry. There

have also been a series of manufacturing problems with these

Li-ion batteries that have led to recalls due to fire risk. One

other negative characteristic of Li-ion batteries is they lose

capacity, whether you use them or not, at a rate of 15% or 20%

per year. However, since most laptops are a three or four years

item at best, you should get through the life of your laptop with

the original battery unless you go through a complete charge

and discharge cycle several times a week. If you are having

problems with a Li-ion battery, the first step is always to check

on the manufacturer website to see if it has been recalled.

Inside an old style

battery:

www.fonerbooks.com

laptop_3.htm

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

Li-ion batteries are “smart” batteries, and contain

circuitry that helps to prevent them from overheating and

catching fire. The chemistry of Li-ion batteries causes their

internal resistance to rise with age and the number of charging

cycles. In some instances, your battery may stop accepting a

charge prematurely because an integrated “fuel gauge” shows

that the cycle life has been reached. You can find hacks on the

web for resetting the fuel gauge on some batteries, but we don’t

advise doing so. While the battery may work fine afterwards for

an additional period of time, it may also overheat and damage

the laptop or cause a fire.

If your laptop has two different size batteries, a main

battery and another in a hot swappable bay, don’t try to do any

troubleshooting with both batteries installed. Troubleshoot your

problem with the main battery first, and worry about the

secondary battery once you achieve normal operation. If the

bays and batteries are identical, you’re in luck, because you can

use process of elimination to determine if either one of the

batteries or one of the bays is faulty. If you work at a company

that has purchased a number of identical laptops, or if a family

member or friend bought the same laptop as you, the simple

way to diagnose whether the problem is with the battery or the

laptop is to trade batteries for a day.

When laptop owners call tech support to report that their

battery isn’t charging or the life doesn’t seem to be what it

should, tech support will often tell them to download the latest

BIOS. While it’s marginally possible that the laptop shipped

with a BIOS that has been improved in regards to battery

management, the BIOS upgrade process, called flashing, is not

reversible without special equipment. In other words, if

something goes wrong, instead of having a laptop with a battery

charging problem you’ll have a collection of perfectly good

laptop parts that won’t do anything. Flashing the BIOS is a last

resort we only recommend if you find references on the Internet

that it fixed an identical charging problem for somebody else

with your exact model. You can select the CMOS Setup option to

“Reset BIOS Defaults” without much risk, which will repair any

inadvertent changes that may have been made to CMOS

settings.

The Laptop Repair Workbook

The first step in troubleshooting battery life or charging

problems is to check your owner’s manual or the manufacturer’s

website for how to interpret the status LEDs on the laptop or the

battery itself. Some batteries come equipped with built-in LEDs

and a button you can press that will roughly display the battery

charge by the number of LEDs lit, or show an error state, usually

indicating that the battery needs to be replaced. On other

models, the LEDs on the laptop will change color or blink when

there’s a charging problem. In either case the operating manual

for the laptop or a search of the manufacturer’s web site should

tell you exactly what the LEDs are indicating. They won’t be

right 100% of the time, since batteries are tricky beasts, but you

aren’t taking a big gamble if you trust them.

If the LEDs indicate that the battery is being continually

charged, yet the battery only lasts a short period of time, there’s

a good chance the battery is worn out or defective. Before giving

up, perform one last test to determine if the operating system

software is interfering with charging. Let the battery charge

overnight with the AC adapter plugged in and the laptop turned

off. If the battery won’t take a charge with the laptop turned off,

you can try powering on, entering CMOS Setup, and letting it sit

and charge on the Setup screen for a few hours.

Even if the battery is healthy and the laptop charging

system is working properly, the battery lifetime will be variable

with how hard you work it. If you’re in the habit of turning the

screen brightness all the way up, playing a CD through USB

speakers, and choosing the highest performance battery

management profile, the battery will run down much quicker

than otherwise. Newer laptops offer a number of predefined

battery management profiles in the operating system, normally

accessible through the little battery icon in the system tray, and

your choice of options has a significant impact on the battery

life. The ambient room temperature and the temperature of the

laptop (if you’ve left it in a hot car in the summer or a cold car in

the winter) will affect the battery life as well.

Over the years, some manufacturers have provided

software to recondition batteries for certain laptop models.

While software might be necessary to reset an erroneous charge

count on a “smart” battery, it’s a rare situation that an Internet

search should quickly turn up something if it’s required for your

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

model. Other laptops include a special reconditioning option

you can select in CMOS Setup. The built-in reconditioning

software is simply a way to run the battery down to true empty,

before recharging, which shouldn’t be necessary for Li-ion

batteries.

If you do purchase a new battery and the seller offers to

take your old battery in exchange, go ahead and send it after you

confirm that the new battery indeed solves the problem.

Otherwise, you’ll be stuck disposing of it at your local recycling

facility, which may charge a few dollars to take it. Batteries are

little chemical factories with all sorts of heavy metals and exotic

compounds, so you don’t want to throw them out with your

kitchen trash, and it’s probably illegal to do so where you live.

Laptop Video Troubleshooting

We suggested in the introduction to laptop hardware that you

think of the LCD as an electronic version of color film. The LCD

acts like a film that passes different wavelengths (colors) of light

depending on whether or not the liquid crystals are twisted this

way or that, so a bright light source is needed to bring the

display to life. The light source, located behind the LCD screen,

is called the backlight. The vast majority of laptops

manufactured today utilize a Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp

(CCFL). This form of fluorescent light source has several

advantages for use as a backlight, including low power

consumption, long life and uniform lighting from a small form

factor. The CCFL lamp used in laptops isn’t much thicker than a

boiled piece of spaghetti and is covered in a plastic sleeve that

helps diffuse the light evenly over the length of the tube. The

back of the laptop lid is also lined with a highly reflective

surface, such as aluminum foil, to push all the light possible out

through the LCD.

The one drawback with all fluorescent lights, as opposed

to the cheap incandescent light bulbs most people still choose

for home lighting, is that the fluorescent bulbs need a specially

conditioned power source to fire up the plasma and cause the

lamp to fluoresce. The voltage and frequency vary with the

particular lamp used, but the range for backlights is around 400

to 800 Volts at a frequency between 30 to 70 KHz. The laptop

component that supplies this lamp power is known as an

Backlight tube:

laptop_6.htm

The Laptop Repair Workbook

inverter, a widely used term for devices that transform low

voltage DC into higher voltage AC. The inverter for your laptop

is one of the easier parts to replace, a small circuit board that

usually costs between $20 and $80.

Now, that was a lot of techno-babble to squeeze into two

short paragraphs, and by no means is it a complete discussion of

LCD technology. The important thing to come away with is the

understanding that your laptop display consists of three basic

pieces: the LCD screen that acts like a piece of electronic color

film, the backlight which lights up the LCD from behind so you

can see it, and the inverter that powers the backlight.

Assuming that the video processor on the motherboard is

working properly and sending the LCD instructions as to which

colors to allow through in which screen points (pixels), the most

common failure for laptop displays is a dead or intermittent

inverter. When you can only see a very, very faint image of your

operating system desktop on the screen, it means that the video

system is working, but the LCD isn’t getting any backlighting.

The usual culprit is the inverter, especially if you didn’t note any

strange tinting to the laptop display in recent operation, but it’s

not easy for the do-it-yourselfer to determine with 100%

accuracy whether the failure is the CCFL lamp or the inverter.

Some laptops, especially older models, have a brightness dial on

the side of the lid, so make sure you don’t have a laptop where

the backlight can be manually turned off before continuing.

The traditional method used by technicians to test

inverters is to connect it to a known good backlight of the proper

type. Since buying a spare CCFL tube for your laptop kind of

defeats the whole point of testing the inverter, people without

access to spare laptop parts will sometimes use a cheap CCFL

tube from a PC modding kit, which can cost as little as $3 by

mail order. While the test may not hurt the inverter, there’s no

guarantee that a negative result (cheap tube doesn’t light) really

means the inverter is dead, because the two may just be very

poorly matched for each other. If you have access to a good

quality RMS multi-meter through friends or work, one that can

measure frequency to 50 MHz or 100 MHz, you should be able

to get a reading on a functioning inverter without even taking

the lid apart. The inverter is normally located below the LCD in

models with narrow borders, or to the side if there’s an inch or

Backlight tests:

laptop14.htm

Inverter board:

laptop_8.htm

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

so of plastic bezel on each side of the LCD. By scanning with the

multi-meter probes over the plastic along the edge of the screen,

you should pick up a strong signal somewhere between 30 KHz

and 70 KHz if the inverter is live (note that a meter with a 50

KHz range will probably work well above that range). If you

can’t pick up the signal but want to be sure, remove the plastic

bezel from around the screen and measure right on the two

insulated wires leading to the backlight. If the inverter is

functioning, the meter will pick up the signal right through the

insulation, since the inverter is putting out a low radio frequency

signal.

An important step in troubleshooting a laptop display

problem is to plug in an external monitor. All standard laptops

come equipped with a video connector that will drive an external

LCD monitor, or even an old CRT. Sometimes you have to tell

the laptop to switch the picture to the external screen, which is

done through a keyboard combination on most models. Other

laptops will detect on power up if an external monitor is

connected and shift the display on their own. Look for the extra

little symbols on your keyboard keys, which are selected when

you depress the Fn (Function) key. You should find one that

looks like a little laptop alongside a monitor, or something

similar. Holding down the Fn key and hitting the key with the

little monitor/laptop picture will either toggle the display to the

external monitor immediately, or bring up a number of choices

on screen if it’s live. These may include choosing to display on

the laptop only, the external monitor only, to display the same

screen on both or to assign a primary and secondary display.

Some display problems aren’t difficult to troubleshoot at

all. If you notice an inky stain slowly spreading across your LCD

over days or weeks that you can’t wipe off, the LCD itself is

failing. Dead and stuck pixels often appear on LCDs over time

causing point failures in the display. There’s nothing you can do

to fix them, so just tolerate them if possible. If the laptop is fairly

new, the LCD may be under warranty and the manufacturer

normally has a specification for how many dead pixels a LCD

can accumulate before they have to repair it. Other physical

problems that may require LCD replacement are cracks and

chips on the surface. Horizontal or vertical lines or swathes of

either a single color or dead pixels usually mean the LCD will

have to be replaced. This can be caused by the contacts on the

Noninvasive

inverter test:

test.htm

The Laptop Repair Workbook

LCD carrying the pixel addressing information coming loose or

the electronics controlling those lines failing.

Common sense plays a big part in troubleshooting laptop

problems, especially when it comes to screens. For example,

there are a whole variety of screen problems that come and go

when you move the lid a little, from a stuttering back light to a

missing color. In most cases, this indicates that the wire bundle

running through the hinge has been compromised. Some wire

has frayed apart and is making intermittent contact with itself or

the lid movement is causing the wire bundle to pull on one of

the video connectors. If there’s a position in which the screen

works properly and you don’t have to close the lid to carry it

around the house, you’ve found a temporary fix. If the problem

has been getting worse with time, and it’s harder and harder to

find an angle for the screen in which everything works right,

take that into account when it fails completely. In other words, if

you’ve experienced a gradual failure that indicates the wiring in

the hinge or a terminating connector is failing, that’s the first

place to look when you only get a faint image on the LCD.

Without those early indications, it would be logical to suspect

the backlight or inverter first, but common sense should tell you

that the wiring and connectors are the place to start in this case.

There are also all sorts of problems with the display that

can occur due to software settings. For example, an accidental

(or intentional) keyboard combination can cause the display to

start showing everything sideways! Other times, laptops with

multiple users in families, especially where children are

involved, will have the basic screen settings accidentally

changed so that a blurry partial image is displayed. Although it

can be tough to navigate through the screen settings in this

condition, rest assured that it is just a software setting and not a

reason to bring the laptop to a repair shop or call for in home

service. Keep in mind that many electronic chains have a

minimum charge for troubleshooting, and this can be over $100.

Don’t resort to using the emergency boot disc and restoring the

laptop to factory fresh condition to fix this type of display

problem. While the restore will likely resolve the display

problem, it will also wipe out all of your data and any software

you’ve installed on the laptop. Instead, try resetting the screen

resolution and colors (accessed by right clicking in a open area

of the Windows desktop and choosing “Properties” and

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

“Settings” from the resulting pop-up) to the highest color quality

and the highest screen resolution, with the needle pushed all the

way to the right. If you absolutely can’t navigate because the

image is so distorted, shut down and connect an external

monitor, which should be capable of correctly displaying a wider

range of screen settings, enabling you to change your settings

there.

The most difficult type of display failure to troubleshoot

is when nothing at all appears on either the laptop screen or an

external monitor. How are you to know if the problem is really a

video failure, and not a more fundamental failure with the

power or motherboard? The main indicators in these cases are

the sound, and the hard drive LED on the laptop case. If the

laptop sounds just like it always does for a minute or two after

being turned on, it means it’s going ahead and booting the

operating system, but the video processor or part of the

motherboard circuit for video output has failed. If the laptop

just sits there and beeps when you turn it on, or if you hear the

fan but not the hard drive chuckling with its active LED flashing

away, it means the laptop isn’t getting as far as trying to boot the

operating system. While this could be due to any number of

hardware problems, the most common and easiest to

troubleshoot or repair is RAM failure. If your laptop has two

RAM modules installed, try booting with just one and then the

other in the primary slot. If your laptop only has one RAM

module, you might consider buying one online for $20 or $30,

from a site with a good memory selector, like Crucial.com.

Laptop screens get very dirty, with fingerprint oil, dust,

smoke, etc, and some people actually clean them from time to

time. You should always turn off the laptop before cleaning the

screen, and when the only culprit is dust, a soft tissue or lint free

cloth can be used to gently wipe the screen without any cleaning

products. The next step, for more stubborn obstructions, is to

damp the cloth or tissue with a little water. If there’s something

stuck to the screen that the damp wipe won’t remove without

scrubbing, you can visit your local office supply store and buy a

mild cleaner designed for LCDs. In no case do you want to spray

anything on the screen as laptops and liquids make for bad

bedfellows. If somebody insists to you that LCD’s can be cleaned

just like a mirror because they are made of glass, they are only

half right, and it’s the wrong half. The reason some delicacy is

The Laptop Repair Workbook

required is that there is a filter coating on the outside of the

LCD, a kind of soft plastic, and your typical glass cleaner may

degrade or discolor the coating.

Troubleshooting Laptop Overheating

Overheating is the primary reason for a laptop to work for a

while when plugged into the wall, and then to freeze up or shut

down on its own. There are two kinds of overheating involved,

the first is component specific and the second is related to the

overall temperature inside the laptop. Individual components,

such as the CPU or video processor may simply get hotter faster

than they should due to a manufacturing flaw or installation

issue and we’ll talk about these issues in the section about

troubleshooting motherboards, CPUs and RAM. In this

discussion, we’re going to restrict ourselves to problems caused

by the whole laptop getting too hot.

Overheating usually takes place in the body of the laptop,

although it is also possible for the LCD electronics or the

inverter in the lid to be adversely affected in a high temperature

environment. Engineers employ a number of strategies to

prevent all of the heat generating components crammed into

laptop body from generating so much heat that they damage

themselves. The most important strategy is limiting the amount

of heat produced in the first place. That may sound like the

ultimate design goal, but laptop manufacturers also have to

compete with each other on performance, and higher

performance components usually mean more heat generated.

The main culprits in the heat generation cycle are the two large

processors, the CPU and the video processor. Intel and AMD

both manufacture special versions of CPUs for laptops, which

run at lower power levels (producing less heat) when they aren’t

fully employed. Temperature management in laptops goes handin-

hand with battery life management, since less power

consumed means less heat produced, and a longer battery life.

Increased fan noise may be your first indication that your

laptop is running on the hot side. It can be extremely irritating

to work on a laptop with a loud fan that frequently cycles on and

stays on for extended periods. A well designed laptop with good

power management should be almost silent in normal usage,

with the exhaust fan becoming audible only during periods of

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

intensive computation. Fan speed is also controllable, so a well

designed laptop will run the fan just fast enough to keep the

temperature in the ideal operating range. However, some

manufacturers go overboard on packing in high performance

components to create a power laptop in the “desktop

replacement” style, and these monsters tend to run hot even

when they are in new condition. Go online and read some

customer reviews of your laptop when you first suspect

overheating. If the reviews include a common thread, like “the

left side of the keyboard becomes too hot to type after fifteen

minutes,” it means your laptop was poorly engineered.

It’s easy to find aftermarket products that are sold for the

purpose of cooling down hot laptops. These range from passive

devices that are intended to lift the laptop off the desk and

provide for better air circulation, to stands with multiple fans

powered from the laptop’s USB port. These powered cooling

devices might not hurt much while the laptop is plugged in with

the AC adapter, but they don’t make any sense when you are

running on battery since drawing power from the battery

increases its internal heat generation. But if you expect a

positive contribution from a powered cooling device, find one

that has its own power supply.

The most important thing you can do to prevent your

laptop from overheating is to operate it in the proper

environment. For starters, it should be placed on a hard, flat

surface, with no obstructions within a couple inches of the sides

and back. The flat surface can be at an angle, some laptops run

cooler if the back is higher than the front as this increases

passive air circulation. If you’re going to use your laptop on your

lap or some other soft surface, like a bed, find a board or some

other flat, heat-resistant object on which you can place the

laptop. If you’re using the laptop for a short time on a non-ideal

surface, like your lap, take a look at the bottom to see where the

vents are and don’t block them. And remember, if your legs are

getting too hot for comfort, the laptop isn’t very happy either.

Laptops are dependent on the surrounding air for

cooling, so if you run a laptop in an environment that’s too hot,

it will overheat no matter what other precautions you take. The

maximum operating temperature for most laptops is in the

range of the 85° to 95° Fahrenheit (30° to 35° Celsius). You

The Laptop Repair Workbook

should check your operating manual to make sure, but generally

speaking, laptops have a much smaller operating range, cool or

hot, than people. That doesn’t mean the laptop will immediately

shut down or refuse to work if you take it up to the attic on a

summer day, but heat is a merciless killer of electronic devices.

Operating the laptop in a high temperature environment can

lead to errors or data loss and shorten its life. By the same

token, you can’t let the laptop reach a high temperature while

turned off by leaving it in a hot car or on a radiator, and then

expect it to cool itself off when you take it somewhere nice and

turn it on. Better to let the laptop cool down before powering it

on.

Cleaning the laptop may solve your overheating problem

if it’s filled up with lint or if it has accumulated a blanket of

insulating dust on its heatsinks, which are the metal finned

structures placed on hot components to increase the surface

area that can be cooled by air. Unfortunately, unless you

partially disassemble the laptop, your cleaning efforts will be

limited to blowing compressed air through the vents, which can

also have negative consequences. You must use canned

compressed air sold specially for cleaning electronics, as other

compressed air sources may contain too much moisture and bits

of foreign matter. You should also follow the instructions,

especially if they warn you not to use the can upside-down,

which may expel propellant. On the whole, if you’re going to try

to clean out a laptop that’s experiencing overheating problems,

you’re probably better off finding detailed disassembly

instruction on the web and carefully removing the keyboard or

getting the top half off so you can see what you are doing. As

tempted as you may be to use a vacuum, don’t, unless you have

access to a special static free electronics vacuum.

Troubleshooting Laptop Hard Drives

Hard drives were named for the rigid magnetic coated discs that

replaced tapes and floppy discs for permanent storage in early

computers, but the name is also fitting as they are the hardest

working component in the computer. The rigid disc platters spin

at thousands of revolutions per minute, while a magnetic

read/write head floats over the surfaces, moving rapidly in and

out on a precision positioned arm without touching the platters.

This “flying height” clearance of a few millionths of an inch must

Cleaning laptop

fan:

lap_fan.htm

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

be maintained even while the laptop is being jounced around in

an airplane or a car. To put it in perspective, it’s like trying to

drive a car at high speed while keeping the wheels about a ten

thousandth of an inch from the curb. But it works most of the

time because the disc platter is smooth as glass and the shape of

the read/write head is an airfoil that is lifted by breeze created

by the rapidly spinning disc. Hard drives aren’t sealed against

the outside world, but the air exchange is through a very fine

filter.

On very rare occasions, something goes wrong and the

head touches the platter surface in a data area. This can occur if

the laptop gets a jolt while the drive is working, if there is a

manufacturing flaw in the head or actuator arm that eventually

impairs their structural integrity, or if the hard drive is operated

outside its design parameters, like at excessive temperatures or

altitudes. The catastrophic result of the head touching the

platter is known as a “head crash” and it’s the worst hard failure

can happen to your hard drive. Because the magnetic coating on

the platter will be scraped off or destroyed where the head

contacts it, the data will be unrecoverable by any means. In the

aftermath of less catastrophic hard drive failures, such as the

drive electronics or the data interface, you can send the drive to

a specialist recovery company and pay some hundreds or

thousands of dollars to get your data read off and returned to

you on DVDs.

Most replacement hard drives for laptops sell for under

$100, but the ease of replacement varies with the laptop model

and manufacturer. Many modern laptops do give you easy

access to the hard drive by way of a small panel on the bottom of

the laptop or through a drive bay on the side, so that the

mechanical part of the job only takes a few minutes. But other

models require you to open the laptop up by removing the

keyboard or taking the whole body apart, so it’s a good idea to

check your user’s manual or investigate your laptop’s

construction on the web before you order a new drive. It’s

always a good investment to pick up an external 2.5” USB hard

drive enclosure for $10 or $15 so you can test your existing hard

drive on some other computer and make sure it’s faulty.

Otherwise, you might spend a lot for data recovery, or decide

you can live without any data that wasn’t backed-up and buy a

Hard drive test

and data recovery

with USB cage:

laptop10.htm

The Laptop Repair Workbook

replacement laptop, without ever realizing that the drive wasn’t

the problem.

Troubleshooting software problems is far more

complicated than troubleshooting hardware problems, yet most

software problems get laid at the foot of the hard drive simply

because that’s where all of the software is stored. Many people

assume that there’s some fault with the hard drive when the

drive activity light stays lit almost continuously and the laptop

slows to a bare crawl, but that’s the fault of the software, not the

hard drive. Along with its duty providing high speed permanent

storage for all of your programs and data, the hard drive gets coopted

by the operating system to serve as temporary storage, or

virtual memory. When there isn’t enough room in memory

(RAM) to hold all of the programs and data the laptop is

currently working on, that information is moved to virtual

memory on the hard drive. If you don’t have enough RAM

installed in your laptop or if you are running multiple “memory

hog” programs at the same time, the result will be a hard drive

that gets beat on continually and can’t ever catch up.

Another software issue that leads to an overworked hard

drive is the installation of background programs that load

automatically at boot and eat into your computing resources.

The most common problem is improperly configured virus

software that insists on running a full scan of every file on the

hard drive whenever Windows is restarted. This can lead to the

whole system crawling along for a half hour every time you

reboot, with the hard drive working furiously away all the while.

A different performance problem may manifest itself if you are

participating in a file sharing network for music or videos or a

shared telephony network. Aside from the fact that you may be

putting your privacy at risk, you are opening the door to this

external network to utilize resources on your computer, which

can slow you down when you don’t even realize you’re sharing.

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

As time goes on and you add new software for your

digital camera, printer, scanner, etc, the boot time will get

longer and longer and the overall performance will decline as

well. Anytime a new software installation gives you the

opportunity to add that software to your start-up programs, just

say no. It’s easier to start a program when you need it with the

click of a mouse than to sit through an extra minute of boot time

and the overall degraded performance that comes of having that

software always loaded in memory.

Malware, from viruses to adware and spyware, can

destroy your laptop’s performance, compromise your security,

and pollute your operating system so badly that simply wiping

the hard drive and starting over again starts to look like a

reasonable alternative. The only right way to deal with malware

is to keep it off your laptop from the start. For Windows based

systems, this means running a protective software suite,

including anti-virus software, anti-ad software, anti-spyware

software and a firewall. Some of these components are built-into

recent Windows versions, but it’s better on the whole to replace

them with an all-in-one package that updates daily. If you have

enough patience and access to the Internet, you can fix most

malware problems after the fact. But this involves doing

extensive research online and manually eradicating, one-by-one,

the nasty programs that your belated installation of a protective

suite can’t cure.

Some laptops are shipped with a recovery DVD that will

restore your laptop hard drive (and its operating system) to

factory fresh condition. While this means losing any software

you’ve installed and any data you haven’t backed up, it’s

sometimes the most cost effective choice you can make. If you

can’t solve a malware problem yourself, it’s likely that a

computer shop will charge you hundreds of dollars to do so,

whether successful or not. Frequently the store will point out on

accepting the laptop that they are “not responsible for user data”

and after seeing how bad the problem is, will do the factory

restore themselves and you’ll pay through the nose for having all

of your data wiped out. Mail-in repair depots working under

warranty are notorious for wiping out hard drives to “cure”

problems, so it’s always best to back up your data before letting

anybody work on your laptop.

Easy type hard

drive replacement:

laptop_1.htm

The Laptop Repair Workbook

Laptops that don’t ship with a recovery DVD provide

software, and usually a desktop icon as well, for creating a DVD

recovery set. You should do this soon after you purchase the

laptop, carefully label the DVDs and store them in a safe place

away from the laptop. The recovery set will normally consist of

two DVDs, which is unfortunate, since much of that capacity

goes to backing up all the unwanted trial programs the

manufacturer has included on your new laptop.

Troubleshooting Wireless Connectivity

Laptops are one of the few computing devices to undergo a

revolutionary change years after becoming mainstream.

Originally, the main selling point of laptops was that they were

mobile and could work on battery without a power outlet.

Today, more and more people are inclined to think of laptops as

Internet access appliances, since there are so many public places

you can go with a wireless laptop and hop onto the Internet for

free. Initially, wireless networking adapters for laptops were

add-on options, first PCMCIA cards and later USB adapters.

These days, all of the new laptops have built-in wireless

adapters, and some are even moving in the direction of built-in

cellular network modems.

People new to wireless computing often confuse WiFi

technology with cellular phone technology. The wireless

capability built-into laptops is known as WiFi, and is defined by

the IEEE standard for networking, (802.11b/g/n and sometimes

y), where “b” is an older, slower standard, and “g” is the most

widely used. Faster and more powerful versions, “n” and “y”

have been defined for some time but were only implemented in

laptop hardware very recently. WiFi technology relies on low

power transceivers built-into both the laptop and the

modem/router that brings high speed Internet into your home

or workplace. WiFi may also be transmitted through stand-alone

routers or repeaters (access points) that are hard wired to a high

speed network. The range of the current WiFi networks is very

low, on the order 100ft (30m) within a structure, depending on

the construction, and not more than a few hundred feet (100m)

in the open air. Within that working range, the quality of the

signal will drop off rapidly, leading to slower operation and lost

connections.

Involved hard

drive replacement:

laptop_9.htm

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

The wireless adapters in laptops draw a couple watts of

power that could be saved if you aren’t on the web, and may also

allow others to access your laptop if it’s set up improperly. This

has led most manufacturers to provide an external switch to

disable the WiFi functionality. Not surprisingly, the first

problem most new laptop owners encounter with trying to

connect to a wireless network is that their WiFi has

inadvertently been switched off. The next most common

problem is that the signal strength is too weak to hold a

connection. This can be extremely confusing if the network is

working fine for a person sitting at the next table, but that

laptop might have a more sensitive receiver, be set in just the

right location, or even be accessing a different network. When

you’re troubleshooting a wireless connection, it makes sense to

get as close to the router as you can, certainly in the same room

if it’s in your own home, so you can eliminate signal strength as

a possible issue.

In order to prevent every stranger who walks by from

accessing any network with WiFi capability, there are a number

of security options that can be set on WiFi routers. The most

common of these is simply enabling password protection, so

that any laptop trying to connect to the network will have to

provide a password for the initial connection (after that the

operating system remembers the password). The standard

security for most routers today is WPA (WiFi Protected Access)

with the long key (128 bits) requiring a longer password and

offering somewhat better protection than the older WEP

(Wireless Equivalent Privacy) implementations. Many routers

come with a default key printed on the label of the router in Hex

(numbers 1-9 and letters A-F), either 10 or 26 characters long,

depending on the level of security. If the router allows you to

create your own password (using the full keyboard character

set), the equivalent password will be 5 characters for the lower

security level or 13 characters for the 128 bit key. WEP security

can be cracked by anybody who downloads the right software

and has the patience to set up within range of your router and

spy on the traffic. But it usually works well enough to keep the

neighbors from eating all of your bandwidth by using your highspeed

connection to download movies and play games.

Some high speed Internet providers ship wireless routers

with the security enabled and don’t bother to tell the customers

The Laptop Repair Workbook

about the encryption key on the bottom until they call technical

support complaining they can’t connect to their own network.

More frequently, a family will pay somebody to come in and set

up a wireless router in their home, or the original network may

have been set up by a friend or family member who isn’t around

anymore. That person could have entered the password for the

computers present in the home or business at that time, but

when a new laptop is purchased or an existing computer loses its

software settings, that password will have to be entered again.

First, try the key printed on the router label, but if a custom

password was created when the network was set up, you’ll either

have to find the piece of paper where it was written or chase the

person who set up the network. If the password absolutely can’t

be recovered, search the Internet for how to reset the router

(varies with brand), create a new password and enter it on all

the computers that use the connection.

In some cases, it’s easy to reset the password or turn the

security on and off by connecting directly to the router with an

Ethernet cable and typing the fixed IP address for the router

into your browser. In recent years, manufactured Ethernet

cables supplied with PC equipment have been yellow, and while

color doesn’t serve as an absolute identification, it might help

you find the cable in a box of stuff you never use. Connecting

directly by cable to the router is an important troubleshooting

step for wireless connectivity even if you don’t have a password

problem. If you can’t connect to the Internet even after plugging

directly into the router, neither the wireless adapter in your

laptop nor the wireless transceiver in the router are at fault. If

you plug directly into the router via the Ethernet cable and you

gain access to the Internet, you can continue troubleshooting

wireless issues. Check Device Manager to see if it’s complaining

about the network hardware. If not, and you still can’t gain

access at this point, the problem is either with the high speed

modem and ISP, or a networking software issue within the

operating system.

High speed modems, often called routers if they include a

built-in router, are equipped with a series of status LEDs that

can be used to diagnose many connectivity problems. Whether

you have a cable modem connecting to the cable company, DSL

via the phone company or one of the more esoteric high speed

modems, they should always include an LED that tells you if the

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

connection between the modem and the Internet has been

established. If this link light is out, or has changed colors, say

from the familiar green to an ominous red, power down the

modem and turn it back on again. This hard reset will usually fix

dropped connection problems caused by storms, power surges

or signal interruptions, providing the modem hasn’t been

damaged. A modem/router will also include a status LED to

show whether an Ethernet cable connection to your laptop is

good, and your laptop will have a little status/activity LED for

the network connection as well. While color coding isn’t

universal, solid green usually indicates a good connection, and

blinking green or orange usually indicates activity. Some

modems include an LED to tell you if the DSL or cable link to

the ISP is good even when the Internet isn’t functioning.

Operating system issues affecting connectivity can

include firewall (security software) settings that prevent your

computer from establishing communications with the Internet

Service Provider (ISP), or the failure to install the software that

ISP requires. Unfortunately, there are also more complicated

problems that will require drawn out conversations with the

ISP’s technical support department to troubleshoot. If you’re

adventurous, or desperate, you’ll find all sorts of third party

software online that will reset the Windows stack or change

registry settings back to defaults, but you’re better off trying the

tech support route first if a software glitch is at the bottom of

your problems. Also, some older versions of Windows that

supported WiFi did so through some software applications

provided by the wireless adapter manufacturer rather than

through the operating system. Setting up wireless

communications on these older systems can require steps

unfamiliar to the typical user who expects Windows to go out

and find the new wireless connection without operator help.

Troubleshooting Motherboard, CPU and Memory

The most expensive and hardest to replace component in your

laptop is the motherboard. The expense isn’t due to the intrinsic

complexity. Motherboards for desktop computers are more

capable and cost much less. Laptop motherboards are expensive

because they are unique to the model and the brand, and no

generic replacements are available. If the motherboard fails,

your choice is to buy a new one from the manufacturer at a price

The Laptop Repair Workbook

that will cost about as much as buying a new consumer grade

laptop, or to look for one in the used market. Oftentimes, people

sell their old laptops on eBay “for parts only”, just like you might

sell a car that can’t pass inspection, and as long as you don’t pay

much you aren’t taking a big risk.

Motherboard failures are among the hardest to diagnose

with a high degree of confidence because all of the components

in the laptop are connected to the motherboard one way or

another. When confronted with a dead laptop, you’ll find that

our diagnostics send you through all of the major subsystems

before considering the motherboard. Sometimes, the only way

for a home user to positively identify that a problem is with the

motherboard and not with a component is to test that

component in another computer, or swap in a known good

component to test the laptop. For example, any number of

failures related to the hard drive can turn out to be due to the

failure of the hard drive controller or the connector, both of

which are part of the motherboard. The same goes for the DVD,

the keyboard, the RAM or the CPU. In some cases, as with a

display problem, you can use an external monitor to test if the

video processor on the motherboard is functioning properly. But

with a drive failure, you may not know for sure if it’s the drive or

the motherboard until you test the drive separately.

Fortunately, total motherboard failures aren’t regular

occurrences, barring physical abuse of the laptop such as

dropping it or spilling drinks. You’re more likely to encounter a

connector problem with the motherboard, like the power jack

breaking a solder joint, then a true electronic blow-out. One of

the most problematic motherboard components, the RAM, is

normally socketed and easily accessible through a hatch on the

bottom of the laptop. Since the motherboard can’t function

without the RAM, most technicians will try replacing it before

they even start the troubleshooting process. The motherboard is

equally helpless if the CPU has failed, but in many instances the

CPU is permanently soldered to the motherboard, and it can be

a laborious replacement task even if it’s socketed. While you

probably don’t have a spare CPU of the proper type lying about,

RAM is very cheap and replacing it is perhaps the easiest job you

can do on a laptop. If two memory modules are installed in your

laptop, you can test them by taking out the second one, and then

swapping the two if the motherboard still appears to be dead.

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

Intermittent failure of the motherboard, CPU or memory

is nearly impossible to properly diagnose without swapping

parts, but if overheating is involved, you can make some

educated guesses. If the video goes wonky when the laptop is

hot, the problem is likely the RAM or the video processor (which

is usually a motherboard component). We briefly discuss some

of the garage technician hacks for certain video processor

failures in the notes for video troubleshooting. If you get total

lock-ups or blue screens of death when the laptop heats up, the

problem is often the RAM or the CPU.

In many models laptop manufacturers employ daughter

cards, which are independent circuit cards that attach to the

motherboard and provide functions like wireless, a dial-up

modem, and Ethernet. Some designs also put the graphics

processor on a daughter card. The use of a communications

daughter card, especially modems which are often damaged by

lightning strikes, allows for a cost effective replacement if the

laptop isn’t too old. Until you research your model on the web

you won’t know for sure what functions are integrated on your

motherboard or which daughter cards might be included. A

second hand video daughter card can go as cheap as $20 on

eBay, so it’s always worth checking if your video is integrated on

the motherboard or on a separate daughter card before making

any decisions.

Replacing the motherboard in a laptop is no cakewalk for

a trained technician who has never worked on the particular

model, and it’s a multi-hour task for a gifted beginner with good

illustrated instructions. Assuming the replacement motherboard

is good, there are still a large number of things that can go

wrong, from forcing screws into the wrong holes to breaking

delicate cable connectors that aren’t designed for repetitive use

or rough handling. Due to the cramped geometry and the

relative fragility of the cables, it’s very easy to accidentally break

a conductor while doing the work, introducing a new problem

that will be difficult to troubleshoot.

In some instances, your laptop will diagnose its own

problem and produce a text message or beep code (a series of

beeps when you power on the laptop). Looking up those beep

codes on the manufacturer’s website should tell you if there’s a

definitive problem with the motherboard that will require its

The Laptop Repair Workbook

replacement, or indicate a problem with the CPU or memory.

Memory problems are easily resolved by replacing the RAM

module, but CPU problems are often caused by the failure of a

direct CPU cooling system. Engineers don’t have very much

flexibility in building cooling systems for laptop CPUs due to the

cramped space and low headroom. The CPU will always be

equipped with a finned metal heatsink, and either there will be a

fan mounted on the heatsink to draw off the heat, or the

heatsink will be located in the air flow generated by a remote fan

and directed through a fan hood. Before replacing a CPU, it’s

worthwhile to try reseating it in its socket and reinstalling the

heatsink with a fresh layer of thermal paste. Also, you should

confirm that the fan cooling the heatsink is operating, either

visually or through feeling the airflow.

Troubleshooting Laptop Dial-Up Modems

Even if you’ve been using high speed Internet access at home for

years, you might still find yourself in need of dial-up when

traveling outside large cities or taking a summer vacation. If

your Internet connection is the basic infrastructure of your

business life, you can’t wander out in the rain looking for a café

with free wireless every time you need access. Dial-up access at

56Kbs is surprisingly good for both e-mail and general web

work, as long as you don’t have to deal with large attachments,

video, or audio files. Some day, when wireless access is truly

omnipresent, laptop manufacturers may do away with dial-up

modems, but until then, they are an indispensable feature for

many laptop buyers.

Some laptop manufacturers now offer built-in cellular

modems, but there remain several drawbacks to these. First, the

cellular providers in the US use different technologies, so the

built-in modem will probably only work with a single provider.

This in turn forces you to sign a contract with that provider to

use the built-in modem even if you use a different cellular

provider for your phone, who would have offered a voice/data

package deal. Cellular Internet access remains expensive, with

prices ranging from around $50 to $80 a month, depending on

the carrier, length of contract, and package deal. Signing a two

year contract for cellular Internet access is likely a greater

investment than purchasing the laptop. Also, regular WiFi

(which is free in many locations) is much faster than cellular

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

Internet access, and cellular access comes with restrictions for

heavy users. Finally, it’s easy enough to buy a cellular modem

and plug it into your laptops PC card slot, which you aren’t likely

to be using for anything else, and a cellular modem may even

come free when you sign a contract with your carrier.

If you go back far enough in time, say the mid-1990’s,

there were laptops being sold without an internal dial-up

modem. Getting online required an old serial port external

modem or a special adapter, often a PCMCIA card. These days,

all laptops have a built-in 56Kbs dial-up modem, and serial

ports and parallel ports have been replaced by USB ports.

Inexpensive modems that include fax capabilities are still

available in USB versions as replacement modems for laptops.

When it comes to hardware failure, external modems are easier

to troubleshoot than internal modems because you can always

try an external modem on another laptop or PC to see if it still

works.

Dial-up problems usually have nothing to do with the

modem hardware itself. The more common causes are service

provider issues, ranging from hardware failures with their

modem pool or their Internet backbone connection, to your

having forgot to pay the bill and getting locked out of your

account. If you can hear the modem dial the phone, and the

result is something other than a whistle, your problem isn’t with

your modem hardware. If you hear the dialing but the dial tone

never alters, you’re probably dialing with tone on an old pulse

only system. If the phone rings on the other end, and a voice

picks up or you get a recorded message, you’re dialing the wrong

number. If the modems connect to each other (lots of whistling

and hissing) but you fail to get on, it’s most likely an invalid

username or password. In all instances, when you are

troubleshooting modem problems, you should enable the

modem audio, so you can hear what’s going on.

Most modems are set up to dial only when they hear a

dial tone, so if you aren’t plugged into a live phone jack, you’re

unlikely to hear anything. The first test for troubleshooting dialup

problems is to try dialing with a regular telephone on the wall

jack you are using, and then take the telephone cord out of that

phone and plug it right into your laptop modem port for testing.

This eliminates the chance that your modem patch cord is

The Laptop Repair Workbook

faulty, or that the output port on the phone, FAX or other phone

connected device you were plugged into isn’t really passing

through the live line. Never assume that a phone jack is good

just because it exists. Houses all over the world are full of

extension jacks for phones that have never worked, were never

tested, or were cut off decades ago. If there’s an easily accessible

network interface box for testing a phone outside the house, it’s

a good way to troubleshoot whether a line problem is in the

house or the responsibility of the phone company.

If your problem isn’t with getting connected but with

staying connected, the problem likely lies outside of your laptop.

In some cases, the modem you are connected to in the service

provider modem pool will be bad, or connected to a flaky power

source, or employing a “dump for inactivity” scheme. More

frequently, you may find that your connection is slow or fragile

at certain times of day, or during weather events. In the former

case, telephone trunk lines get noisier (electrically) during peak

activity periods, which may include first thing in the morning,

after school and after supper hours. Weather events, from rain

to wind, can degrade line conditions over a period of time or

lead to frequent disconnects. The best indication that you are

dealing with an environmental or service provider problem

rather than a laptop hardware issue is if the problem only occurs

from time to time.

However, there are some failures that will be attributed to

either the modem hardware in the laptop or the driver software

that supports it. All Windows based systems come equipped

with decent troubleshooting for modems in Control Panel,

though the exact sequence and tab labels to arrive at the

diagnostics vary from Windows 95 up through Vista. A modem

that passes the Windows diagnostic is almost never bad, though

the connection can certainly suffer if the laptop experiences

overheating problems. If the modem fails the Windows

diagnostic, or if the modem is identified as a problem in

Windows Device Manager, the first step is to find the current

driver for the modem on the manufacturer’s website and

reinstall it. If Windows can’t find the modem, it’s a hardware

failure. Some manufacturers, in their modem troubleshooting

suggestions, may suggest that you upgrade the laptop BIOS by

flashing the latest version. This shouldn’t be necessary unless

you’ve upgraded the operating system and there’s a known

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

problem with the old BIOS documented on the Internet.

Remember that a simple work-around in the form of a USB

modem is always available, and doesn’t risk turning your laptop

into a useless brick.

If your laptop frequently locks up or freezes online, there

are two basic possibilities. If hitting CRTL-ALT-DEL allows you

to bring up the task list and close the connection, the problem is

due to the way your browser, e-mail, or other internet

application reacts to time-outs or other dial-up issues. But if

you’re getting a blue screen of death or the laptop doesn’t

respond to CTRL-ALT-DEL, it’s likely an issue with overheating

or the motherboard, CPU or RAM. Laptops generally implement

their modems in software, rather than including a DSP (Digital

Signal Processing) chip, which means that the CPU and

motherboard are doing double duty when the modem is in use,

and it could be just enough to push a marginal heat problem

into the red. Don’t think in terms of motherboard replacement if

there’s a possible overheating, motherboard or CPU problem

(RAM is easily replaceable) that only manifests itself during

dial-up modem use or if the modem port breaks off the

motherboard. You aren’t giving up any convenience or mobility

by using a USB modem, as they are quite small and you’re tied

to a phone line in any case.

A final tip is that many laptop makers put the dial-up

modem, wireless, and Ethernet networking together on a

daughter card. If all of these fail at the same time, a problem

with the daughter card is a good bet.

Troubleshooting DVD/CD Playback and Record

Laptops have standardized on a DVD/CD recorder and player

being a standard feature, with the exception of the lightest and

most expensive models. If your laptop is a couple years old, you

may have a DVD player combined with a CD recorder, or even

just a DVD and CD player. You’d have to go back to around 2001

for laptops manufactured with just a CD player, and most of

those still had a built-in floppy drive. Some higher end laptops

intended for travel use put the DVD player in a swappable bay,

so it can be easily changed for a second battery which extends

the laptop’s unplugged life to a full business day, but a few

models only support external DVD drives. Another swappable

The Laptop Repair Workbook

bay option is a second hard drive, handy for secure work

environments where the data doesn’t leave the office, or for

power users doing video editing on the road. There may even be

a floppy drive option available, if you can see the point of

swapping out your DVD recorder for a floppy drive. Laptops

with swappable bays usually feature “Hot Swapping” which

allows you to swap bay components without powering off the

laptop. It’s neat technology, but read the owner’s manual

carefully before giving it a go.

If you own an older laptop, the simplest troubleshooting

step for laptop burners (DVD or CD recorders) is determining

whether or not one is present. DVD/CD drives are usually

labeled with multiple icons right on the outside face of the tray

that detail the capabilities of the drive. If the icons show

“Reader” or “ROM” rather than “RW” or “Recorder”, you may be

looking at an older laptop without recording functionality.

Another giveaway is the installed software. Laptops with disc

burners will ship with recording software, often times with both

the laptop manufacturer’s recording software and a third party

recording package. At least one laptop model comes fresh from

the factory with three different ways to record DVDs. The

software packages may have different strengths and weaknesses.

For example, the manufacturer software is usually there for

recording basic data discs and for creating a back-up image of

the laptop hard drive, if the laptop didn’t ship with recovery

media. Another software package might be designed for creating

and replicating both CDs and DVDs for general use, while a

third application might handle creating photo DVD’s for your

television player, or home movies. If you purchase a third party

recording package, you may find that you have to update the

DVD recorder firmware before it will work with the drive. This

firmware upgrade is similar to the BIOS Flash upgrade in terms

of the underlying process, but it’s safer because the firmware

only affects the DVD or CD recorder, and can be retried if it fails.

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

One of the worst failures you can encounter with your

drive is when the tray simply won’t eject. While the operating

system is running, the drive may be locked or disabled in

software, but when you first power on the system, the tray

should pop out pretty quickly in response to hitting the eject

button. There are a few reasons a tray will fail to eject. If the

drive isn’t properly seated in the bay it may be mechanically

binding or not connected to power. If the drive is in a swappable

bay, try removing it and reinstalling, and make sure that the

release latch snaps to the locked position when it’s installed. If

the drive is permanently mounted, it shouldn’t break free of its

connector unless it’s not secured in place. This can happen if the

laptop is secured with a single screw which was removed in an

earlier repair and never replaced. Loose drive failures can creep

on you. The drive can function and stay in place for months

without being secured, because it’s a tight fit and the power/data

connector tends to hold it in place.

If the tray doesn’t eject even when the drive is seated

properly, the last resort is to power down and use the emergency

release pinhole on the front faceplate. You can do this with the

drive installed in the bay, but if it’s the swappable type, it’s

easier to do with the drive out and on the table. Straighten out a

length of a paperclip that’s just thin enough to fit through the

hole, and gently insert it. Listen for the release click and try to

feel it through your fingers. When the tray releases, it may

spring out half inch, or it may barely move at all, so you have to

get a hold of the front of the tray to pull it out. If a disc has come

apart in the drive, either because it shattered or a stick-on label

lifted off, getting all the bits out and getting it working again

isn’t a high probability, so don’t test it with a disc of any value

after attempting the repair. If it’s an electrical/mechanical

failure of the ejector mechanism, repairing it yourself isn’t

practical.

Unless you typically use your laptop to watch movies or

listen to music CDs while traveling, you may find it is less

painful to get by without one than to buy a factory replacement

for an older model. Thanks to the availability of inexpensive

external DVD/CD recorders for USB, you can bypass the

internal drive and just plug in the USB drive when you need to

record a disc or install a new program. The nice thing about an

external USB drive is you’ll be able to use it on different laptops

Optical drive

emergency release:

laptop12.htm

The Laptop Repair Workbook

and desktop PCs as long as it lasts, while an internal laptop drive

generally requires an exact replacement for that model family.

Another note for movie fans. All new laptop DVDs should

play legal copies of DVD movies without any special actions

being required on your part. When a DVD drive works with

some discs but won’t play movies, the fault is almost always in

the decoding software, known as a CODEC (Coder/DECoder).

Anything that changes the support software for your media

player, including automated operating system updates, might

render your current CODEC useless. In this case you to must go

on the web and download a new version before movies will play

again. Because most playback and recording problems are

software specific and impact a large number of users, you can

save a lot of time by researching the problem on the Internet.

The most common read failure for DVD/CD players is

dirty or damaged discs. Because the discs hold up so well, some

people have gotten into the habit of not storing them in their

envelopes or jewel boxes. You’ve probably seen discs stacked in

mounds in drawers or strewn in messy piles on desks, yet they

seem to work most of the time when needed. But when your

laptop won’t read a particular CD or DVD, the first thing to do is

to clean it with a nice lint free cloth, flannel shirts work well, and

inspect it for scratches and surface build-up, like jelly donut

stains. If cleaning the disc works, you’ve found your problem,

but if it doesn’t, check whether or not the drive will read a nice

factory fresh movie or music disc. You can try using a drive

cleaning kit of the type sold in office stores or online, but don’t

spend a lot because they usually don’t fix the problem.

In rare cases, a DVD/CD hardware failure might

announce itself during boot with a text line reporting something

like “DVD drive failure” or the drive may disappear from CMOS

Setup. If the hardware isn’t aware that the drive is installed, the

operating system software isn’t going to have much of a chance.

These types of hardware errors either mean the drive electronics

have failed and aren’t communicating, the drive has become

dislodged from the connector in the drive bay, or the

controller/cable on the motherboard has failed. The only other

problem likely to announce itself is a loud, vibrating drive. If you

notice your drive making more noise than usual or making the

whole laptop tremble, stop what you’re doing and hit the eject

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

button. The usual cause is an off balance disk, either because it

was seated wrong in the tray, was manufactured poorly

(especially stick on labels), or has some foreign matter stuck to

it. It’s not worth destroying your drive trying to read a shaky

disc. If you must try, do it in a PC drive that’s built heavier and

is easier to replace if the disc comes apart. Note also that some

laptops offer a “quiet drive” feature so it won’t be a distraction

while playing entertainment discs, which should be turned off

while troubleshooting.

Recording problems are occasionally related to hardware

failures, but more often than not, they are due to the user

stubbornly trying to record on some faulty media. Software

problems or protection schemes involved in duplicating

manufactured discs are also a leading cause of failed recordings.

Never give up on a recorder based on one stack of “100%

guaranteed” blank discs purchased on a spool. Try a fresh disc

from a friend, and ask the friend to test one of your discs. If your

drive refuses to acknowledge that you’ve inserted a disc suitable

for recording, the disc may be the wrong type, it may be

recorded and closed already, or it may be faulty. If it’s the

cheaper unlabeled media, you may even be installing it in the

drive upside-down.

If your recording sessions take forever to start, make sure

that your virus software isn’t scanning every file before it can be

prepared for writing to the disc. If your recording sessions

always end in failure, it could be the media, but more likely it’s

caused by the drive buffer running out of data because the

laptop CPU is busy with other tasks. Try recording first thing

after you turn on the laptop, with your Internet connection

disconnected (turn off wireless or unplug your laptop from the

modem/router). Before attempting the third or fourth time, use

task manager to check the CPU utilization, and stop other tasks

that are running and eating up resources.

A particularly frustrating problem is when your DVD/CD

drive refuses to boot an operating system disc or recovery disc

after a system failure. Check that the disc is bootable in another

computer. If the disc is good, try changing the boot order in

CMOS Setup so that the DVD/CD drive is checked before the

BIOS hands over control to the hard drive. This is particularly

effective if a virus or data corruption has rendered the hard

The Laptop Repair Workbook

drive partially bootable, so the laptop keeps trying the hard

drive but never fully succeeds. If the DVD/CD drive is good, it

will boot bootable discs, so assuming the disc is clean and

bootable, proceed with troubleshooting as if it were a normal

read failure.

Troubleshooting Laptop Sound

If you can’t get any sound out of your laptop, the most likely

cause is the volume being turned down or muted. Newer laptops

monitor the exterior sound control so when the volume is

turned up or down manually, the volume control in the

operating system tracks right along with it. But with some

laptops, especially those with exterior dial volume controls

rather than toggles, the volume dials are independent of the

software volume control and can’t be monitored in software. In

this case, if the volume dial is turned down on the outside of the

laptop, the sound is turned off and no amount of monkeying

around in the operating system can change that.

Unfortunately, checking the external volume control on

the laptop and the standard laptop volume slider in the

operating system (the icon is a little speaker in Windows system

tray) doesn’t eliminate all volume problems. Depending on the

software installed and what you are trying to do, there may still

be multiple volume controls and mixer panels scattered about

the operating system. If the wrong channel is muted or turned

down all the way in one of these independent controls, the

laptop isn’t going to produce sound. The first sign most laptop

users get that their audio isn’t working is the absence of

operating system sounds, like the Windows rush on start up, or

chimes with e-mail activity. Of course, these sounds can be

turned off by design as well, through the Sounds option in

Windows Control Panel. So, before looking at hardware

problems, another hunting expedition is necessary to make sure

the software is supposed to be playing sounds.

If you try to play an audio CD and the media player shows

that the song is progressing but you can’t get any sound out of

the laptop speakers, odds are that the volume is turned down or

muted. But occasionally, the onboard sound hardware will fail.

If you are confident the volume is turned on in all possible

locations and you’ve checked Windows Device Manager for a

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

report of a hardware failure, try listening through headphones.

Laptops are all equipped with external audio jacks for a

microphone and headphones, and some might include an

additional jack for “line” to pass the playback to a home

entertainment system. If the headphones work, the wiring to the

internal speakers has broken or come loose. Wiring failure is

only likely if the speakers are in the lid and therefore wired

through the hinges.

If you don’t get any sound out of the headphones and you

haven’t missed a “mute” being checked off somewhere in

software controls, it really is a hardware failure. If the problem

is with all sounds, including Windows chimes, internet radio,

etc, then the problem is that the integrated sound processor has

failed. Unless the sound system is on a daughter card, it means

the fix would require replacing the motherboard. But if the only

thing you can’t do is play audio CD’s, the problem is that the

output from the DVD/CD player is muted or not getting to the

amplification stage.

In modern laptops the DVD/CD players feature Digital

Audio Extraction (DAE) which means that music CDs can be

read digitally and the data passed to the built-in sound card or

an external sound card replacement. In older laptops, music

CDs weren’t digitally “read” by the system, they were played by

the CD player, which produced an analog sound output that was

passed to the laptop’s sound system for amplification. With both

the old and the new players, if there’s a problem with the

DVD/CD connector or if the wiring has been damaged, the

music CD may get spun around without the sound making it to

amplification. With the old fashioned players, if the little D/A

(Digital/Analog) converter chip in the DVD/CD player is blown,

the only way you’ll be able to play music CDs is to replace the

drive. The modern DAE output rarely fails on the drive, but the

connector can fail. Make sure that digital playback is enabled in

the properties tab of the drive.

You can replace your built-in laptop sound card with a PC

card, with a USB sound card or USB speakers. The main

audience for laptop sound card replacements is people who want

to turn their laptop into a home entertainment center, with 5.1

or 7.1 surround sound. For our purposes, these replacements

make good workarounds if the integrated audio system fails.

USB speaker workaround:

speakers.htm

The Laptop Repair Workbook

They also bring with them a whole new level of software with

more volume controls, which hopefully is well integrated with

the existing operating system software. When shopping for

replacement sound cards, keep in mind that USB solutions are

much cheaper than PC cards. You need a laptop PC card, not a

sound card for a PC, which will usually be PCI technology. The

laptop peripheral manufacturers who agreed on the name “PC

card” for a laptop add-on did a disservice to consumers the

world over who have doubtlessly made uncounted purchasing

errors. Also, when purchasing USB speakers to replace the

laptop’s sound system, don’t buy speakers advertised as “USB

powered”. The “USB powered” speakers only draw their power

from the USB port, they still need to be plugged into a regular

audio jack to play anything.

Microphones and headsets have become an important

part of laptop sound systems with the rise of Internet telephony,

video conferencing and voice recognition. The quality of the

microphone input depends both on the microphone itself and

the integrated laptop sound card. If you’re using a good

microphone and you just can’t get the quality or volume you

need for your application, the laptop sound card hardware is

probably at fault. It’s not a failure per se, as long as it functions

well enough to play music CDs and operating system sounds. It’s

just not good enough for your application. The two options are

to purchase a quality USB microphone system, which effectively

bypasses the laptops built-in sound system, or to go with a USB

or PC card replacement sound card and plug in a regular

microphone.

Wired Network Troubleshooting

Given the WiFi capability built-into modern laptops it may seem

unnecessary to discuss wired LANs (Local Area Networks) in a

laptop book. In fact, most of the troubleshooting steps in the

accompanying flowchart are primarily intended for medium

sized business or wired school networks. Many employees today

are commuting with machines owned by their employer, which

plug into wired networks when at the office, and not a few

people are adding the laptop to an existing home office LAN that

also supports desktop PCs and printers. Yes, one solution is to

add a wireless router to the LAN, and then connect the laptop

via wireless. But this means buying and configuring a new piece

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

of equipment, and from a security standpoint, a wired LAN is

safer because physical access to the building is required to

intercept traffic. Also, wired network connections remain much

faster than standard WiFi connections, provided all of your

network hardware is up to date.

The main culprit with wired networking is the wiring, or

more specifically, the RJ-45 connectors that look like overgrown

phone connectors on the wire ends. RJ-45 connectors are in

reality overgrown phone connectors, and they have taken over

the networking field to the extent that we don’t even talk about

older coaxial networking or corporate fiber optic cabling in this

section. The RJ-45 connectors are universally crimp-ons. As

there’s no soldering or clamping involved, the connection is only

as good as the crimp. There’s a crush-in stress relief on the

connector to help keep the conductors from moving around on

the crimp contacts when the cable gets tugged on.

One of the winning points of twisted pair networking was

its flexibility and ease of installation. Pull a standard wire, crimp

on a connector, and you’re done. But the very flexibility of the

system leads to people pulling on the cords, flopping them over

desks, forgetting they are attached and trying to move the

laptop. This can cause the port to break off the board inside the

laptop, or it may weaken the connector. Cheap crimping tools

have encouraged many people to make their own cables, without

ever learning how they are supposed to be made. At the core of

twisted pair networking, whether 10BaseT, 100BaseT or

1000BaseT (Gigabit), are twisted pairs of wire which provide

electrical insulation from noise by carrying differential signals

(the noise cancels out). If you don’t make the cables properly,

the network may limp over very short distances at low speeds,

but will fail on longer runs or higher speed.

In addition, there are statutory length limits for different

types of twisted pair networks. You can’t reel out a half-mile of

cable, put connectors on the ends and expect it to work. The

maximum length specified is one hundred meters, or a little over

300 ft. You might squeeze out a little more distance with a high

quality cable in an electrically quiet environment, but the

signaling strength isn’t engineered for long distances. The

slower the network, the more tolerant it will be of poorly made

cables, pair splitting and failing connectors. Some networking

The Laptop Repair Workbook

adapters and hubs will automatically lower the connection speed

under poor conditions, but it’s not a situation to aspire to. Better

to just fix it and run at the hardware’s maximum speed.

Network adapters, routers and hubs are equipped with

LEDs that show the link status and activity. Don’t assume that

because a hub or a router is working with other computers and

the link LED for your cable is lit, everything must be OK.

Individual ports on hubs and routers can fail with the link LED

remaining lit, so try another port, even if it means temporarily

disconnecting another computer. Positive link status just means

there’s a cable attached between the hub port and the laptop and

it’s not broken. But that LED is a useful tool. If you see the green

link LED flicker when you wiggle the wire at either end, it’s a

sign that either the RJ-45 connector is loose, or the port in the

laptop or the hub or router is bad.

Moving past hardware issues, software is the crazy aunt

in the wire closet of networking. In the absence of expert help,

your best bet is to find a similar machine on the network, ideally

running the same version of the operating system, and clone the

settings it’s using. The exception is if the network is set up with

fixed network addresses, in which you’ll need to get your full

designated address from the network administrator, which is a

good time to ask for help. The problem could be as simple as a

mistyped workgroup name on a peer-to-peer network, or

misspelling the username or password received from the

network administrator on a business network.

The most common wired networking connection in the

home is between the laptop and the high speed modem/router.

Some Internet service providers don’t supply free wireless

routers, and some users prefer the security of a hard wired

connection and turn off the router’s wireless capability. If you

can’t access the Internet through your direct network connection

to the router, it’s very possible that the router itself has lost

contact with the Internet and needs to be reset.

Troubleshooting Keyboard, Pointer and USB

Perhaps the most important thing you can learn about your

keyboard, touchpad, and even your USB ports, is that they can

all be bypassed. Most laptops offer either a PS/2 or proprietary

Laptop key

replacement:

laptop15.htm

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

port for an external keyboard and mouse (it may have to be

manually enabled in CMOS Setup), and you can always buy

inexpensive USB keyboards, mice, and other pointers to use. If

all of your USB ports should fail (a very rare occurrence) you can

buy a replacement USB adapter as a laptop PC card. If the

problem is with the USB ports being mechanically broken inside

the laptop by repeated abuse, you can still use the integrated

USB through a port replicator or docking station. So the bottom

line is, you don’t have to rush to replace your laptop keyboard or

pointing device should the hardware fail or simply wear out.

You may notice a problem with your keyboard when

some repeated characteristic spelling error appears, like you

keep on leaving the letter “a” out of words. After a while, you

figure out that you’re spelling them right, it’s just that hitting the

“a” key doesn’t always result in an “a” showing up on the screen.

The spills and crumbs that get into the keyboard and remain

there often gang up with lint and hair to gum up the workings of

certain keys. As long as the problem is with foreign matter

gumming up the retaining clip that holds the key in place and

not with the actual key contact, which is sealed within the

keyboard membrane, you can fix it. That is, provided you can

figure out how to remove the key with destroying the retaining

clip, and you have good enough manual dexterity to put it back

together again after you remove the built up crud.

The difficulty of replacing the entire keyboard membrane

(the keys come attached) varies from laptop to laptop,

depending on whether you can easily access it from the top side,

without messing with the hinges. If the keyboard disappears

entirely from Device Manager it could indicate that that the

motherboard controller has failed, in which case, investing in a

replacement membrane is a pretty big risk. A warning in Device

Manager may also indicate that the ribbon connector has come

undone or failed, though that’s pretty rare unless you’ve had the

laptop apart. The replacement membrane with keys usually

costs less than $100, but if you normally use the laptop in one

location and you don’t have any repair experience, it’s less risky

to just start using a USB keyboard. Probably the handiest laptop

accessory around is the USB splitter, which allows you to plug a

standard mouse and keyboard into the laptop, rather than

buying expensive versions with proprietary connectors from the

manufacturer.

The Laptop Repair Workbook

More laptops come equipped with a touchpad than any

other pointing device. Touchpads can take a while for new users

to get used to, and they tend to come overloaded with shortcut

commands. If you’re getting frustrated with your touchpad

because it keeps launching applications when you’re just trying

to move the pointer on the screen, you need to adjust the

software settings. There may be a touchpad icon with all the

options in the system tray, and you can always find it in

Windows Control Panel. Many users are most comfortable with

all of the extra functionality disabled, including tapping on the

touchpad to click the mouse. If the physical buttons for clicking

don’t work as you expected, their functionality can also be

changed in the touchpad settings. If neither the buttons nor the

touchpad work at all, make sure they are enabled in software. If

Device Manager can’t see the touchpad, there’s a good chance

the controller has failed or the cable has worked off.

USB is one of the great successes of modern computer

standards, allowing manufacturers to design tens of thousands

of different products that can be attached to your laptop by one

standard cable to a standard port. If it wasn’t for the software,

USB would be practically idiot proof. Unfortunately, the USB

interface only provides the path for the laptop and the attached

device to talk to each other, the software still has to be right for

the conversation to make any sense. The first step in

troubleshooting USB problems is to simplify the setup. Plug the

device directly into a USB port on your laptop, without daisy

chaining through other USB devices, hubs, docking stations or

port replicators. Once you get it working, you can try a more

torturous cabling route and find out if there’s a problem

somewhere in the middle.

The majority of USB ports on laptops in use today are

either USB 2.0 or USB 1.1, a successful earlier version. USB 2.0

is much faster than USB 1.1 and handles power differently, so

some devices sold for USB 2.0 will not be backwards

compatible, and will work very poorly if at all. All USB 1.1

devices should work on USB 2.0 ports, and the new USB 3.0

ports should be able to handle all of the older devices as well.

The higher the communication speed of the device, the more

important you use a quality cable. The USB port and cable

wiring is actually quite simple, a ground, a +5.0 V power supply,

USB splitter for

laptop:

r_usb.htm

Hardware Systems Troubleshooting

and two signal conductors carrying a differential (plus and

minus) signal for noise isolation.

The main hazard to USB ports is that the cables end up

end up all over the place and get yanked on. People can trip over

them and you may jerk the laptop around moving your feet

under the table. The worst punishment for the USB port is if you

forget that you have a USB cable plugged into the laptop, close

the lid, and trying to walk away with it. This abuse can lead to

broken solder joints inside the laptop, and bent ports that only

create the proper connection if you hold the cable just so. If the

USB port feels loose inside the laptop, it’s broken. The whole

laptop is put in danger if somebody trips over the cable and

pulls it off the table. The cables themselves are fairly bullet

proof, normally inflicting more damage than they absorb, but a

high heeled shoe or desk drawer can damage a cable and break

the conductors. So you shouldn’t assume a cable is good unless

you’ve tested it with another device on your laptop, and

remember that cheaper cables may work with older USB

standards but not the new faster ones. Never try using a USB

cable if the plastic spacer in the connector is missing. It can

short out the port and damage the motherboard.

Laptop Won’t Power

Up With AC Adapter

Laptop

power LED

on?

LED

winks if

wiggling

cord?

Plug directly

into good

outlet

Live

AC?

Internal

power jack

loose?

Beeps

multiple

times?

Check web

for your BIOS

beep codes.

Normally

requires board

level repair

voltage with

connector cut

off?

Replace AC

adapter brick

Reseat

battery,

replace if it

causes

failure

Shows

momentary

life?

Hear

fan or hard

drive?

Feel

action on

switch?

If same failure repeats

in future, consider glue/

epoxy on connection

voltage good

at output?

Yes No

No Yes

Yes

Yes No

Yes

Switch failure

usually comes with

a change in the feel.

Test switch with

continuity meter. If

switch is good,

continue to right

Use VOM on

DC setting,

not tongue

Solder on new

connector

Yes

connector

broken?

Yes

Power up

no battery?

Short,

spark on

DC jack?

Inspect boards

for burnt or melted

components, cold

solder on DC jack,

open connections,

unseated cards

Disconnect internal

drives and connectors

one at a time until

subsystem with short

identified. If power input

still a short with bare

motherboard, replace

motherboard

Check owners

manual, not all

laptops can

be operated

without battery

Solder new DC jack

on motherboard

Replace

connector on AC

adapter output

No Yes

Boots if all

devices unplugged?

Determine

which

connection is

causing

problem by

reconnecting

devices one at

a time

Yes

LCD

failure

chart

Redo

internal

connections

fix?

Yes

Warning: Use

continuity meter to

test for short. Do not

repeatedly plug in

sparking power

Laptop Won’t Power Up With AC Adapter

The Laptop Repair Workbook

LED

winks if

wiggling

cord?

Laptop power LED on? Laptops come equipped with a series of

LEDs, often above the keyboard or on the front edge, that

display the status or activity of laptop sub-systems. There are

normally separate LEDs that will light when the AC adapter is

plugged in, when the battery is charging, and when the laptop is

powered on. In addition, there may be LEDs for hard drive and

wireless activity and for DVD or CD action. Some laptops even

feature a power button that lights when the power is turned on.

In this particular diagnostic step, we're interested in the LED

that shows that external power is connected, which is

occasionally the same as the LED that shows the battery is

charging. These are the only LEDs that should be lit when the

laptop isn't turned on but is plugged into a live AC adapter.

LED winks if wiggling cord? If the LED showing that power is

connected or that the battery is charging winks and blinks when

you wiggle the cord plugged into the laptop, you have a bad

electrical connection. The result is often that the power supplied

is too intermittent to charge the battery or carry the system

though a power on cycle, unless the cord is in the perfect

position. If the LED blinks or flickers when you aren’t wiggling

the cord, check the owner’s manual for what it’s trying to tell

you. It could indicate a bad or unrecognized battery, or a

problem with the AC adapter output. While you will test for

these as you go along, checking the manufacturer user manual

first can save you time.

Internal power jack loose? In cases of total failure, it's usually a

broken center pin or a failed solder joint on the board. This can

even happen with relatively new laptops if the solder joint was

poor quality to start with and the high electrical resistance led to

further overheating of the joint until it failed. But the most

common reason for mechanical failure of the power jack inside

the laptop is unintentional abuse. Problems include: pulling out

the connector at an angle when disconnecting the power,

careless movement of other items on the desk pulling the cord

around while it's plugged in, dropping the laptop with adapter

attached or stepping on the cord.

Simply letting the cord droop all of the time if you work on your

lap is much more likely to lead to the failure of the external

connector than the internal port. The easiest way to test if the

connector on the end of the AC adapter cord is failing is to

measure the DC output while having somebody wiggle the cord.

Laptop

power LED

on?

Internal

power jack

loose?

Laptop Won’t Power Up With AC Adapter

Beeps

multiple

times?

If you have alligator clips for your test leads, you can do this

yourself. Failures are almost always gradual, where the laptop

will operate and charge fine as long as you position the cord

properly to keep the LED lit, but this gets more and more

difficult with time as additional strands of wire break.

Beeps multiple times? Laptops, like desktop PCs, go through a

POST (Power On Self Test) process when turned on. If the POST

carried out by the BIOS detects a failure, it may report the

failure through a series of beeps, whether or not it can light up

the screen. These beep codes are specific to the BIOS

manufacturer and are sometimes proprietary to the laptop

manufacturer or model as well, but you can usually find out

what they signify by Googling "Beep Code" and the brand and

model of your laptop.

The downside to beep codes is they often identify problems that

you can’t fix. The most common beep code that you can do

something about is RAM failure. If you get a beep code you can’t

identify and nothing seems to work, the first step is to reseat the

memory module(s). If you have more than one memory module,

try operating with just one, and then just the other in the first

slot. You might want to gamble on buying a new memory

module, using an online configurator to pick the correct module

for your model, as they are pretty inexpensive. Other beep code

failures are generally related to surface mount processors that

can’t be repaired at home, though some people have had luck

with reflowing solder on video processors, using various novel

techniques. If you determine you have a video processor failure

on the main board and you’re feeling adventurous, do a Google

search on “reflow solder” and your model.

Boots if all devices unplugged? One of the easiest power

problems to troubleshoot is when an external device, such as a

printer, a network connection, a PCMCIA (Personal Computer

Memory Card International Association) or PC card, video

monitor, or even a JumpDrive or USB mouse is preventing the

laptop from powering on. This may occur due to a short circuit

or electrical problem in the external device or due to a problem

with the mechanical movement of the port inside the notebook.

It can be easily diagnosed by removing all external devices

(except the AC power adapter).

Boots if all

devices unplugged?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

Hear fan or hard drive? When one or more status LEDs on the

laptop are lit, it may be that the basic power circuitry is

functioning, but the boot process is being aborted before it even

starts. If you can hear the hard drive spinning up or the CPU fan

come on and stay on, or if the hard drive activity LED blinks

away merrily, there's a good chance that the problem is isolated

to the video display subsystem. One quick check is to attach an

external monitor, though you may have to use a key

combination, normally the master Fn (Function) key along with

one of the other keys along the top of the keyboard, to tell the

laptop that you want to enable the external video port.

Shows momentary signs of life? Does the hard drive spin up and

stop, or can you hear the fan click on and off? Do the LED's

change state when you press the power button, even for a

moment? Does the screen show any changes, even just a passing

ghost of an image or some bright spots along an edge? All of

these may be signs of trying to power up with a battery that’s

stone dead or has suffered an internal failure, with a laptop that

shuts itself down on “abnormal” battery conditions.

It could also be the sign of a nearly discharged battery combined

with a faulty AC adapter or charging circuit. Some people have

reported problems with generic after-market AC adapters that

are only capable of charging the battery when the laptop is

turned off. Due to low voltage or insufficient current, they

simply won’t operate the laptop on their own unless a charged

battery is supplementing the power.

Feel action on switch? Notebook switches vary as much as

keyboards in feel, but you should feel some initial resistance

when you press the power switch, and there should also be a

tactile switching feel. If that feel is absent or if the switch moves

up and down loosely, it's probable that the switch has physically

failed. Unfortunately, there's a lot of taking apart involved to get

at and test the switch in most laptop designs. Fortunately, it's

not a common failure.

Redo internal connections fix? Laptops get moved around,

vibrated, bounced about and even flexed far more than desktop

PC's. While laptop manufacturers use specially designed

connectors, tape, and stress relievers to counter vibrations, it's

not uncommon for connectors to work free. Find an illustrated

guide that details how to open up your specific model of

Hear

fan or hard

drive?

Shows

momentary

life?

Feel

action on

switch?

Redo

internal

connections

fix?

Laptop Won’t Power Up With AC Adapter

notebook (there's a lot of variations and tricks), take it apart,

remake the connections, and put it back together again. If it

works, but fails again at a later date, try to determine the exact

connection that’s failing by process of elimination. If you

determine that a particular connection is prone to work itself

loose, you can (out of warranty laptops only!) attempt to use an

epoxy or mechanical restraint to hold it in place.

DC voltage good at output? The AC adapter for your laptop

power supply transforms and rectifies AC to DC. The ratings for

the DC output are printed on the label, 15V at 3.0 A, 19V at 2.0A,

depends entirely on your model and the voltage of the battery

used (the charging voltage has to be higher than the battery

voltage). You can't play a mix and match game with AC

adapters, it has to be the right voltage, supply enough current

and have the exact barrel connector (inside and outside

diameter and overall length) or it may cause damage or simply

not work.

It's easy to check the voltage with an autoranging VOM, for nonautoranging

meters, use the 20V range on the DC scale. While

checking the voltage doesn't confirm that the transformer is

supplying the required current, it's not as tricky as checking

battery voltage where a surface charge can trick you into

thinking a bad battery is good when no load is present. The

voltage you read should be the same or a little higher than the

voltages printed on the label. You can't confirm this by checking

the DC plug with your tongue, and you may end up getting some

spit in the connector that shorts out the whole works when you

plug it back into the notebook. Be careful when one probe is

inside the connector not to let it contact the probe on the outer

conductor, or you’ll short the AC adapter. Aside from the sparks,

this could damage the AC adapter or the meter.

DC connector broken? The center pin of the DC barrel connector

inside the laptop is a very common failure, sometimes breaking

off altogether if the laptop is dropped while plugged in or if

somebody trips over the cord. Note that some laptops are

designed with the center pin as part of the AC adapter cord end.

If the pin is missing but you’re still getting intermittent power, it

must be stuck inside the connector coming from the AC adapter

and making contact with the broken part on the inside when it's

plugged in tight. If the pin is loose to the touch, if it moves easily

when you nudge it with a pencil point or a toothpick, it's

voltage good

at output?

connector

broken?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

probably hanging on by a thread and responsible for

intermittent or limited power. The contact for the outside of the

barrel can fail as well, especially if there are a limited number of

solder points.

Replacing the connector inside the laptop, whether it's on the

motherboard or on a special power regulation board, is one of

the most labor intensive repairs a relative newbie can hope to

carry out successfully. You need a lot of patience to disassemble

the notebook to the point where you can desolder the old

connector with a quality soldering iron with a fine tip. The

connectors themselves can usually be found online for cheap,

though an increasing number of laptops use proprietary

connectors that can only be obtained from the manufacturer,

who wants to sell you a whole new AC adapter if the cord fails. If

you’re very unlucky, the circuit board to which the connector is

soldered may have broken in a drop, for which the only fix is

replacing the whole board.

Power up no battery? If the laptop powers up with the battery

removed, you've either got a bad battery or a problem with the

connector in the battery compartment. Visually inspect the

battery for damage and don't even try plugging it back in if it

shows any signs of bulging, leaking or melting. Inspect the

battery connector on the battery and in the battery

compartment for signs of discoloration, misalignment or melted

plastic on or near the pins. Some laptops won't operate without

a battery installed, and any laptop that relies on the battery as

part of the power supply conditioning circuit might be damaged

by operation on poorly regulated power when the battery isn't

installed. If the laptop does power up without the battery and

the manufacturer or documentation confirms that battery-free

operation is acceptable, you can treat it like a portable desktop.

Otherwise, you can purchase a replacement battery, but the

problem may turn out to be with the charging circuitry. Always

check if your battery has been recalled before even thinking of

purchasing a replacement.

Short or spark on DC jack? If you get a spark when you go to

plug the DC output of the AC adapter into the laptop, remove it

immediately and start looking for the short. Even if it doesn’t

spark, it’s a logical step to check for a short circuit on the power

input when you get no power LED on the laptop with a live AC

adapter. If you have a dead AC adapter around, you can cut the

Power up

no battery?

Short,

spark on

DC jack?

Laptop Won’t Power Up With AC Adapter

DC connector off, strip the two leads, and use the connector with

the lead to test for a short with a meter set to continuity, or

Ohms, if the meter lacks a continuity setting.

Assuming you don’t have a spare lead, you can usually still check

for a short without taking the laptop apart by measuring from

the inner pin on the DC jack in the laptop to the metal on any of

the laptop ports, which should be ground. If you have one of

those odd laptops where the center conductor is ground, this

will give a false indication, so make sure you check the polarity

of the jack by testing the voltage coming from the AC adapter.

You want the positive lead of the voltmeter (red) to contact the

inside of the connector, and the ground (black) to contact the

outside, and the readout to show the correct positive voltage. If

it shows the voltage as negative, either the leads are plugged into

the meter wrong or the DC connector carries the positive on the

outside of the barrel.

The easier components to remove usually include the hard drive

and the optical drive (DVD or CD), though it will be necessary to

disassemble the laptop to remove them with some makes and

models. Stripping the laptop down to its bare components is one

step beyond simply disassembling and reassembling all in one

step in an attempt to repair any faulty connections. If you keep

your continuity meter connected by way of a spare lead or

alligator clips on the inputs, you’ll know the minute you solve

the short. But if you insist on trying to find a short without a

meter, it’s best to strip the laptop down to nothing but the

motherboard and video connections before trying to power it up

again. Visually inspect the motherboard for damage before you

apply the power.

If there’s no short or sparks, the power problem in your laptop is

likely related to an open circuit, due to a failed connection,

broken trace or a burnt out component. One of the more

common and easiest problems to diagnose at this point is a cold

solder connection right at the DC input. It could be that the

solder joints are physically sound enough so that the jack

doesn’t move around, but aren’t conducting electricity, which

you can check with a continuity meter or by measuring

resistance on the Ohms scale. One of the connector conductors

should be in continuity with any ground point in the laptop, or

measure less than an Ohm, and the other conductor should have

continuity to the circuit board trace for it, or to the positive leg

The Laptop Repair Workbook

of the next component the power reaches. If it’s not a failed

solder joint, check all of the components for visual signs of

damage, reseat any daughter cards and connections, and try

powering up again.

Live AC power source? You don't need a voltage meter to check

for good AC power. Just unplug the AC adapter from the outlet

it's in and plug in a lamp. If the lamp works, the power to the

outlet is good, if not necessarily polarized correctly. Don't

assume that because the light is flickering merrily away on a

power strip that the power to the outlet you are plugged into on

the strip is good, or that any of the outlets on the strip are good.

Power strips have gotten so cheap that it's not uncommon to

find multiple outlet failures on them.

DC voltage with connector cut off? If you've confirmed with a

known good voltmeter set to the right scale that the DC

connector on the AC adapter isn't putting out any voltage, you

have nothing to lose by unplugging the AC adapter and cutting

off the DC connector six inches or so before the connector end.

Strip the end of the DC output cord still attached to the AC

adapter, make sure the ends are separated when you plug the AC

adapter back in, and check for DC voltage across the exposed

ends. If there’s no voltage, it's time to buy a new AC adapter. If

the proper voltage is present, you'll need to buy a new connector

and solder it onto the cord or make up a new connector with two

leads and splice it onto the cord. You can order the connector

ends online if you know exactly the size you need (may be shown

in the manual for your laptop if you have it available or can find

it online) but you can also bring the cut-off connector to a Radio

Shack or electronics store and match it by eye if it’s a basic, two

conductor barrel connector.

Live

AC?

voltage with

connector cut

off?

Laptop Won’t Power Up With AC Adapter

Laptop Battery

Failure

Needs

AC adapter

to boot?

Runs down

too quick?

adapter

noisy?

All batteries

heat up charging,

but not too hot to

touch

Live

longer in

CMOS

Battery

ages too

quick?

battery

management

active?

voltage

good?

No Yes

Yes No

Yes

Replace

adapter if too

annoying or

fails to charge,

but buzz or

high pitched

tone not

unusual

Measure DC

output of AC

adapter,

compare to

brick label

LED for

charging lit

steady?

See manual for LED

colors or blinks pointing

to battery problem or

charging failure

Yes

Does

battery get

hot?

Latch

locks

tight?

Yes

Battery must be

installed properly

both to charge and to

operate laptop

Unless maker

warns against, run

without battery

when AC available.

Li-Ion batteries

good 300 to 500

cycles, older types

suffer memory

User

condition

battery?

Attempt to

recondition

Either aged

battery not taking

a full charge, self

discharging, or

some hardware

Yes overdraw

Check CMOS

that PnP OS and

ACPI enabled

Yes

With ACPI, battery life,

CPU performance, LCD

brightness, etc, all can be

adjusted in a trade-off

Power

failure

chart

Charges

in CMOS

Setup?

AC adapter

could be failing or

underpowered

Yes

Charges

with laptop

off?

Software

problem in OS

management

Yes

Visual

inspection

pass?

If battery shows signs of

overheating, bulging or leaking, don't

try in another laptop. If the bay

contacts are clean and undamaged,

can gamble on a new battery

If the battery bay and the battery both

look clean and undamaged, try charging

battery in an identical laptop or borrowing a

battery to try. Charge LED may have lied

and power board or AC adapter failed

Yes No

Laptop Battery Failure

The Laptop Repair Workbook

Needs AC Adapter to boot? The first step in troubleshooting

your laptop battery is determining whether it can hold enough

charge to boot the notebook. Will the laptop power up and run

on the battery, or does the AC need to be plugged in all the time?

Modern notebooks usually have a whole array of status LEDs

that will tell you if the laptop senses good power coming from

the AC adapter and whether or not the battery is charging.

Unfortunately, there's no universal standard for these LEDs,

their colors or their actions. Note also that we're using the term

"boot" rather loosely here. If the laptop powers up on battery,

you can hear the fans and the drives, but you don’t get a live

LCD, or fail to reach the operating system splash screen, you

should start your troubleshooting with the LCD or hard drive.

Runs down too quick? This is the main problem laptop owners

complain about, and often for good cause. Older laptops using

Ni-Cad and early Ni-MH batteries ran for 2.5 to 3.5 hours when

brand new, but often within a few short months could barely

keep the notebook powered up for an hour. Newer laptops using

Li-ion batteries are much better, normally holding onto a three

or four hour life through hundreds of charge and discharge

cycles. The first line of defense battery manufacturers employ

against complaints about battery life is, "Did you charge and

operate the battery according to the manual?" Unfortunately,

different laptop manufacturers disagree over how to best treat

batteries of the same technology, and some of the differences

extend to various models from the same manufacturer.

Unless you have a very old laptop, the battery is actively

monitored and managed by the operating system software. This

means if there’s an error in how the operating system sees the

battery, whether due to hardware or software, you may get

critical warnings and automatic shutdowns even if the battery

isn’t truly reaching a state of total discharge. One test for this is

to temporarily change the action that accompanies the “critical

battery alarm” in the battery management software from

“hibernate” or “shut down” to “no action.” If you get a critical

warning, and then the laptop merrily works away for another

two hours, you’ll know the battery and the charger are working,

but there’s a software management problem. But you need to

resolve the problem rather than just running that way or you’ll

risk losing work and possibly introducing data errors when the

battery really does start running out of power and the system

experiences a sudden brown-out.

Needs

AC adapter

to boot?

Runs down

too quick?

Laptop Battery Failure

User Condition Battery? Purchasers of brand-new laptops are

often surprised to find the battery is dead, or runs down very

quickly. Even if the battery was fully charged when the laptop

was boxed for shipment, that box may have been sitting in a

warehouse for six months or a year before you purchased it in a

store. That’s more than enough time for a notebook battery to

self-discharge, even if it's not being drawn upon. If the battery

isn't new, and you just received the laptop as a hand-me-down

or purchased it second hand, there's no reason to expect that a

short battery life is due to anything other than an aged battery.

We strongly advise against trying any Internet inspired hacks for

bypassing the built-in safety mechanism of Li-ion batteries

unless you are a battery technologist yourself. The so-called

“fuel gauges” or “odometers” that may prevent Li-ion batteries

from accepting a charge after a fixed number of cycles are there

to prevent overheating and fire risk as the battery’s chemical

composition changes with time.

Battery conditioning means training the individual battery cells

into a pattern of giving as much power and accepting the largest

charge that they can. It would take an advanced chemistry text

and a much smarter author to describe the underlying reasons

for battery memory, and the techniques for best charging and

storing batteries sometimes contradict one another. Once a

laptop battery pack is conditioned, you may still need to run it

all the way down once a month for best performance, especially

if you normally work with the laptop plugged in. It's important

to read the owner’s manual section on battery life, because

different models ship with different battery technologies, and

the best practices to extend the battery life may not be the same.

You can try to recondition the battery (check the laptop

manufacturer website for reconditioning software or

instructions), but odds are the battery simply can't hold a charge

the way it did when it was new.

Some manufacturers may condition the battery before

installation in the laptop, others expect you to read the owner’s

manual instructions and do it yourself in the first few days you

own the laptop. The most general procedure is to charge the

battery fully before use (leaving it on the AC battery charger

overnight is best), and then to run exclusively on battery until

the battery is discharged. Some brands suggest you run until the

operating system warns of low battery life remaining, which

could be anywhere from 10% to 3% remaining, on standard

User

condition

battery?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

settings. Others recommend that you run the laptop until it

shuts itself down. This doesn't mean that you have to sit there

working for three or four hours, you can run the battery down

over multiple sessions over multiple days. The important thing

is not to plug the AC power adapter back in and start recharging

the battery until it is completely run down. The conditioning

process may require you to go through this cycle three times in a

row.

Battery ages too quick? If the laptop's battery life has been

slowly degrading over time, it's probably operating more or less

in accordance with plan, but if you find the operating life

shortened by more than 20% or 25% within the first few

months, there's likely something wrong. Ni-Cad and Ni-MH

batteries can be "trained" to perform poorly through non-ideal

usage patterns, and it usually helps if you run them all the way

down once a month or so to prevent the worst charge memory

issues. Some manufacturers of laptops using the new Li-ion

technology encourage users to leave the batteries installed at all

times, even if the laptop is almost always running on the AC

adapter, while other manufacturers recommend removing the

batteries and storing them somewhere cool when not needed for

mobile use. Read your manual.

Live longer in CMOS? This is one of the few diagnostic tests for

a battery you can do at home to find out if your battery life

problem is due to hardware (the battery itself or the charging

mechanism) or to the way the laptop is being operated. Enter

CMOS setup immediately after turning on the notebook with a

fully charged battery. Once you bring up the main CMOS Setup

screen, start timing how long it takes the laptop battery to run

down. If it doesn't outlast the battery life under regular usage by

a good margin, the short battery life is probably due to a faulty

battery or a hardware failure that causes the laptop to

continually suck power when it shouldn't.

AC adapter noisy? This is one of those problems that tends to

bother young women and children more than men, because men

lose their high frequency hearing at an earlier age than women.

AC adapters typically include a transformer and some power

IC's, at least a bridge rectifier and some capacitors. There's a lot

of potential for humming and whistling with transformers, but

they can go on operating that way for years without failing. If the

AC adapter gets burning hot as it whistles away, or starts to

Battery

ages too

quick?

adapter

noisy?

Live

longer in

CMOS

Laptop Battery Failure

smoke or smell, then pull the plug from the wall and buy a new

one. In all cases, the acoustic behavior of your AC adapter may

naturally vary with the quality of the power from the utility, and

the feed voltage if you are traveling. Anytime you can avoid

running a computer on poorly regulated or intermittent utility

power you should do so, but at least the AC adapter offers a first

line of defense against power spikes reaching the motherboard.

OS battery management active? Older notebooks were equipped

with hardware only battery management schemes that

controlled both charging and battery operation. All new laptops

ship with ACPI (Advanced Configuration Power Interface)

which is a marriage between BIOS routines that monitor board

level charging and device activity, and the operating system. The

operating system power management comes equipped with a

number of default profiles that instruct the laptop if and how to

nurse the battery. There's usually a power user profile that just

runs full out with no consideration of battery life, a number of

special purpose profiles, such as running a DVD movie for a sole

task, and a miserly setting that cuts performance to a minimum

and puts devices like the hard drive to sleep when not in

frequent use.

You can micro-manage these profiles to suit your needs, and you

can always go into the settings and override them or change the

profile at any time. The most useful trick to remember for

running on battery is how to brighten or dim the LCD screen

using the function keys. Screen brightness is a serious power

drain (you're essentially powering a bright fluorescent lamp)

and in most indoor usage, strategic choice of where you sit can

add time to your battery life. If you aren’t working on the

Internet, it also helps to turn off your wireless adapter when

running on battery, and it’s not a bad security practice either.

Many laptops are equipped with an exterior switch to disable

wireless, but you can do it in software as well. When

troubleshooting battery life issues, you may want to run a power

management profile for a few battery cycles that doesn't come

up to your expectations for performance, just to help diagnose

the problem.

If the battery management software reports errors or if the

device driver for the battery is missing or in an error state, it

could be due to an automated software update that went awry,

or an inadvertent change to the CMOS settings. Enter CMOS

battery

management

active?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

Setup and make sure that ACPI and PnP OS (Plug-n-Play

operating system) are both enabled. If you can’t find either of

these options in Setup on a newer laptop, it probably means they

are enabled by default. If the device driver for the battery

remains in error state, check for an update on the manufacturer

website, or consider going back to the last operating system

restore point on Windows XP and later systems.

DC voltage good? Check the voltage at the output of your AC

adapter with a DC voltmeter, right on the barrel connector that

gets plugged into the laptop. We give a full explanation of DC

voltage measurement and solutions in the text along with the

power troubleshooting flowchart in the previous section. If

you've purchased a lightweight battery charger for travel, don't

assume that it's putting out the correct voltage just because

there's a connector that fits your notebook. Check your owner’s

manual or the label on the original AC adapter that came with

the notebook.

LED for charging lit steady? While there's no universal

standard, a blinking LED on the battery charge indicator is

probably not good news. It often indicates a battery that has

been over-discharged, the voltage is so low that it's confusing

the charging circuitry into thinking the battery has a dead cell

and would just overheat if a charge is pushed into it. The newer

the laptop, the smarter the charging logic, and it won't want to

try putting a charge into a battery that may damage either the

battery or the notebook itself. In some cases, you'll be able to

recharge an over depleted battery if you wait until the notebook

is shut down, install the battery, and then plug in AC adapter,

and charge overnight without operating the laptop. There are

also circuits built into some newer batteries that simply disable

the battery when it reaches its planned cycle life.

The LED may tell you that it doesn’t recognize that there’s a

battery present, which is a good time to jump ahead to the

“Visual Inspection” steps on the flowchart to see if the problem

is with the latching, mechanical contact or physical battery

condition. Some models may even be able to differentiate

between battery problems and a laptop charging problem,

whether the battery charger regulation is included on the

motherboard or on a daughter power board. But charging can

always fail if the input from the AC adapter isn’t sufficient, so

voltage

good?

LED for

charging lit

steady?

Laptop Battery Failure

100

always check the AC adapter before diagnosing an internal

charging failure.

Charges in CMOS Setup? If the battery never charges when

you’re using your laptop, try entering CMOS Setup after

powering up and letting the laptop sit on the Setup screen and

charge for a few hours. If the battery does take a charge under

these conditions, it means that the problem is likely with the

operating system power management preventing the battery

from charging. It’s also remotely possible that your laptop usage

when running is simply using all of the power provided by the

AC adapter, so there’s no current to spare for charging the

battery.

Charges with laptop off? If your battery only takes a charge

when you leave the AC adapter plugged in overnight and the

laptop turned off, the problem is either with the BIOS level

management of the battery or with the AC adapter. It’s unlikely

a laptop manufacturer would do such a bad job engineering

their charging system, but it is possible if you’ve purchased a

replacement AC adapter that is equipped with a variety of

connectors and is intended to work with a large range of models.

Some desktop replacement laptops have relatively high power

requirements, and some very inexpensive laptops use less

efficient components for cost savings.

Does battery get hot? Recently there have been a spate of high

profile stories in the media about laptop batteries catching fire.

This wasn't caused by normal heating due to charging. The

problem was in the manufacturing process of the individual

cells, where apparently some contamination led to internal short

circuits that could cause the battery to overheat even if it wasn't

in use. Laptop batteries normally heat up a little on charging,

and they heat up even more when discharging under heavy

demand. Battery packs include a temperature cut-off circuit,

that will halt battery charging or discharging if it really

overheats. In some cases, the battery will not be usable

afterwards because the cut-off acts like a circuit breaker that

can't be easily reset.

It certainly doesn't do your laptop battery any good to get very

hot, even if it's within the toleration of the protective circuitry,

so if it's overheating on discharge, consider running on AC

power instead. Just remember you have to shut down before

Charges

in CMOS

Setup?

Charges

with laptop

off?

Does

battery get

hot?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

101

removing the battery unless it's specified as being hot

swappable. You can also try decreasing the performance settings

to lower the power drain. If the battery is overheating on

charging, you can try charging when the laptop is turned off

since the laptop is generating heat as well. Also, pay attention to

the ambient air temperature.

Latch locks tight? It's impossible to see what's going on with the

connector contacts inside the battery compartment once the

battery is installed, so the only indicator you have to proper

installation (aside from normal operation) is the condition of the

latch. If the latching mechanism doesn't show a positive close by

clicking back to the relaxed position, try reinstalling the battery.

Some laptops have a manual battery lock that is operating

separately from the latches, and which will not lock unless the

battery is installed properly. If the latches refuse to click closed

on their own, remove the battery again, check for physical

distortions in the battery package and damage to the connector

both on the battery and in the bay.

Visual inspection pass? Always look before you leap into

purchasing a replacement battery or swapping parts with an

identical laptop. You don’t want to damage a good laptop with

your killer battery or waste your money on a new battery for

your laptop if the connector in the bay is damaged beyond

repair. Look for signs of discoloration on the surface of the

battery, leakage, bulging, or opening seams. Any of these are a

reason to safely dispose of the battery rather than trying it in

another laptop. Likewise, if the battery looks physically perfect,

but doesn’t sit in the bay properly, there’s a mechanical problem

that may have been caused by dropping the laptop or

overheating that will prevent any battery from fitting properly.

Latch

locks

tight?

Visual

inspection

pass?

Laptop Battery Failure

102

103

Laptop Display

Failures

Live

BIOS splash

screen?

Live

on external

display?

Spots (that don’t

clean off), screen

length lines or

swathes always

show, LCD failing

Lines,

swathes or

spots?

Image

upside-down

sideways?

Test

inverter

OK?

Dim

desktop

image?

Check cable

routing and

stress reliefs

Live

desktop in

OS?

No Yes

Yes No

No Yes

Yes

Yes No

Inspect

wires in hinge

for physical

failure. LCD, or

board level

connector

failure

CRTL-ALT plus

up-arrow or sidearrow,

or check

video properties

Toggle failure

or video driver,

try safe mode

Yes

Red,

orange tint,

uneven?

Display

scrambles

w/ time?

Redo

connections

fix?

Yes

Fan or

hard drive

sound?

No Yes

Power

failure

chart

Replace inverter

when input live,

output dead

Replace backlight

(delicate job)

Boots

without

display?

Hard drive

chart

Yes

Stain

or growing

plume?

LCD rupture,

liquid crystal leak,

replace LCD

Classic video processor

overheating or memory

failure. Check heatsinks,

thermal compound

Yes

Total

blackouts at

random?

For large icons, blurry display,

mouse trails, stuttering movement,

check your video drive settings, try

hardware acceleration, etc.

Usually indicates the

CCFL backlight is failing. A

tough job on some laptops

due to geometry

If entering hibernation,

check lid switch. Going to sleep,

check power saver settings,

screensaver. Try toggling LCD/

external monitor

Yes

RAM

swap fix?

Motherboard

CPU, RAM

chart

Replace bad

RAM module,

new pair if pair

Yes

Laptop Display Failures

104

The Laptop Repair Workbook

105

Live BIOS splash screen? Most laptops will display a

manufacturer splash screen with their brand name, Dell,

Toshiba, Acer, Sony, etc, before launching into windows. Those

that don't may flash a text screen with the BIOS maker (AMI,

Award, Phoenix) in the corner, and a message telling you what

key combination to use to access the BIOS Setup screens. A

biometric screen prompting you to scan a fingerprint or an

eyeball before the system will boot counts as a BIOS splash

screen here. If the screen lights up with any graphic or text, it

means that the basic display system is functioning. However, a

pure white screen, or a series of color bars, does not count as a

“live” screen here.

Live on external display? All notebooks should support an

external monitor, usually with a high-density D-Shell 15 pin

VGA connector, but some might feature a DVI connector also, or

in place of VGA. It's a vital part of laptop display

troubleshooting to determine if a known good external monitor

can be used. Newer laptops don't keep the external connector

live by default, and some don't allow for simultaneous display

on both the LCD and an external monitor. Make sure you power

down before attaching the external monitor, and on newer

laptops, it may be detected on power up. Otherwise, you can

toggle between the notebook screen (which isn't working) and

the external display with an Fn key combination on most newer

laptops, and a CTRL key combination on some older models.

The Fn key is located at the lower left of the keyboard, normally

between the CTRL and the ALT key. If you can’t figure out the

toggle combination by examining your keyboard symbols, try

the user’s manual or search on the web.

We’ll list some of the more common models with recent toggles

are here: Toshiba often uses Fn-F5 to toggle between the laptop

LCD and an external display. IBM or Lenovo uses FN-F7, Acer

varies with the model, using Fn-F5, Fn-F3, Fn-F8, Sony Fn-F7,

Dell Fn-F8, HP or Compaq, Fn-F4. Apple PowerBooks and

iBooks generally autosense external monitor connections,

though you may choose the monitor icon on the Control Strip, or

try a Command – F2 combination. Also, some Mac models have

no external video port. There are variations with the age of the

laptop and not all manufacturers have standardized on a key

combo across the whole range, but you can usually figure it out

from the little pictures on the function keys that line the top of

the keyboard. If you read on the web that you need to enter

Live

BIOS splash

screen?

Live

on external

display?

Laptop Display Failures

106

CMOS Setup to toggle to an external monitor, it isn’t any help

since you need to be able to read the screen to do it.

Fan or hard drive sound? If you can't get any life at all on the

laptop LCD or the external display, it's entirely possible that the

problem goes deeper than a video issue. Signs of life include the

cooling fan blowing, the hard drive spinning up, any LED

activity beyond the LED indicating AC power is attached or

battery charging. If you don’t see or hear any signs of life,

proceed to power failure troubleshooting. If the system is

powering up, even going through boot, you can often tell by the

level of hard drive activity demonstrated by the sound or the

hard drive LED flashing.

When the system does boot blind, with no signs of life on the

LCD or external monitor, there aren’t too many options. It could

either be that you didn’t successfully switch to the external

monitor, that the output for the external monitor has failed or

never worked and was simply never tried before, or that the

video processor has failed in a manner undetectable by the

BIOS. If the video failed while you were operating, or if it works

briefly at boot time, it could be the video processor is

overheating or has partially lost contact with the motherboard.

It’s worth searching the web to see if this is a problem endemic

to your model. If the video processor is in a BGA (Ball Grid

Array) package and is noted for a high failure rate of the solder

connections in your model, you may be able to reflow the solder

using a heat gun or other hack. If you are sure the system is truly

booting blindly (you might put in a music CD and see if it autoplays),

you have a nearly working system.

RAM swap fix? Laptop video RAM is almost always shared with

the system, so if the RAM has failed, the system won’t boot and

the video won’t work. Not only is RAM failure one of the most

common reasons for the laptop to fail to light up the screen or

boot, it’s also the easiest part in the laptop to replace, so it’s

always worth checking before digging further into the laptop

guts and possibly creating new problems. If your laptop contains

two RAM modules, or if you can borrow a compatible module

from another laptop, you can check for failure without

purchasing a new module. The RAM is accessed on most models

by removing one or two screws from a panel on the bottom of

the laptop. Unplug the AC adapter and remove the battery

before proceeding. If you have two modules installed, remove

Fan or

hard drive

sound?

RAM

swap fix?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

107

the outer one, then try booting. If that doesn’t work, swap the

removed piece for the piece that’s still installed and try again. If

you have a compatible substitute module from another laptop or

one that you purchased new, remove all of your installed RAM

before trying it. Note that some old laptops had the base RAM

soldered to the motherboard, and if it fails, it requires a board

level repair you can’t do at home.

Dim desktop image? Can you see a ghost-like image of your

desktop that is functional, ie, one that changes if you drag an

icon, launch a program or disappears if you shut down?

Standard LCDs produce very little visible light on their own,

they require the Cold Cathode Fluorescent Light (CCFL) to light

the screen from behind. The fluorescent tube is normally located

at the top of the screen, and a bright reflective surface

distributes the light across the back of the LCD, so it can shine

through the liquid crystals of the liquid crystal display, which

only transmit red, green or blue (RGB). If you don’t see a dim

image, try holding a bright flashlight close to the screen at an

angle, and see if you can make out the desktop.

Test inverter OK? Inverters put out high voltage, high frequency

(something below the broadcast AM band) electrical signal, so

you can't test them with the average handheld meter. If you have

access to a higher quality RMS multi-meter, one that reads

frequency into the KHz range, you may be able to test for

inverter function without even taking the screen apart. The

normal range for laptop inverters is between 30 KHz and 70

KHz, and meters will usually read signals well outside their

specified range. A $20 meter rated for 20 KHz can probably pick

up inverters operating up to 40 KHz, though it will just show a

“1” for over-range if the inverter is active. A meter rated for 50

KHz should work for all inverters. If you can’t pick up the field

holding the probes against the plastic bezel, you can take the

screen apart and try the probes on the insulated wires carrying

the inverter output to the backlight. The test is to pick up the

radiated electromagnetic field, so you never need to contact a

bare conductor.

If you’ve already taken apart the screen, you can check the low

voltage DC power into the inverter, which comes through a

hinge from the motherboard. If the power to the inverter is good

but there's no output, the inverter is bad, and can be usually be

replaced for well under $100. If the output of the inverter is

Dim

desktop

image?

Test

inverter

OK?

Laptop Display Failures

108

good and the backlight isn’t lit, either the solder connections on

the backlight have failed or the CCFL tube has failed. If you’re

the adventurous type and don’t have access to a meter or a spare

CCFL tube from another laptop, you can try a cheap CCFL tube

from a PC modding kit, the $5 kind that are used to turn PCs

into light shows. The tube won’t be matched to the inverter, but

if it lights up, the inverter is working. If the inverter starts

smoking, it wasn’t a good idea.

Redo connections fix? If taking the laptop apart and redoing all

of the plug-together connections in the lid and the back of the

LCD fixes the problem, you're golden. If not, inspect the wire

harness running through the hinge to the lid for any signs of

damage. It is still possible that you have a dead backlight or

inverter and you can't see a dim image on the screen due to the

type of LCD used, a darker than normal plastic film or less than

perfect vision. Otherwise, you're faced with total LCD failure or

a board level problem in the video subsystem output to the LCD,

which is possibly a connector failure or a short in the cabling.

Live desktop in OS? After the operating system splash screen

tells you what version of Windows or other OS you are using,

does your usual desktop appear? If your sound is enabled and

you usually get a "Windows rush" when you start the computer,

you should hear it now. If the desktop does appear, the

troubleshooting process shifts at this point to image quality and

abnormalities.

Boots without display? If the desktop never appears and you're

left looking at a blank screen, but you can hear the hard drive is

working away and other usual start-up sounds, or see the

activity on the hard drive or wireless LEDs, the system is

booting but the display isn't functioning. Another test is to put

in an audio CD, and see if the drive spins up and the music

starts playing, or checking if the keyboard is live by putting on

Caps Lock and seeing if the LED lights. Try booting in Safe

Mode, though if you shut down blind using the power switch,

there's a good chance the laptop will start in Safe Mode by itself

the next power-up. If you still can't get a live desktop, try

attaching an external monitor, and if comes up fine, the problem

is either an incompatible display resolution set in the operating

system or a software setting forcing the OS to display on the

external screen only after boot. See the notes about swapping

under the troubleshooting symbol “Live on external display?”

Redo

connections

fix?

Live

desktop in

OS?

Boots

without

display?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

109

If nothing you do gets a live desktop for even a moment, or if

you don't hear any of the normal startup activity despite the live

BIOS screen on power-up, the video subsystem is fine but the

OS is failing to boot. The most likely reason for this is software

corruption, including virus damage, or a physical problem with

the hard drive. Proceed to hard drive troubleshooting.

Lines, swathes or spots? Assuming somebody didn't draw

perfectly straight lines on your screen with a very thin magic

marker or apply dots with the same, these are symptoms of

physical LCD failure. It's not usually the liquid crystals that fail

through rupturing, but the transistors that control their twist for

individual pixels or address whole lines. The individual point

failures may be tolerated if they aren't rapidly multiplying, They

don't affect anything but your temper in terms of usability.

Laptop manufacturers normally specify some smallish number

of dead pixels after which they will change the LCD under

warranty. A pixel consists of three individual sub pixels of red,

green and blue. When all are on together, the light mixes to

produce white, when all are out, the result is black. The pixel

failures don't have to be dead black spots, they can fail "on" as

well, producing a white spot, or sub pixels can fail “on”, meaning

you'll always have a red, green or blue spot, which can be more

annoying than black on a white desktop.

A whole swath of a solid color, black or white, usually indicates

the failure of a chip (integrated circuit component) on the LCD

that controls that range of horizontal or vertical lines on the

screen. A large black (dead) bar all the way across or up and

down the screen can also indicates that the ribbon connector is

partially worked off the LCD panel or the motherboard. Cable

connection failures are more common on certain laptop lemons

where the connector was poorly designed and the cable is too

short, so vibrations or flexing of the case tend to work it loose. If

it's not a loose connection, and the display is affected by

squeezing the edge of the lid, it's likely a contact on the edge of

the LCD, which won’t be repairable without replacing the whole

LCD.

Lines,

swathes or

spots?

Laptop Display Failures

110

Image upside-down or backwards? Don't laugh if you already

know the answer to this one, it's brought about more than one

embarrassing service call for some hapless notebook owners.

Many laptops have the ability to flip the display horizontally or

vertically. You can do this from the keyboard, on purpose or

accidentally, by hitting CTRL-ALT and the appropriate arrow

from the direction arrows on the right-hand side of the

keyboard. If the key combination doesn't do it, the problem is in

software, either in the video driver properties or a malicious

mirror program installed to make you wonky.

Red, orange tint, uneven? Is the entire screen tinted pink or

orange (probably growing worse over time) or is the background

brightness of the screen uneven, particularly near the edges?

The tint is often caused by a failing backlight not putting out the

full spectrum of white light, so the CCFL tube needs to be

replaced. This can be a delicate job due to the latter problem,

uneven lighting. The tube is very thin, flexible, and often

installed underneath a reflective foil that wraps the whole back

of the LCD panel. If the backlight tube is jolted or warped out of

position, or if you install it poorly, you can end up with uneven

lighting of the screen. You can live with it if you normally use an

external monitor and only use the LCD on short jaunts out of the

office, but otherwise, you'll need to try to correct the placement,

which can be very difficult once the foil tabs are bent on some

models. Some LCD panels are sold with integrated backlights

that are nearly impossible to replace in the home setting.

Display scrambles with time? This is the classic symptom of an

overheating video processor or memory problems, assuming you

aren’t running a “dissolve” screensaver. Most laptops share

main memory with the CPU, but memory modules don't have to

fail all at once. See the text with the troubleshooting symbol in

this section for “RAM swap fix.” If you confirm that the RAM

isn’t the problem, you should check if the same thing happens

with an external monitor before proceeding. If an external

monitor works fine for hours without getting scrambled, the

problem is likely with the electronics on the LCD panel.

But if the problem appears on both the laptop LCD and an

external monitor and it’s not the RAM, the prime suspect

remaining is the video processor. A video processor may also

display these symptoms if the entire laptop is running too hot,

due to failure of the main cooling fan, clogging or obstruction of

Image

upside-down

sideways?

Display

scrambles

w/ time?

Red,

orange tint,

uneven?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

111

the intake or exhaust vents. Make sure you are running the

laptop on a flat surface, with some open space to all sides, and if

overheating is suspected, proceed to the section on

troubleshooting overheating. The problem may clear up when

you run in a power saver mode on battery with the processing

speed turned down. You can also try turning off hardware

acceleration in the advanced properties of the video adapter in

the operating system.

If all else fails and the problem is specific to the video processor,

your best bet is opening up the body of the notebook and

reinstalling the heatsink on the video processor. Search the

Internet first to find illustrated instructions for your exact

model. Make sure there is enough thermal compound (or not

too much!) and if equipped with a fan, that the fan is still

turning. While you’re on the Internet, research video problems

with your model and if the video processor is a soldered BGA

(Ball Grid Array) chip, see if it’s a common failure for your

system. There are several solder reflow hacks that may cure your

system, at least temporarily, but they are really intended for

users with advanced technical skills. Reflowing solder with a

heat gun requires removing the motherboard, stripping it down

to nothing and covering vulnerable areas with tin foil. You can

find some video presentations of the technique on YouTube.

Stain or growing plume? If a blotch appears on the LCD that

isn't due to food on the screen or dirty fingerprints, and it grows

over time, it's the physical failure of the glass sandwich and can't

be repaired. This might also appear like octopus ink being slowly

injected into the screen, a sort of growing plume. The only cure

is replacing the LCD.

Total blackouts at random? One possible cause of seemingly

random, total blackouts, is a loose connection. However, before

you take the body and the lid of the laptop apart and remake all

of the connectors in the video subsystem, it's worth checking the

more obvious culprits, like a screen saver set to "blank" and poor

wake-up behavior, or the video getting toggled to a non-existent

external monitor by a keyboard failure (or operator failure).

Check the power saver settings as well, and try running on a

different power profile for a while in case the one you have been

using is corrupt. Likewise, try running on battery in a low power

mode to see if the blackouts are an overheating issue, but that's

Stain

or growing

plume?

Total

blackouts at

random?

Laptop Display Failures

112

unlikely if the screen returns to the point you left off with some

judicious tapping or moving of the lid.

If the problem is unfamiliar distortions to the display, such as

multiple screens displayed, only part of the desktop visible or a

very blurry image, these are all signs of the video resolution

having been changed to a bad choice, one which doesn't match

the native resolution of the LCD. Change the video properties in

the operating system back to native resolution of the LCD,

usually the highest resolution and number of colors offered. If

the problem is large icons or a change in font size, this is due to

display property choices in the operating system or in the

particular application showing the symptoms.

113

Laptop

Overheating

Puff of

smoke or

odor

High

air temp or

sun?

battery too

hot?

Autohibernate,

can simulate

overheating

shutdown

Recent

upgrade of

BIOS?

Fan

never

runs?

Laptop

on hard, flat

surface?

No Yes

Yes

Yes No

If problem

appeared after,

flashing BIOS

upgrade restore

old BIOS if

possible

Laptop

shuts

down?

Yes

Hot spot,

fan always

runs?

Remove battery

if it can be done

safely. If smoke

increases or flames

appear, call fire

department. Inspect

when cool

Yes

Never run in shoulder

bag, on bed. Sides, back,

bottom must be clear

Yes

Make sure any

BIOS and OS power

management settings are

set for cool operation not

high performance. Select

lower temperature for fan

activation if possible. Try

3rd party fan control and

temperature monitoring

software

adapter in

use?

Unplug AC

adapter, shut

down, remove

battery if not too

hot. Don’t leave

unattended until

cool and inspect

battery and

interior

Yes

Battery

chart

Yes

Don’t use in direct

sunlight, leave in car in

hot weather. Try extra

cooling system

Hardware failure,

fan or temperature

sensor

Cool

settings

BIOS and

OS?

Low

battery, boot

order?

Yes

Data loss,

lockups?

Read reviews and

support forums for

“normal” behavior

Same

problem low

temp?

Motherboard,

CPU, RAM

chart

Yes

Restore BIOS

defaults. Clean

vents with

canned air. If

still overheats,

clean interior,

redo heatsinks,

check

secondary

fans, air paths

component

overheating

Check web for model

characteristics before

proceeding to cleaning

Yes

Laptop Overheating

114

The Laptop Repair Workbook

115

Puff of smoke or odor? Never play with fire. If you see smoke or

smell a burning odor, it's not something you can afford to

ignore. In some instances, brand new laptops will give off a bit

of odor when they are first powered on that smells a little like

hot plastic and a little like the ocean. In any other situation,

smoke or smells coming from your laptop are not normal. If you

recently spilled something on the laptop and have already dried

it out and cleaned it to the best of your ability (or your repair

person's ability), there may be a little residual burning off the

first time you run the laptop and get it up to operating

temperature.

Burnt odors are usually from overheated plastic component

packages out-gassing, and where there’s smoke there may be

fire. If the problem is in any way associated with a hot Li-ion

battery, put the thing outdoors if you can safely do so. Whether

or not a particular manufacturer issued a recall for the battery in

your laptop, a manufacturing flaw in a Li-ion cell can lead to

fire. Even if the puff of smoke isn’t repeated or the odor goes

away as soon as the laptop cools down, you should make a

serious effort to locate the component at fault rather than just

powering up again and hoping for the best.

High air temp or sun? All laptops will overheat if you use them

in a cruel enough environment. Obvious examples are stifling

hot attics, vehicles without air conditioning in the summer or on

hot surfaces. Hot surfaces aren't limited to radiators or metal

desks touching steam pipes, they also include dark surfaces that

get a lot of direct sunlight, even if they are located indoors.

Using a laptop outside in direct sunlight in the summer is more

than a problem for your eyes, especially if the laptop case is dark

rather than reflective. Always remember that laptop computers

are entirely reliant on air flow for cooling, and the higher the

ambient air temperature, the less the laptop will be able to cool

itself.

Is battery too hot? Some people are more sensitive to

temperature than others, so using "too hot to touch" isn't a great

troubleshooting technique. Unfortunately, very few people have

a thermometer around capable of measuring temperatures

through the normal operation range of a battery, including most

computer technicians, so touch is all most people will have to go

on. If the battery seems excessively hot, check the web to see if

it's been included in a recall or if a hot battery is typical of the

Puff of

smoke or

odor

High

air temp or

sun?

battery too

hot?

Laptop Overheating

116

particular laptop model. Then proceed to the battery

troubleshooting flowchart.

Fan never runs? Most laptop users are accustomed to hearing

the cooling fan(s) straining away during certain intensive

computing operations, and even the quietest, best behaved

notebooks normally cycle the fan on and off at low RPMs during

normal operation. If the fan never runs, it doesn't mean your

laptop is overheating, but it could mean that something may be

wrong with the fan or the settings. If something is wrong with

the fan or the temperature controller, eventually the laptop will

overheat, unless you do all of your work in a walk in freezer.

Recent upgrade of BIOS? Anecdotally speaking, it seems that

"my fan never comes on anymore" problems often occur after a

BIOS upgrade. Manufacturers generally encourage users to

install the latest BIOS version available for the model on the

manufacturer's website, and if you call tech support with an inwarranty

overheating problem, the first thing they are likely to

do is tell you to upgrade to the latest BIOS. The problem is, the

notebook really should operate normally with the BIOS version

you purchased it with, or they shouldn't have sold it to you. If

you want to add new peripherals or upgrade an internal

component and it's not supported unless you upgrade the BIOS,

you don't have much choice. Outside of that, avoid BIOS

upgrades like the plague, keeping in mind that a failed upgrade

can leave you with a paperweight that can only be repaired by

sending it out. If the fan problem appeared after you upgraded

the BIOS and the laptop which was operating fine originally is

now overheating, try reinstalling the original BIOS if it’s

available.

Cool settings BIOS and OS? There's no universal standard for

what BIOS settings are user adjustable for a given brand or

model of laptop. If you're having overheating problems and you

can lower the temperature at which the fan automatically

powers up, it can't hurt to do so. There are a large number of

operating system settings that affect the amount of heat the

laptop will generate, from the speed of the processor and the

brightness of the screen to the settings for cooling efficiency.

The manufacturers try to give the user as much control as

possible, so if you or another user ran the cooling control down

to the minimum to reduce fan noise while listening to Internet

radio, it may be time to compromise.

Fan

never

runs?

Recent

upgrade of

BIOS?

Cool

settings

BIOS and

OS?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

117

If the settings are all on the defaults, the fan never comes on,

and the system is overheating, it's either a fan failure or a

problem with the control circuit. The fan itself is a replaceable

DC fan that can often be replaced without removing the heatsink

(if it's mounted directly on the CPU or graphics processor). One

simple test for notebook fans is to gently blow on them. If the

fan doesn't spin, either the bearing has failed or something is

melted or jammed, because the motors are tiny. Testing the

control circuit is an open-unit bench job for experienced

technicians. It's easier and less time consuming to just replace

the fan with a known good unit, and if it still doesn't work the

problem is in the controller or the power supply to the fan.

Replacement fans are sold by size, measured in millimeters,

giving the length, width (normally the same since they’re

square) and height. Don’t buy a fan online without seeing a

picture of it so you can determine if it matches your mounting

hardware. Fans are sold with a two pin connector or with bare

leads for soldering.

Laptop on hard, flat surface? The leading cause of laptop

overheating is what engineers call "poor siting." Notebook

computers are designed to run on flat level surfaces, with at

least a couple inches of unobstructed space all around. Running

a laptop computer sitting in the opened shoulder bag on your

lap is a great way to block intake and exhaust vents and overheat

the poor computer. Running on a bed is equally bad for laptops

that have vents on the bottom, and if it's a soft bed or there are

loose sheets and blankets, the side vents can get blocked as well.

Running on your lap is generally discouraged by manufacturers,

but most laptops do get run on a lap from time to time. Be sure

to locate and avoid blocking any air vents on the bottom. If

you're troubleshooting an intermittent laptop overheating

problem, the first check is to pick a nice cool place with a large

flat surface to run the notebook and see if the problem clears up.

Laptop shuts down? Computers may not be smarter than

people, but if they're designed properly, they will shut

themselves down before overheating to the extent that they do

themselves damage. If the smart person keeps turning the

notebook back on and figures out a way to foil the protection,

the laptop is probably doomed. Once a laptop shuts down for

thermal event protection, it may refuse to power back up for a

few minutes, or it may begin to boot and shut down as soon as it

gets to the point that it can figure out that it’s too hot.

Laptop

on hard, flat

surface?

Laptop

shuts

down?

Laptop Overheating

118

The over-temperature protection is generally a BIOS rather than

an operating system function. One sure sign of an overheated

laptop is one that shuts itself down while you're using it and

then refuses to boot as far as the operating system unless you

leave it alone for an hour or so to cool down. Unless you've been

working temporarily in a very unfriendly environment, with

high temperatures, direct sunlight, etc, you should take even a

single overheating shutdown as a warning to back up your data

at the first opportunity. If you can’t keep your laptop from

shutting down long enough to do a back-up, some people have

reported success starting the process and putting the whole

laptop in the fridge until it’s complete.

Hot spot, fan always runs? Many laptop brands and models have

characteristic hot spots, like a particular corner of the keyboard

or above the battery compartment. Before proceeding with the

more invasive cleaning techniques that involve opening up the

laptop (and potentially breaking something), spend some time

searching the web for user feedback on your make and model.

The bothersome hot spot on your laptop that none of your

friends or colleagues have ever heard of may be a characteristic

issue with your particular model and not worth a major panic.

Similarly, if the fan always runs, or almost always runs, it may

be a characteristic of the particular model that it simply gets hot

in normal operation, or the fan control software might be poorly

conceived. As long as the laptop isn't overheating and the fan

behavior is typical for the model, you should learn to live with it

and only get worried when you don't hear it anymore.

Data loss, lockups? Troubleshooting all of the software problems

that can cause data loss is beyond the scope of page sized

flowcharts. Overheating of the CPU, the RAM or the hard drive

can cause data corruption and lead to the laptop locking up, but

overheating is only one of many potential culprits. If you haven’t

noticed any change in fan noise or any increase in the heat you

sense from the laptop, it’s possible that the problems are due to

another cause. See the hard drive and motherboard, CPU and

RAM troubleshooting flowcharts.

Hot spot,

fan always

runs?

Data loss,

lockups?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

119

Same problem low temperature? Wait until the laptop is

completely cooled down (overnight), use it in a cool or air

conditioned environment and find out if the errors you were

encountering repeat soon after you boot. If the errors do repeat

and the problem was related to overheating, the damage is

already done and you now have a hardware failure problem.

Checking the other flowchart for motherboard, CPU and RAM

troubleshooting may narrow down the problem. If the problems

don't immediately come back when the laptop is first booted

cold, but only appear once it heats up, it's possible that a

thorough cleaning and inspection will help clear up the problem

that’s causing the overheating, and no hardware replacement

will be necessary.

Low battery, boot order? The default setting for most laptops

when they reach a critically low battery state is to go into

hibernation, the quickest way they can save any data in open

applications and drop into a lower power state until the AC

adapter is connected. If the battery has failed and won't accept a

charge, if there's a problem with the AC adapter, or if the

operating system software isn't as clever as it should be, the

system may get locked into a loop. As soon as the operating

system boots to the point where it can identify a battery

problem, it goes back into hibernation waiting for salvation. In

some rare instances the laptop may continue this looping

behavior with the battery removed. If the battery and AC

adapter are good, the slow fix is to let it charge overnight before

trying to boot. If that doesn't work, try changing the boot order

in the CMOS Setup to the CD/DVD, just to break the loop.

Cleaning process. Do the simple things first. Close the laptop lid,

unplug all cords, inspect all four edges and the bottom of the

laptop for air vents to familiarize yourself with where they are. If

you spot air vents on the bottom about where you are

accustomed to holding it on your thighs, that's probably the

whole problem right there. Likewise, some people

misunderstand the concept of creating more air clearance under

the laptop and try jacking it in the air an inch with a book. If the

book is smaller than the laptop, it will likely fit between the little

legs or pads on the bottom of the laptop that are there to raise it

off the table for air circulation, and it will overheat even faster

than before.

Same

problem low

temp?

Low

battery, boot

order?

Restore BIOS

defaults. Clean

vents with

canned air. If

still overheats,

clean interior,

redo heatsinks,

check

secondary

fans, air paths

component

overheating

Laptop Overheating

120

As you look into the vents, you may see dust build-up on foil

radiators or heatsinks, not to mention on the fan assembly if it is

visible. Depending on the size of the vents, you may be able to

loosen up and capture some of the dust with Q-tips (cotton

swabs). The problem with using compressed air to clean a laptop

without taking it apart is that while you'll definitely blow the

dust off wherever you aim the air stream, you'll often be blowing

it somewhere else in the notebook. The immediate result will be

a cooler running notebook because you’ve removed the dust and

lint build-up on heatsinks which can act as a blanket and keep

the heat from being radiated and conducted away. But if all

you've accomplished if throwing that blanket over some other

hot components that aren't visible through the vents, you may

have greater problems in the future. Make sure you use a can of

compressed air sold for cleaning electronics, otherwise there

may be harmful propellants or liquids mixed in. Read the

instructions, and if they tell you to always hold the can upside

up, be careful to obey. Holding it upside down may result in

squirting propellant rather than compressed air.

Before opening up the laptop, find the owner’s manual or search

the web for exact instructions. Once you gain access to the active

cooling components, fans and heatsinks, you can blow off all the

dust with compressed air and get most of it out of the case.

Some fans may be damaged if you spin them up beyond their

operating RPMs with the compressed air, so you should prevent

the fan from spinning if blasting it up close. Pay careful

attention to the air paths in the laptop and look for any

blockages, both when you open it up and when you go to put it

back together. Notebooks are generally engineered with very

little slack in the cables to keep them from flopping around and

potentially breaking up the airflow, but something as innocuous

as a loose paper label flipping up and blocking an air path can

cause a world of trouble.

In severe cases of laptop overheating, especially those where

data corruption or automatic shutdowns are occurring, you

should check that any heatsinks are properly installed. The only

way to do this is to remove them. Depending on the design of

the laptop, you may have active heatsinks on both the CPU and

the video processor, and there may be some passive heatsinks

with fans strategically located to circulate air over them. Some

passive heatsinks are basically glued to the package and can’t be

removed. If you try pulling on them, you could damage the

The Laptop Repair Workbook

121

component or the motherboard. The active heatsinks are

normally mounted with a latching mechanism or screws and can

be removed, though they might stick pretty fiercely to the

processor depending on the condition of the existing thermal

paste.

When you purchase the new thermal paste, it may be sold in a

kit with a thermal paste cleaner. Cleaning up the old goo is just

as important as applying the new goo properly. Don't use

household cleaners to clean up thermal paste, they can leave an

oily residue that actually prevents heat from conducting to the

active heatsink, worse than nothing. If you don't purchase a

cleaning kit, the fallback is scraping with a credit card and

cleaning with isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol on a clean cloth or

paper towel. Once the new paste is applied and you've

reinstalled the active heatsink and closed up the case, there's no

guarantee that your overheating problem will be solved.

Overheating may be a symptom of chip level degradation and

imminent failure. While poor cooling was likely a contributing

factor, closing the barn door after the cow is gone isn't going to

undo the damage.

AC adapter in use? If you see a puff of smoke or smell a burning

odor and the AC adapter is in use, you should unplug it

immediately if you can. You can burn your fingers or even

electrocute yourself on the AC side of the cord, so exercise

extreme caution. When there's a risk of fire, as documented in

laptops with defective batteries, your first priority should be

guarding against an outbreak of fire, not worrying about the

laptop condition or studying this flowchart. Some people will

immediately call the fire department or grab the fire

extinguisher at the first sign of smoke in electronics. If there are

flames coming out of the laptop, it's history, so the fire

extinguisher or fire department is the way to go. If it's just a puff

of smoke, the action may all be over and unplugging the AC may

preserve a laptop that can be reasonably repaired.

Troubleshooting the cause of the smoke, unless you just poured

your coffee on the keyboard, requires taking the laptop apart

and visually inspecting the components down to the board level.

If the laptop is at all hot, wait for it to cool before attempting

disassembly. Always remove the battery pack before opening up

a laptop. Since component spacing in laptops is so tight, you'll

rarely get lucky enough to zero in on the problem with your

adapter in

use?

Laptop Overheating

122

sense of smell, which is sometimes effective with larger desktop

computer components.

Inspect the circuit boards, connectors, remove and inspect the

drives. Pay special attention to electrolytic capacitors and

discrete power semiconductors, usually located very near the

power input. If you find a burnt spot or signs of melting on a

discrete component, such as a hard drive, DVD drive, capacitor

or power semiconductor, there's a reasonable chance that the

failure was internal to that component and that replacing it will

fix the problem. If there's a large burnt or melted spot on the

motherboard, it's rarely cost effective to even attempt a

replacement.

If the problem was a hot plastic odor and you can't find any

signs of damage during your visual inspection, it's possible that

the laptop was overheating and you caught it in time. Some

people are more sensitive than others to plastic odors, and there

is always the possibility that a little foreign matter, food or

insect, found its way into the laptop and got incinerated. Read

over the procedures for troubleshooting laptop overheating, as if

you never encountered the burnt odor, and make sure the

notebook wasn't operated in such a way that it was being

encouraged to overheat.

123

Laptop Drive

Problems

LCD or

monitor

live?

Laptop

boots?

Reset CMOS

defaults. Try OS

repair. Check

boot order make

C: first

Missing

OS?

if reseat in

bay?

Drive

CMOS?

Any fan

or drive

sound?

Yes No

Yes

OS splash

screen?

Tin can

or clunking

noise?

Yes

Check hold-down

screw not missing

Display

failure

chart

Your data

may still be

recoverable

No Boots w/ Yes

AC power?

Power

failure

chart

Battery

Chart

Boots

no external

connex?

Determine

spoiler by process

of elimination

Hardware failure,

drive, connector or

board level

Boot

Safe

Mode?

Yes

Virus

rescue

work?

Classic driver conflict

or problem with recently

installed software

Yes

Reseat drive, try

drive in USB kit.

A rescue formatter

from manufacturer

may fix drive but will

erase ALL data

Make sure

that your virus and

malware software are

loading at boot time

and updating

automatically

Yes

Partition

manger see

drive?

Boots OS

CD or DVD?

Try option to repair

existing installation. If repair

works, problem was file

corruption, otherwise, if data is

backed up, try nuke and pave.

On errors, replace drive

No Yes

Replace drive

if critical

Yes

Change boot order to D:

first. Try known good OS CD

or DVD as test. If nothing will

boot, either CD/DVD is also

bad (see flowchart) or board

level controller failure

USB, PC

Card,

docking

station, etc..

Likely a

performance

issue, try

OS tools,

antivirus

DEFRAG

etc...

Data

loss, drive

error?

Connection,

overheating,

drive failure

Yes

Laptop Drive Problems

124

The Laptop Repair Workbook

125

LCD or monitor live? The first step in troubleshooting hard

drive problems is determining whether or not you are dealing

with a hard drive failure or something else entirely. If neither

your LCD screen nor an external monitor show any signs of

intelligent life from the laptop when it’s powered on, the

problem will rarely be related to the hard drive.

Laptop boots? Does the laptop start up normally, get you all the

way to the desktop? If the laptop boots, unless you are dealing

with a noise issue, the problem you're having is either software

related or an accumulation of errors on the drive. If the laptop

doesn’t boot, we’ll move on to troubleshooting why it doesn’t

boot before blaming the hard drive.

Data loss, drive errors? If the operating system disk

maintenance software, such as ScanDisk, is reporting errors

every time you run it, if you see text messages about "write

failures" or if successive surface scans report a large number of

errors, your hard drive is actually failing. Before you conclude

that the hard drive needs replacing, make sure that you aren’t

operating the laptop in an environment it wasn’t designed for.

Overheating can lead to hard drive recording errors, as can

taking it up to 20,000 feet in an observation balloon, or

excessive vibrations from operating on public transportation

systems. It’s also possible that the hard drive data connector is

barely making contact with a couple of pins, so reseat the drive

and make sure it’s secured properly in the bay before giving up

on it.

Tin can or clunking noises? If your laptop hard drive develops

new noises over time, if it sounds like a motor in a tin can or

starts making frequent clunking noises, it may be a sign of

impending failure. If you have important data, you should start

backing up more frequently, and if you use the laptop for critical

work and want to minimize the chances of it failing when you

most need it, you can replace the hard drive at this point.

However, hard drive noise can go on for years and years, and no

doubt more people throw away working laptops with noisy hard

drives than throw away laptops due to hard drive failure.

If you're getting very flaky errors, having difficulty when

connected to the Internet, are seeing large scale file corruption

or data loss, the problem is more likely due to malware (bad

software such as a computer virus, spyware, trojans) than

LCD or

monitor

live?

Laptop

boots?

Data

loss, drive

error?

Tin can

or clunking

noise?

Laptop Drive Problems

126

electronic or mechanical failure. Another cause for data

corruption is letting the amount of free space on the drive fall so

low that the operating system has trouble managing virtual

memory. The old rule of thumb was to keep about 10% of the

drive free, and even though drives are much bigger these days,

the amounts of data held in RAM have grown as well. It’s also

critical to have free space available when you run system tools to

optimize hard drive performance, like a defragmentation

program.

Boots with AC power? If the laptop boots up with the AC power

adapter plugged in, the problem is with the battery, not the hard

drive. Proceed to the battery troubleshooting flowchart. If you

notice the hard drive performance seems to degrade badly when

you are running on battery power, it means the power

management is turning off the hard drive after too short of a

delay on no activity, probably just a minute or two. You can

change the power management setting to increase the shutdown

delay for the hard drive or to ensure the hard drive

remains spun up as long as the laptop is turned on.

Boots no external connex? If you have any external devices

plugged into your notebook, such as printers, cameras, PC Cards

(the replacement for PCMCIA cards), external keyboards or

mice, network cables, monitors, unplug them all. If the laptop is

sitting in a docking station, remove it. If the laptop boots when

all of the external connections are removed, the problem isn't

the hard drive, it's a faulty external device or signal. You can

determine which device is preventing the OS from booting by

process of elimination. The problem isn't necessarily a hardware

failure, it could be the driver for that device is so unfriendly or

corrupted that it's stalling the boot process when called to

manage its client.

Drive register in CMOS? Does the laptop BIOS see that a hard

drive is installed and correctly identify it in CMOS Setup? If not,

try restoring the BIOS defaults or “Safe Settings” in case the

CMOS settings have been corrupted. If the BIOS still doesn't

connector has failed or come undone, or you have a board level

problem. Don’t jump to flashing the BIOS because the hard

drive doesn't show up, unless it's a replacement drive and the

previous hard drive still registers if you reinstall it. The original

hard drive should always be recognized by the existing BIOS if

Boots w/

AC power?

Boots

no external

connex?

Drive

CMOS?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

127

the hardware is in operating condition and the connector hasn't

come undone. If reseating the hard drive fixes the problem,

make sure that it isn't missing a hold down screw.

Missing OS? If the BIOS reports “Missing OS” or "OS not found"

during the boot process and you just installed a brand new hard

drive, it just means you still have to install the operating system.

Next check the boot order in the BIOS, make sure the C: is the

first boot device and restore the BIOS defaults. Otherwise, you

could have a hardware failure, but it's far more likely that the

operating system has been corrupted. While file corruption can

occur for non-fatal reasons, such as glitches during overheating

or vibration and shock, the leading cause is probably computer

viruses or operator error, writing over or deleting required

system files. If you have a rescue disk generated by your virus

protection software, try running it, after which you can boot the

OS CD/DVD (if you have one) and try a repair installation, if

necessary. But keep a close eye on the prompts, and if you’re

told that proceeding will wipe out all the data and programs on

your hard drive, stop if you aren’t willing to lose them.

OS splash screen? Does the operating system load get as far as

the splash screen, which will be the Windows flag on most

laptops? If it does, odds are that your drive is largely intact and

the data should be recoverable even if you can't get back to your

previous operating state with the tools you have available. If the

splash screen doesn't show and hard drive contains essential

information that hasn't been backed up, it's a good time to

consider calling in a professional for data recovery. While the

problem may not prove to be serious, your attempts to get the

laptop back to a bootable state may end up making the data

recovery job harder, more expensive, or even impossible.

Boot Safe Mode? If the laptop will boot up in Safe Mode, it's

usually in pretty good shape but is having a problem with a

recently installed (or recently corrupted) piece of software or

device driver. If the boot failure has occurred immediately after

installing a new program or peripheral and restarting, the first

step is to uninstall the software that was just installed, or

disconnect the new peripheral and remove the driver before

attempting to reboot. In some instances, simply starting in Safe

Mode will allow Windows to recover it's equilibrium and the

system will boot normally as soon as you shut down properly

and restart.

Missing

OS?

OS splash

screen?

Boot

Safe

Mode?

Laptop Drive Problems

128

Partition manager see drive? All operating system install discs

ship with a partition manager, even if it's a version of the old

FDISK. Some new hard drives sold in retail packages also ship

with manufacturer provided partitioning software. If whatever

partition manager software you have doesn't see the hard drive,

it's either a hardware failure or the MBR (Master Boot Record)

has been corrupted. Before you do anything else, try reseating

the hard drive in the laptop. If that doesn't work, consider

buying a USB enclosure that will allow you to try to read and

recover the hard drive data on another computer. If all else fails

and you don't care about recovering the data, you can try

running the factory formatter at this point if they provide one on

their website, but it will destroy all data on the drive.

Virus rescue work? If you installed virus protection software or a

full protection suite on the laptop, you were probably given the

option to create a bootable rescue DVD or CD (rescue floppies

went out the window with floppy drives). If you created a rescue

disc, this is a good time to try it. If the rescue CD restores your

operating system to a bootable condition, it could be that you

had automatic updates turned off and you've been running with

out-of-date virus definitions. Make sure that you are receiving

daily updates to your virus and spyware protection software. It

could also be indicative of file corruption caused by overheating

or the usual run of hard drive or motherboard issues.

Boots OS CD or DVD? If you can boot the operating system or

factory restore disc that the notebook was sold with, you can try

doing a repair installation, which should leave your file system

and your data intact. Just don’t agree to any prompts which

inform you that your data will be wiped out if you proceed.

Booting the OS CD with a JumpDrive in the USB port may get

you command prompt access to the JumpDrive, so you can back

up critical data if you haven’t done so already. If the repair

installation works, the problem was file corruption, or accidental

deletion of necessary files. If you don't need the data or

programs on the drive or you have them backed up, you can try

the nuke and pave option, telling either the operating system or

the factory restore software to do a new installation. In extreme

cases of corruption, you may need to manually use the

partitioning software to delete the primary partition and then

letting the OS install disc do its thing on the next boot. This will

result in wiping out all data and any programs you installed.

Partition

manger see

drive?

Virus

rescue

work?

Boots OS

CD or DVD?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

129

If you can't get the OS or factory restore disc to boot, try

changing the boot order so that the D: drive is the first boot

device. If that doesn't work, make sure you have a good boot CD

or DVD by trying it in another computer, or getting one that

works in another computer. Don't assume that the disc that

shipped with your laptop is bootable or good, even if it's in the

original packaging and you never used it. Some manufacturer

rescue discs require you turn on the laptop with a particular key

held down, or hit a key combination when the screen lights up.

You'll have to check the Internet for your particular model to see

if this is necessary, though instructions are often written on the

envelope the disc is packed in. If you can't get an OS to boot in

the CD/DVD drive no matter what you try, the drive may be bad

or you could have a board level controller failure affecting both

drives. See the troubleshooting chart for CD/DVD failure.

Any fan or drive sound? If you don't hear anything at all when

you try to turn the laptop on, no little LED's light up, the

problem is rarely related to the hard drive. So if you don't have a

live screen, start with the LCD troubleshooting flowchart, and if

you don't have any activity at all, start with the power

troubleshooting flowchart. Even if the hard drive has failed at

the electro/mechanical level and won't spin up, this won’t

prevent the LED's on the laptop from lighting up, or the LCD

from displaying the BIOS information and complaining about

the lack of a boot device.

Any fan

or drive

sound?

Laptop Drive Problems

130

131

Laptop Internet

Connectivity

Laptop

see

network?

Switch on,

enabled?

Works

on Ethernet

port?

Firewall,

security

blocked?

No Yes

Yes

Laptop wireless

adapter fault or OS

software settings.

Try latest driver,

software rescue

Disable

firewall, then

look for specific

exclusions for

network

Password or

verification

selected

incorrect

Default

settings on

router?

Yes

Works

security

off?

Yes

Try compatibility modes,

but be prepared to update

older 802.11b hardware

Yes

Don’t be

embarrassed, switch

can be turned off in

normal handling

Live

Internet at

router?

Yes

If router link good,

settings or laptop

software issue

Even if Internet

LED lit, try power

down router reset.

If link LED never

active, router or

ISP network

problem

Yes

Intermittent

connection?

Yes

Phone,

Bluetooth,

interfere?

Try other

location for laptop,

limiting your own

use of possible

interference

sources

Restore

router defaults

through direct

IP connection.

If connection

not fixed after

rebooting,

continue from

one back

Possible ISP problem or

software time-out. More likely

router or laptop hardware, or

weather/wind influence on

incoming land line

Yes

Router

active, in

range?

Same

ver. (b/g/n)

802.11?

Check router defaults set,

no security or MAC addressing,

reboot router. Continued problem

indicate wireless router failure or

incompatibility

Yes

Laptop

works public

network?

Get router

wireless activity LED

blinking, try laptop in

same room

Corporate

networks may be

“hidden” see admin

for settings

Home

network?

See

known good

network?

Reinstall

driver, toggle

hardware, full

reboot if not

done. Possible

wireless adapter

failure, but more

often software.

Try 3rd party

soft fix

Reset home router

to defaults. Possible

router failure or

incompatibility

Yes

Laptop Internet Connectivity

132

The Laptop Repair Workbook

133

Laptop see network? Does the laptop operating system software

see the wireless network you are trying to connect to? Many

notebooks come equipped with a special manufacturer's

configuration utility, such as Toshiba's ConfigFree, in addition

to standard OS connectivity software, like the "View Available

Wireless Networks" option in modern Windows versions. In

addition, there should be a little wireless icon in the system tray,

which flashes a small bubble announcement when it connects or

fails to connect. Floating the mouse pointer over the wireless

icon in the system tray on a Windows desktop should show the

name of the wireless connection (often a HEX address that looks

like alphabet soup if not changed from the default), the speed

(54 Mbps for 802.11G), the signal strength, and whether a

connection to a router has been established. Note that a

connection to a router does not imply a connection to the

internet.

Manufacturer provided software can provide a much clearer

picture of relative router distances and signal strength. In some

circumstances, especially public networks at hotels, campuses

and coffee shops, your laptop may consistently choose to

connect to a weak router or access point when stronger signals

are available. The manufacturer software usually does a better

job identifying this problem than the five green signal strength

bars of “View Available Wireless Networks.”

Switch on, enabled? When a laptop doesn't see a wireless

network, it's often because the wireless adapter is switched off

or disabled in software. As with volume controls for laptop

speakers, wireless networking can be disabled both manually

and through software, and in more than one place. Most modern

laptops come equipped with a manual switch on the front or side

of the laptop that turns the wireless adapter on or off. There is

usually an LED associated with the switch that will light only

when the laptop's wireless capability is enabled. However, the

LED may remain lit even if the wireless has been disabled in

software, if it is a status indicator for the hardware switch only.

The switch can easily be turned off by accident when picking up

the laptop or when a book or other table clutter comes into

contact with the side of the notebook, so it's a very common

problem.

The easiest place in Windows to tell if the laptop wireless

adapter has been disabled through software is in Device

Laptop

see

network?

Switch on,

enabled?

Laptop Internet Connectivity

134

Manager. One sure sign the adapter is disabled in software (or

not operating properly) is if it doesn't appear in the system tray.

If your laptop wireless adapter is discrete, a USB or PC card

(PCMCIA) plug-in, shut down, make sure it's plugged in firmly,

and reboot. Even if the wireless device is designed to be hotswappable

(plugged in while the laptop is turned on) it's better

to shut down and do it, since this will give the operating system

a chance to reset.

Router active, in range? If there isn't a wireless network in

range, the notebook certainly can't connect to it. It doesn't

matter if your laptop once connected to a network at the spot

you are trying to connect from today, the question is whether or

not there's an active signal your laptop should be picking up

now. The most obvious reason for the wireless router to be

invisible to your laptop is if the router is turned off or out of

range. Next comes the wireless function of the router being

disabled, or the antenna being damaged or missing. If the router

is in another room, something as simple as a door which is

usually open and is now closed can make enough difference in

signal strength to prevent a connection. The best way to start

troubleshooting wireless problems is to take your laptop and

plunk it down right next to the router you are trying to connect

to. If the wireless activity LED on the router isn't on and active,

either wireless has been disabled on the router or the router is

faulty.

Home network? Wireless networks in the home often use the

exact same equipment as those in Internet cafes and small

businesses, but corporate and campus networks use more

sophisticated routers. One of the features some network

administrators of large businesses take advantage of is to hide

their network from casual encounters with the outside world

simply by instructing the routers not to announce their presence

with an "I'm here" beacon. This is one step beyond enabling

security, which would normally be done as well. If the router

beacon is turned off, you'll need to get the exact network setting

from the network admin or another computer on the network in

order to set up the wireless connection.

See known good network? This is the easiest, if not always the

most convenient troubleshooting step. If you take the laptop to

your neighbor's house or to the local cafe with free internet

access, does the laptop at least see the existence of a known good

Router

active, in

range?

Home

network?

See

known good

network?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

135

network through either the OS view or the manufacturer's addon

software? If the laptop can't see a known good network with

the wireless adapter turned on and enabled, the problem is with

the laptop and not with your home router. Try disabling and

enabling the wireless adapter, going through a full OS restart

after each change. Try reinstalling the driver for the wireless

adapter, and check the Internet for the most recent version of

the driver available. The wireless adapter may have failed, but

it's more likely a software problem. Don't rush into downloading

the latest BIOS update for the notebook, especially if the

wireless adapter is built-in, since it should work with the

original BIOS and operating system.

Works security off? The inability to connect to a secured wireless

network is usually due to the security working properly, as

opposed to the way you thought it would work. If the first time

you go to connect, the dialog box gets hung up on "Acquiring

Network Address" you probably got the encryption key wrong.

The first troubleshooting step for failure to connect to a secured

wireless network in the home should always be turning off

security on the router, rebooting, and seeing if the connection

now works. There are several different levels of security

available on most wireless routers, some of which aren't really

thought of as security because they don't include encryption,

such as MAC (Media Access Control) addressing. MAC filters

allow you to establish a sort of a white list for network

connections. The router won't make a connection to any wireless

device that doesn't know it's MAC address (usually included on

the router label). But in the absence of any other security, MAC

filters will allow any laptop that has the MAC address typed in to

connect without further ado.

WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) uses real encryption to encrypt

data on the wireless network, making it harder for outsiders to

decode network traffic without the key, often listed as the WEP

(Wired Equivalent Privacy) key. WPA is an improved version of

WEP and has replaced it, but the terms are sometimes used

interchangeably, especially when talking about the key. A lot of

confusion arises from the length of the WEP key and the MAC

addresses which are often typed improperly on the laptop the

first time around. It's also possible to create an unique

encryption key for the router, which the router uses to create

keys for your computers. If your laptop is older than 2004,

there’s a good chance it won’t support WPA unless the network

Works

security

off?

Laptop Internet Connectivity

136

adapter firmware can be updated. Your options are to run

without any security on your router, run WEP, or purchase a

new plug-in wireless adapter for your laptop (USB or PC Card)

that supports WPA.

Works on Ethernet port? Can the laptop access the Internet if

you connect it directly to the router with an Ethernet cable? This

is normally a yellow 100BaseT cable with RJ-45 connectors

provided with the router. If you have trouble wirelessly

accessing the router to create or change settings, plugging

directly in through an Ethernet port or USB (if so equipped) is

recommended. The router may come with setup software, but

it's also common to access the onboard setup software directly

through your browser, which doesn't require a live Internet

connection. You just type the IP address of your router into the

address bar, and provide the default password, assuming you

haven't changed it. Some standard IP addresses are 192.168.1.1

or 192.168.0.1, but it should be easy to Google up the info for

your exact router model.

Firewall, security blocked? One good reason for a laptop to

refuse to see the Internet, even when it's plugged directly into

the router, is that the security settings on the laptop prevent it

from making contact. The variations on what can go wrong here

are far too in depth for a hardware troubleshooting flowchart,

the best test is to disable the firewall software, reboot and try to

connect. Unfortunately, disabling security software, including

firewalls, isn't always easy to do, and may require talking to tech

support at the security software company. If this is a laptop that

belongs to your employer and has been set up to run on a

corporate network, you should talk to your network

administrator before taking any radical steps that may make it

work at home but prevent it from connecting to the network at

work.

Live Internet at router? It's not unusual for new DSL subscribers

to try to set up their network as soon as the kit arrives from the

phone company, before the phone company has enabled the line

for DSL. It won't work. There's just no way your laptop can

connect to the Internet through your router, wireless or not, if

there's no DSL connection between the router and the phone

company. Most routers come equipped with a status light for the

Internet connection. If you cycle the power on the router (if

there's no switch, you can pull the plug) you should see activity

Works

on Ethernet

port?

Firewall,

security

blocked?

Live

Internet at

router?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

137

on the Internet LED as the router negotiates for and gains an

Internet connection. It may take five minutes or longer for a

modem to negotiate a new connection under certain conditions,

so don’t give up too quickly. If the modem can’t negotiate a

connection after being powered up, it should display an error

state. The modem LED reporting a live Internet connection

doesn't absolutely guarantee that the connection is good or that

the router is functioning properly, but the problem is much

more likely to be on the laptop end.

If the LED doesn't show an Internet connection, get on the

phone with the ISP, usually the telco or cable company. The

fault could be with the ISP, it could be with the router, or it

could be with the land lines. While a land line problem is the

responsibility of the ISP if it’s outside your house, it doesn't hurt

to walk outside and see if there's an obvious tree branch lying on

the line or something, just so you'll know for sure what the

problem is. In the case of DSL, if the telephone still works, the

line should be OK, as long as you didn’t damage the line to the

modem or unplug it from the wall. With a cable modem, if the

TV works, the cable connection to the house is good, and any

cabling problem would be with the line to the modem. If you're

a new DSL customer and you live too far from the telephone

company switching gear, it's possible that DSL won't work in

your location, even though they delivered the equipment and

turned on the service.

Default settings on router? Don't trust your memory, restore the

router settings to default through the router console accessed by

the IP address or accompanying software. Unplugging the router

does not reset the defaults, which are stored in non volatile

memory. If restoring the router defaults, cycling the power and

rebooting the laptop doesn't allow you to connect, just go back

one step and continue, answering "Yes" to default settings at the

router.

Intermittent connection? The most frustrating problems to

troubleshoot on wireless networks are intermittent connections.

Logic seems to dictate that if it works sometimes, it should work

all the time, but mismatched hardware or protocols can result in

intermittent operation, as can interference, failing hardware, or

a poor signal from the ISP. However, the most common reason

for intermittent connections is a weak signal that appears to be

stronger than it actually is on the reported signal strength.

Default

settings on

router?

Intermittent

connection?

Laptop Internet Connectivity

138

Probably the best indicator of a marginal wireless signal is slow

operation, but if your notebook came equipped with a utility

that truly shows the relative strength of signals and your

connection is usually on the borderline, a weak signal is likely

the problem. Relocate the laptop closer to the router or move

the router to a more central location in the workspace.

Same ver. (b/g/n) 802.11? The IEEE standard for wireless

Ethernet networks using 802.11 versions b,g,n and y are

supposed to be backwards compatible, but in practice, not all of

the hardware produced lives up to the standard. In fact, when

you get into using repeaters, it's best to keep to one family or

brand of products for all of your wireless broadcast equipment.

Most newer notebooks have 802.11 b/g/n wireless capability

built-in and they will normally work with older routers, but

older notebooks and PC adapter cards of the 802.11b generation

often have trouble with 802.11g routers. Some routers default to

the pure 802.11g or 802.11n mode unless you specifically choose

the backward compatibility modes, and doing so may degrade

performance for all users.

Laptop works public network? Once you've done all the

troubleshooting you can at home and possibly at a friendly

neighbor's as well, the last test is to drag the laptop out to a cafe

or other location where a wireless network is offered as a draw

to customers. If your laptop does connect on the public network,

it indicates that the problem is either with your router hardware,

your ISP, or the router settings. Even though you've restored the

default router settings by this point, make absolutely sure

wireless is enabled and security is disabled.

If your laptop won't connect to the public network, it's entirely

possible that your wireless adapter is at fault, you can try a USB

or PC card wireless adapter if you're willing to have it sticking

out of the side of the notebook. But most of the time the

problem will be software. Either the wireless adapter is, in fact,

disabled in some way you haven't been able to spot, the driver

version isn't the best for the adapter model (even if Device

Manager appears happy), or there's some corruption in the

networking settings that you can't figure out. If you search the

web, there are some free third party utilities you can run to fix

the registry, the network stack and network settings by resetting

them to defaults, and which report out on the process if they

find errors.

Same

ver. (b/g/n)

802.11?

Laptop

works public

network?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

139

Phone, Bluetooth interfere? If your wireless connection slows

down or gets flaky when you or somebody else in the household

is using a cellular phone, Bluetooth device or other RF emitter,

the problem is interference. There is no cure other than trying to

increase the distance between the laptop and the interfering

device or not using the interfering device when you're on the

Internet. However, interference is a much less common problem

than flaky hardware, an intermittent signal from the ISP due to

land-line or weather conditions (rain degrading signals or wind

knocking the cables around on the poles) or software timeouts.

Overheating hardware can lead to intermittent operation, as can

loose connections and power interruptions. Keep in mind that a

properly functioning laptop has its own built-in UPS

(Uninterruptible Power Source) in the form of the main battery

that should provide seamless operation so you might not even

notice if your power grid is suffering from brownouts or even

mini-blackouts. The router, however, may be resetting every

time the power glitches, and then requiring a few minutes to

reestablish the Internet connection each time.

Phone,

Bluetooth,

interfere?

Laptop Internet Connectivity

140

141

Motherboard,

CPU, RAM

Failure

Live

screen?

LCD

diagnostic

done?

Display

Failure

Chart

Done

overheating

diagnostic?

Runs

stripped?

CPU

swap

work?

Cabling failure,

short or binding

in laptop body

Bad CPU,

monitor voltage

and temperature

after

replacement

Motherboard

failure

Power

diagnostic

done?

Power

Supply

Chart

No Yes

Yes No

Yes

Yes No

Freezes

on boot

screen?

Boots

w/o external

connex?

CPU

heatsink

active?

Install new

heatsink, connect

fan. May be too

late for CPU

Yes

Yes No

Yes

Demands

password?

BIOS password,

cleared with jumper,

or RTC battery

removal

load takes

forever?

Hard

Drive

Chart

Random

reboot?

Main

battery

in?

Random

freeze?

Ruled

out software,

virus?

Run latest virus doctor,

limit tasks. Check resources

drive space, RAM

Loose

connections,

vibrations,

overheating

Port,

peripheral

failure?

Symptom not

identified, but

probably related

to software

Try running

with battery or

UPS

Forgets

CMOS, loses

time?

Replace

RTC battery

with exact

match

Yes

Yes No

Yes

Overheating

Chart

Peripheral

device or

driver issue

Swap

RAM fix?

Good, if pair,

replace both

Replace

or bypass

Yes

Hear

beeps?

Yes

Count,

Google code

Motherboard, CPU, RAM Failure

142

The Laptop Repair Workbook

143

Live screen? Does the screen show any signs that the laptop is

alive and thinking? If it does, the motherboard hasn’t failed

outright, though it may turn out to suffer from partial failure or

intermittent problems. If you get nothing on the LCD but the

system works fine if you connect it to an external monitor, you

should skip to video diagnostics from this point.

Power diagnostic done? Do you see any LEDs flashing, hear any

beeps, drives spinning up, fans, etc. Laptops are all equipped

with status LEDs, normally including an LED for power on, an

LED showing the AC Adapter is attached and functioning, and

an LED to show the battery is present and charging. If the power

isn't coming on, proceed to power failure diagnostics. If the

power diagnostics sends you back here, continue following

through the diagnostic steps.

LCD diagnostic done? If you haven't performed the video failure

diagnostics for a dead screen yet, do so now. Remember that in

the vast majority of laptop computers, the video processor

shares the same physical memory modules with the CPU. If the

diagnostic points to a video processor failure, make sure to

search the Internet to see if it’s a characteristic failure for that

model with a possible workaround, like reflowing the solder.

Done overheating diagnostic? This is particularly important in

the case of dead screen troubleshooting if the problem only

occurs when the laptop is warmed up. All of the components in

your laptop are subject to failure if the laptop gets too hot,

including vital motherboard components, the CPU and the

RAM. If your laptop is overheating and you ignore the fact, you

might properly diagnose the component that is failing when it

gets too hot and replace it, but unless that component was itself

responsible for the overheating, you've treated the symptom

without finding the cure.

Swap RAM fix? Many technicians will start troubleshooting any

dead screen or no boot failure by swapping out the memory,

because it's easily done and it's often at fault. If you have two

RAM modules installed you can try running one and then the

other, and if you can borrow a compatible module from a friend,

it will rarely damage their RAM to try it in your system. While

we hate to recommend you go out and purchase a part just to try

it out, a replacement memory module for your system may run

as little as $20. If your existing RAM turns out to be good and

Live

screen?

Power

diagnostic

done?

LCD

diagnostic

done?

Done

overheating

diagnostic?

Swap

RAM fix?

Motherboard, CPU, RAM Failure

144

the problem is solved later on, you’ll be able to install the spare,

increasing your capacity and performance. For most home users

who have never taken a laptop apart before, swapping the RAM

is a good gamble before we get to taking the laptop completely

apart.

CPU heatsink active? All modern laptop CPUs require a

heatsink, and most of these are an active heatsink, with a fan on

top, or a hood over the CPU heatsink with a fan blowing air

through. Laptops offer heat and power management at both the

operating system and BIOS level. You may be able to set the

exact temperature in CMOS Setup for which you want the fan to

come on or the system to warn of thermal overload and shut

down. In the operating system, you can generally tweak the CPU

settings so it consumes less power (resulting in lower

performance and less heat) or for quiet operation, which limits

fan usage.

If you just installed a replacement CPU and powered the system

up with no heatsink as a test, you may have damaged the new

CPU already. If the fan on your active heatsink isn't spinning up,

replace the fan and hope for the best. Make sure to confirm the

new heatsink fan is operating after replacement since it could be

the power point on the motherboard that's failed. You should

never need to replace the heatsink itself unless you break the

hold-down mechanism, since it’s just a chunk of metal. If you

replace the entire active heatsink, make sure that it’s designed

for your specific model, or it may fail to contact the CPU even

with the proper application of thermal paste, guaranteeing

failure.

Hear beeps? If you have a system that powers up, the next

question is, do you hear any beeps coming from the laptop. If

your motherboard doesn't have a dedicated piezoelectric

speaker for beep codes, it will use the built-in laptop speakers.

The beeps should come in repeated patterns, so many in a row,

and then repeated. Write down what you hear and then head to

Google and search for the translation of the code. If you hear an

unending string of beeps, it's often bad RAM if the screen is

dead, or a keyboard failure if the screen is live. Depending on

the manufacturer, you might also get specific beep codes for

CPU failure or video processor failure. Many beep codes have

been abandoned since they pertained to non-user replaceable

CPU

heatsink

active?

Hear

beeps?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

145

surface mount components. It never hurts to shut down and

reseat the system RAM if you're getting a beep code.

Runs stripped? Bench testing laptop motherboards is quite

different from bench testing PC motherboards because laptops

are engineered as a unit and it's not easy to run the motherboard

out of the case. The option is to simply strip everything not

essential for a live screen out of the laptop to ensure that there

isn't a problem with a component that is putting an undue

mechanical stress or electrical load on the motherboard. The

RAM and the CPU need to remain installed, but you can remove

the hard drive and the DVD drive, and if you're ambitious to

take the whole laptop apart, you can try for a live screen without

the keyboard or any non-essential daughter cards installed. You

should always unplug the AC adapter and remove the battery

while working on the laptop, but you'll have to plug the AC

adapter back in again to attempt to boot.

CPU swap works? If you still have a "no signs of life" situation

with the motherboard powered up and stripped down, it’s either

a motherboard component failure or the CPU. Swap in a known

good CPU if you can get one dirt cheap or free, not forgetting to

install a good heatsink and to connect the fan, even just for a

quick test. You need to find a CPU that's supported by the laptop

BIOS, it's not enough to find one that mechanically fits the

socket, assuming the CPU isn't soldered into place! The only way

to determine what CPUs are appropriate is to check your user

manual or do a little research on the web. Think twice and three

times about the value of your laptop before spending real money

on a new CPU, since you’re just gambling the problem isn’t a

motherboard failure. If your old CPU is bad and the heatsink fan

is dead, it's a pretty sure bet that the dead fan caused the CPU to

failure.

You can identify many motherboard component failures with a

decent magnifying glass. They’ll show burnt or melted spots,

discoloration, or be carbonized right out of existence. Some

discrete motherboard components such as capacitors and power

semiconductors are replaceable with a good soldering iron,

though there’s always a chance they’ll pop again as soon as you

power up if the fault lay higher upstream. Other surface mount

components are barely visible to the eye, require an insider’s

access to replacement parts, and expensive soldering equipment

to attempt to install.

Runs

stripped?

CPU

swap

work?

Motherboard, CPU, RAM Failure

146

There's no point in calling the manufacturer to price a new

motherboard if you determine it's the most likely problem.

Laptop motherboards are specific to the model and family, and

the manufacturers charge you almost as much as a brand new

laptop for most replacement motherboards. If the laptop is

relatively new or beloved and you really want to keep it going,

the best option is to try to find a replacement motherboard on

eBay from a pull, from another failed laptop with a different

problem like a bad LCD. There's always the risk the replacement

will be bad as well, but in shopping, you may find that a second

hand working laptop of your exact model is available for less

than you would have thought. You can buy it and move your

hard drive over in a jiffy, but make sure you don't end up paying

as much as the price of a new, superior notebook.

Freezes on boot screen? Does the system power right up, give a

happy beep or two, then freeze on the BIOS screen? First try

removing any external connections, including your networking,

cellular modem or dial-up modem cord, printer cables, anything

that wasn't attached to the laptop when you took it out of the

box for the first time. If this allows the laptop to boot, the

problem is either with one of the peripherals you disconnected

(check by process of elimination) or with the software driver for

that peripheral. Windows based systems may automatically start

in Safe Mode after being powered down and rebooted if the

problem was with a driver.

Demands password? Does your system power right up and

demand a password? We're talking about pre-OS load here (a

BIOS screen password), not a Windows password. This normally

pops up in a small text box in the dead center of the screen,

which may be dark but for the box. Some newer laptops are

equipped with fingerprint scanners or other biometric locks, but

these give you the option to type in a password as a fallback. If

you know that a password is set but you've forgotten it, you may

be in for a headache. It's also possible that somebody in your

family ended up entering CMOS Setup and set the password by

accident. Unfortunately, if the machine is asking for a password

on boot, it may also demand a password to access CMOS Setup

in order to disable it.

Check with the manufacturer's tech support and do a Google

search to see if there's a workaround before taking the laptop

apart. Desktop motherboards come equipped with the

Freezes

on boot

screen?

Demands

password?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

147

equivalent of a "Forget Password" jumper, but laptops usually

aren’t that friendly. There's a good chance that the password is

cleared by removing the RTC (Real Time Clock) battery that also

preserves the CMOS settings. You should search the web for

instructions for your model, as it may involve a whole complex

sequence of events, like removing the RTC battery, AC adapter

and main battery and then holding in the power switch.

OS load takes forever? Does the OS load take forever or does the

system get as far as complaining about a missing boot drive, a

bad disk, missing operating system, no boot partition, anything

similar? If you get any of these messages, proceed to hard drive

failure diagnostics. If the system doesn't freeze on the BIOS

screen, but doesn't start loading the OS either, it could be a

rapid overheating problem with a critical motherboard

component, but the odds are still with software. One check is to

change the boot order in CMOS to boot the DVD/CD drive first,

and to try a bootable disc. If the disc boots and the laptop sits

quietly without freezing up, the problem is with the hard drive

or installed software.

Random reboot? Does the system reboot itself for no apparent

reason, either during the boot process or at any point once

you're up and running? Random reboots are often caused by

mechanical or thermal problems. Mechanical problems include

little bits of conductor flopping around inside the laptop,

vibrations caused by airplanes, tapping your foot on the floor or

typing on the keyboard! Remember that the whole laptop is

crammed into this narrow little box and the connectors are fairly

fragile. You can eliminate flaky mechanical issues by trying a

USB keyboard and mouse and not touching the laptop while

operating. If that solves the problem, you know the reboots are

due to vibration. For thermal problems, see the overheating

flowchart.

A random reboot is sometimes caused by a Windows operating

system setting. This can be solved by going to System Properties

and selecting the Advanced tab, then the Settings tab under

Startup and Recovery. Clear the checkmark under System

Failure – Automatically Restart. It might solve the problem, or

it might lead to a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) error that helps

diagnose the underlying cause, often RAM.

load takes

forever?

Random

reboot?

Motherboard, CPU, RAM Failure

148

Main battery installed? If not, try running with the battery

installed, or try running your AC adapter though a UPS

(Uninterruptable Power Supply). The problem may be with your

electrical power grid, either brown-outs, surges, or poor

regulation. Testing with the battery installed makes more sense

than running out and buying a UPS, unless you have one

available, but some laptop owners see extending battery life by

storing it in ideal conditions when not traveling as half the fun

of ownership.

Ruled out software, virus? If you don't have an up-to-date

malware protection suite installed, including anti-virus, antispyware,

and anti-adware and a firewall, you haven't even begun

to eliminate invasive software as the root of your problem.

Installing all of this protective software after the fact will usually

make you aware of a malware problem, but it may be too late to

cure it without extensive Google research on your part. The

"good" software is designed to keep the "bad" software out.

Getting rid of “bad software” once it's established on your laptop

is more dicey.

Software lock-ups can also occur because of data corruption or

operating system registry confusion. While reinstalling the

operating system and starting over from scratch is the dodge of

somebody who can't pinpoint the problem, it's often the only

practical solution for the casual laptop user. You should run the

standard operating system clean-up chores before giving up.

Windows offers a number of hard drive maintenance tasks

under System Tools.

Random freeze? Is your laptop suffering from random lockups?

We're talking about lockups that you need to power off and on to

clear. If you can CRTL-ALT-DEL your way out of a lock-up, in

fact, if you can get any response with it at all, it's more likely a

software conflict or incompatibility. Although the CPU, RAM

and motherboard are all candidates for intermittent lock-ups,

the hard drive and motherboard connections are also possible.

Overheating is always suspect in random lockups.

If you call tech support with these symptoms, they may

recommend that you flash the BIOS to the latest version. The

procedure is simple, you download the software from the

manufacturer's website and the process is automatic when you

run the program, but BEWARE. If you grab the wrong version of

Ruled

out software,

virus?

Random

freeze?

Main

battery

in?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

149

the BIOS off the web, if the manufacturer has made a mistake, if

you can't quite determine which revision of a motherboard you

have, or if the process gets interrupted in the middle by a power

spike, etc, you can lose the motherboard. In other words, if the

BIOS doesn't get completely installed or isn't correct, you can

never boot the system again to fix it. But if you've concluded that

the only option is buying a new motherboard or a new laptop,

it's worth a try.

If the problem is with an external peripheral, the first step is to

inspect and reseat the cable connecting the device to the laptop.

If it’s a USB peripheral, the best test of both the device and the

cable is to connect to another computer and see if it works. If it

does, the problem is with the port hardware or the driver (see

the keyboard, mouse and USB troubleshooting flowchart). If the

port is physically loose or damaged, the repair requires

resoldering or replacing on the motherboard. Try a different

USB port on the laptop and try reinstalling any driver software

for the device.

Forgets CMOS, loses time? If your laptop keeps forgetting the

time and the date, or gives you an error message about CMOS

settings every time you power on, your RTC (Real Time Clock)

battery has probably died. This battery is entirely distinct from

the main battery that powers your laptop or the auxiliary battery

some laptops featured for preserving memory in suspend states.

It's a little battery mounted on the motherboard, usually a small

disk like a wrist watch battery, and while they are widely

available and inexpensive, gaining access to the motherboard to

do the job can be a nightmare in some laptops. If you don't have

a user’s manual with step by step instructions, search the web

for a photograph illustrated guide for your exact model family.

Boots w/o external connex? If the laptop boots up fine when

you power up without any external connections, the problem is

with the external device or with the software driver for it.

External connections here include anything that isn’t part of the

basic laptop, including: docking stations, port replicators,

security devices, PC cards, USB devices, telephone and

networking cables, an external video connection, speakers or a

microphone. Don’t start trying to analyze why the device can’t

affect boot in your case, just try without it.

Forgets

CMOS, loses

time?

Boots

w/o external

connex?

Port,

peripheral

failure?

Motherboard, CPU, RAM Failure

150

151

Laptop Modem

Failure

Does

modem

dial?

ISP

pick up?

“No dial

tone”?

Busy or

ringing?

Confirm ISP’s

phone number,

area code and

prefix for outside

line

Try dialing

on pulse

Yes

Yes No

Gets

online?

ISP

confirm user

info?

Yes

Get valid user

name, password

from ISP

Connect

at lowered

speed?

Yes

Connect

to different

ISP?

Try outside

network interface,

test with other

laptop or PC, try

USB modem

Re-check login

info, modem

compatibility

Yes

Connect

live line to

modem port

Best driver

installed?

Yes

Device

Manager report

problem?

Download

latest driver

from web

Pass

OS modem

test?

Reboot,

try again.

Try replacing

with USB

modem

Yes

Remove

any PC cards

or USB

peripherals

Locks

up online?

Yes

Sends

faxes?

Crtl-Alt-Del,

end task?

Yes

Upgrade browser,

run fewer tasks when

online

Yes

Use web faxing or

USB fax modem if

not fax capable

Yes

Problem likely

software related

ISP or line

conditions,

especially

weather, time of

day, or house

wiring.

Frequent

line drops?

Motherboard

CPU RAM

chart

Port in

use?

Software

conflict

Yes

Laptop Modem Failure

152

The Laptop Repair Workbook

153

Does modem dial? The first question for a dial-up modem is,

does your modem actually dial the phone? Some laptops feature

a little piezoelectric speaker on a modem/network daughter

card, but others use the laptop speakers as a modem

annunciator. Many people (and computer vendors) turn down

the volume for this in software, which on Windows machines is

buried somewhere in the modem properties reached through

Control Panel. For laptop computers that run the sound through

the speakers, the volume controls in Windows and any exterior

volume controls must be turned up. If you can't hear Windows

chimes, music CD's, or downloaded audio through your

speakers, odds are you won't hear the modem dialing either.

ISP pick up? You should be able to hear the ISP's modem pick

up and whistle and hiss back at your modem through the

speaker. If not, make sure you are dialing the right phone

number and that the ISP isn't temporarily down. Just dial the

number from a regular phone handset and the ISP modem

should pick up and whistle or hiss at you. Make sure you have

the area code and any prefix for an outside line correct,

especially if you are dialing from a business. Dial-up lines in a

business must have a clean path through a business phone

system (PBX - Private Branch eXchange), just like fax lines.

Dialing "9" for an outside line is quite common in small business

settings. If the phone is always busy, call the ISP's tech support

or try one of the other phone numbers they provide. It could

simply be that they don't have enough modems available for the

traffic in your area at certain times of day.

Busy or ringing? If you hear the modem dial but the dial tone

remains steady until an operator recording picks up and tells

you that your phone is off hook, you're trying to use "tone"

dialing on a "pulse" system. This is easily changed in the

"Dialing Properties" of the basic modem page in Control Panel

of Windows systems. If a stranger picks up the phone and yells

at you, you’ve dialed the wrong number.

Gets online? If you get an error stating that the ISP can't

negotiate a connection, protocol, or anything along those lines,

you definitely aren’t getting online. Unfortunately, this error is

too generic to help much with troubleshooting. Even messages

telling you to check your password can be caused by just about

anything. Try redialing several times without changing anything

Does

modem

dial?

ISP

pick up?

Gets

online?

Busy or

ringing?

Laptop Modem Failure

154

to make sure you aren't just encountering an overloaded modem

pool.

ISP confirm user info? Call your ISP on the phone to confirm

your login information if it's the first time you're dialing in. Reenter

your password, remembering that caps usually count.

Assuming you have your username and password right, the odds

are any errors reported aren't due to any protocol settings on

your part, especially if you haven't changed the defaults. If the

error crops up at random, it's usually due to the weather and the

time of day, as both play a major role in the circuit conditions of

the telco infrastructure. Stormy or damp weather can badly

degrade the lines of older telephone networks. The time of day is

also important, with the beginning of the business day, and a

period in the mid-afternoon usually being the worst times.

Connect at lower speed? Does your modem connect at a speed in

the 20 Kb/s to 40 Kb/s range? The connection speed is usually

announced on screen before the connection window disappears,

and can be checked at any time through the connection icon in

the system tray. There are several possibilities, but the most

likely is that your modem is capable of a much higher

connection speed than the circuit, for various reasons, can

support. A long delay in getting online is due to endless

negotiation between your modem and the ISP modem as they

slowly ratchet down the speed on both ends until a satisfactory

error rate is reached. This could be due to a failing modem, but

it's more often infrastructure or line conditions that limit

connection speed.

Your connection speed will always be lower than the 56 Kb/s

modem rating in the U.S. because it’s limited to 53 Kb/s by law.

Laptops with 56 Kb/s modems should get connections ranging

from 48 Kb/s to 53 Kb/s in ideal conditions. If your speed is

always lower, it could be that your modem speed is actually set

too low in software, or that you are using some error checking or

compression algorithm that isn't ideal for the circuit. Make a

note of all of your current settings before you start making

changes, and note that in some cases, you'll have to reboot

before they take effect. Make sure you check the Extra Settings

field in the modem connection Advanced Properties menu in

Windows. It could also be that your phone wiring simply isn't

going to support a higher speed, that you are too far from the

central office, or they just haven't upgraded their infrastructure

ISP

confirm user

info?

Connect

at lowered

speed?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

155

to support digital signaling, in which case you'll never get a

connection over 33K. If you’re traveling away from your usual

modem pool, it could be that the local ISP doesn’t fully support

higher speeds.

Connect to different ISP? The best test for eliminating modem

failure is to see if it will connect to a different service. If you can

connect to a friend's ISP or a free bulletin board, it's a definite

proof that the modem isn't bad. If you can't connect to another

ISP, it doesn't prove your modem is faulty, it could still be a

problem with line conditions, standards or logins. But if you can

use another laptop or PC to connect over the same line to the

ISP, the problem is clearly in your laptop.

No dial tone? If the software reports, "No dial tone", you have to

test if the phone line is live or if an off-hook phone elsewhere on

the circuit has caused the line to drop. Check the phone jack at

the wall with a telephone handset. If the wall jack is good, try

changing the telephone patch cord running from your laptop

modem port to the jack. If the wall jack is dead and the other

phones on the circuit work, you need to repair the in-wall wiring

or use a different jack.

Best driver installed? Have you installed the most recent modem

driver you can find on the laptop manufacturer's web site? Even

if your laptop is brand-new, they sometimes ship with obsolete

drivers, either because your model is a close-out that has been

sitting on the shelf somewhere for a year, or because problems

with the driver software have been discovered since your unit

was manufactured.

Device Manager report problem? The status of the modem

hardware and driver as understood by the operating system

appears in Device Manager in Windows. There's not much

likelihood of a conflict with another device in a laptop since they

are engineered to work together, but it's a good idea to try

unplugging all external devices while troubleshooting. Try

finding an updated driver on the manufacturer’s website and

installing. Try the interactive troubleshooting wizard in Device

Manager. If you can't resolve the Device Manager problem,

either the modem is bad or the daughter card (if your model

features a separate card for the modem and networking) has

come loose in its connector. Check your owner’s manual or the

web to see if the latter is a possibility, and if so, find exact

Connect

to different

ISP?

“No dial

tone”?

Best driver

installed?

Device

Manager report

problem?

Laptop Modem Failure

156

illustrated disassembly instructions for your model before you

attempt to check. Before trying, identify what other components

are on the daughter card (like a 100BaseT network connection),

and if they still function, it's unlikely that reseating the daughter

card will help.

Port in use? Does the operating system or dialing software

report the port is "in use" when you try to dial? Try shutting

down and rebooting. The "port in use" error is due to another

active software application claiming the port the modem is set

on. You could get this error if you're already using the modem

but don't realize it for some reason, but it's more likely that

you've recently installed obsolete software for synchronizing an

old palm device or a camera that's colliding with the modem

driver.

Pass OS modem test? In Windows Control Panel > Modems and

Phones, find the "Diagnostics" tab (exact location varies

between Windows versions) select your modem, and look for an

option like "Query Modem" or "More Info." If Windows can't

talk to the modem and get a response, without the modem being

hooked up to anything, the modem hardware is bad or the

daughter board carrying the modem is loose.

Frequent line drops? Do you suffer from frequent disconnects?

The first thing to check if you have line drops is whether you

have call waiting and a modem/ISP that doesn't support call

waiting. If you don't have call waiting, line drops are usually a

result of the ISP being over burdened, or really bad line

conditions. The ISP will rarely admit that their system is

dropping lines, so it's a tough one to diagnose with 100%

certainty. There's nothing you can do about the telco

infrastructure, but you can get the cleanest connection possible

in your house by reducing the number of connections between

your laptop and the incoming phone line. You can also try

running your modem at a lower speed. You may determine that

the problem is with the infrastructure of the telephone company

or some other external factors, such as the wiring in your part of

town being routed alongside an incredibly noisy electrical

transformer, etc. There's nothing you can do about the weather,

but you can work around the time of day problem by identifying

the good times to call in and sticking with them.

Port in

use?

Pass

OS modem

test?

Frequent

line drops?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

157

Locks up online? Does the whole computer sometimes lock-up

when you're online, forcing you to shut down and reboot? If it

always happens at the same web site, then it's probably an

incompatibility with the web browser version and software plugins.

You may need to enable Java Script or download and install

a browser upgrade to access certain sites. The important point

is, if the lock-up only occurs on certain sites, it's not a modem

issue.

Ctrl-Alt-Del end task? If you can get a live task list with Ctrl- Alt-

Del, shut down the browser and continue, it's probably a

software conflict or an incompatible web application. Browsers

sometimes lock-up if you try to access your favorites list before

the browser has finished loading. You could also be suffering

lock-ups due to RAM or CPU overheating problems, so take a

look through the Motherboard, CPU and RAM Failure

diagnostics.

Sends Faxes? Do you want to send or receive faxes but you can't

figure out how? The first thing to check is whether or not you

have a Fax/Modem. If it wasn't sold as a fax/modem and the

driver doesn't identify it as a fax modem, it's not a fax and you

can't directly use it to send and receive faxes. You can still use a

web based fax service or buy a USB fax/modem. If your laptop

does include a fax/modem and can't fax, it's just a question of

installing (or finding) the proper software, which should have

come on CD with the fax/modem.

Locks

up online?

Crtl-Alt-Del,

end task?

Sends

faxes?

Laptop Modem Failure

158

159

DVD/CD Playback

and Record

Tray

ejects?

BIOS

drive?

hole drive

face?

Remove drive,

faceplate

Remove battery

and unplug AC

adapter. Insert pin,

pull tray

Yes

Yes No

Yes

Reads

DVD/CD?

Plays

movies and

music?

Drive

vibrates,

noisy?

Eject and remount.

Try

another disc

Yes No

Yes

Burner Yes

problem?

Boots

disc?

Change CMOS boot

sequence, pre-spin

drive, test disc

Read

other

discs?

Clean disc with

flannel, check for

scratches

Yes

Drive not seated

or hardware

failure

Spins up?

Check power,

latching

Check discs

other computer,

try cleaner

Yes

Device

Manager

OK?

Yes

Re-install driver,

check cabling,

reseat drive

Software issue.

Check DVD codex,

protection, mixer

for audio

recorder,

detect

disc? Update software,

update recorder firmware.

Check single-sided disc is

upside up. Try new disc,

different brand, type

Starts

recording

process then

fails?

Yes No

Disc

plays in other

drive?

Sole

task?

Run as sole

task. Check

task list by

ctrl-alt-del,

close systray

programs

Data source too

slow (try Defrag hard

drive), task being

interrupted, or burner

or media bad

Yes

No Yes

Yes

Try using write-only media

(CDR), especially for music

CDs. Check other recorded

discs in target device

Yes

Symptom

undetermined.

Likely software

Power

enabled?

Yes

Check system

tray or icon

DVD/CD Playback and Record

160

The Laptop Repair Workbook

161

Tray ejects? The most basic and potentially most disastrous

problem that can occur with a CD or DVD drive is a stuck tray.

Will the tray eject when you press the eject button? Press it

once, like a doorbell, and then move your finger away, or you

may be sending it repeated open and close commands. The drive

won't pop right open if it is actively playing a disc. If you're

trying to eject a disc using software (clicking on a software eject

button on the screen) and it doesn't work, try the manual button

on the drive.

BIOS register drive? If the tray still doesn't eject, reboot again

and note whether the BIOS registers the drive. Some laptops

don't report installed hardware on a boot screen, so you'll have

to access CMOS Setup to check. If the BIOS doesn't register the

drive, it's dropped dead or there's a problem with the controller

(motherboard) or the connection in the bay. Reseating the drive

in the bay is the next step, easy if it's a swappable bay, a little

harder if it's held in with a screw from the bottom of the laptop.

Power Enabled? If the drive is registered by the BIOS and

doesn’t show any errors in Device Manager, you really may have

a stuck tray. But the first step is to determine if the drive has

been locked in software and the eject button has been disabled.

Laptops often give the user the option to disable power to the

optical drive in order to save a little battery juice or to prevent

the tray from ejecting when you least expect it. Disabling the

optical drive power really isn’t a bad policy if you rarely use it, as

it helps to protect the tray, which is fragile when it extends from

the drive. Another test is to see if the eject button works

immediately after powering up the laptop, before the operating

system has a chance to load.

Pin hole drive face? The next step is to look for a pinhole on the

front of the DVD/CD drive. Power down the laptop, unplug the

power cord and remove the battery. Straighten out a couple

inches worth of paper clip, the heaviest gauge that will fit in the

hole. Gently push the paper clip straight into the hole, until you

feel it depress the release mechanism. This will sometime cause

the tray to pop out a fraction of an inch, other times you will

have to pry it a little to get it started. Once you have enough tray

sticking out to grab it with your fingers, you should be able to

pull it out, though it can offer quite a bit of resistance, and you

may damage whatever disc is inside. If the faceplate seems to be

bulging as you pull, the disc is hung up on it, and the best thing

Tray

ejects?

BIOS

drive?

Power

enabled?

hole drive

face?

DVD/CD Playback and Record

162

to do is remove the drive from the laptop and then remove the

faceplate.

The faceplate is normally held on by simple plastic clips working

from the inside out, or attached with tiny screws. Depress clips

into the side of the drive while removing the faceplate so you

don't break them off. If you have removed the drive from the

laptop, tried the manual pinhole release, removed the faceplate

and still can't get the tray out, you have a problem. If there's a

mechanical failure, it probably isn't repairable without access to

special tools and parts. If the drive contains a valuable disc, you

should be able to dismantle the drive to the point where you can

rescue the disc without scratching it.

Reads DVD/CD? When you mount a disc, whether a movie,

data, software or music, does the drive acknowledge that a disc

is present and let you view the contents? It doesn't matter at this

point of the troubleshooting process whether or not you can get

through installing the software on the disc, play it properly, or

read all of the information. The question is simply, can the drive

see anything at all on the disc?

Read other discs? Try a stamped factory disc, as opposed to a

recordable disc. If it works, the problem is with the media and

not the drive. Clean the problem disc with a soft bit of flannel.

The discs are plastics, so don't use solvents. Scratches can

render a disc unreadable, including scratches on the label

surface, which can cause distortions in the optical layer that is

actually being read from the bottom. Try the disc in another

reader before chucking it out, it could just have trouble with the

drive in your laptop.

Spins up? As long as the power to the drive is good and it

responds to the eject button, it should give any disc a

preliminary spin as soon as it’s installed so it can inform the

operating system what’s there. The drive should go through the

motions of doing this even if the disc itself is faulty or there are

problems with the drive in software. The LED on the drive or the

LED on the laptop that shows DVD/CD drive activity (if so

equipped) should be active when the drive spins up.

Device Manager OK? Does your laptop drive show up as

operating properly in Windows Device Manager. Are there any

little symbols next to it, like a red “X” or error messages shown

Reads

DVD/CD?

Read

other

discs?

Spins up?

Device

Manager

OK?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

163

with the drive? If so, the first step is to reinstall the driver.

Download the latest driver from the manufacturer's website and

install it. If you’ve upgraded to a new version of the operating

system, or have allowed automated updates to the operating

system over the Internet, your existing driver may turn out to be

incompatible. If Device Manager only reports a problem with

the hardware after the most recent driver is installed, you can

try to remove it and reinstall the old driver. Check the Internet

for a firmware upgrade for the drive, though it really shouldn’t

be necessary for basic compatibility. If that doesn’t help and you

don’t have another laptop available to test if the drive still

works, you might want to consider replacing it with an external

USB drive rather than buying an exact replacement. The

problem could turn out to be a broken connector or failed

controller on the motherboard.

Plays movies and music? If a drive won’t play a movie but can

read DVD data discs, or won’t play music but can read CD data

discs, the problem is due to software. The media player you are

using may display a specific error message, like telling you the

screen properties must be set to a certain resolution and number

of colors for a movie to play. Or, the player may report that it

can’t find a decoder (CODEC) to play the particular disc. Even if

the movie worked last night, your media player may have

received an automated update the next time you went online

that rendered the installed CODEC obsolete. If you search the

Internet, you’ll find plenty of people trying to sell you CODECs,

but if you use Google and stay away from the advertisements,

you should be able to get the updated version for free.

You may also encounter new copy protection schemes that

render some discs unplayable on your laptop, even though you

aren’t trying to copy them. The only solution for this again lays

in software and Internet research for the specific failure. It may

turn out that the only way to render your DVD player

compatible with a new type of copy protection is to update the

DVD drive firmware. If an update isn’t available for your

particular model, you can end up out of luck when it comes to

playing certain discs from certain studios after a particular date.

Drive vibrates, noisy? Does the drive cause the whole laptop to

tremble when it spins up? High speed drives will vibrate like

crazy if a disc is off balance, either because it was chucked up

wrong on the spindle, or because the disc itself has some

Plays

movies and

music?

Drive

vibrates,

noisy?

DVD/CD Playback and Record

164

weighting problem. Aside from obvious physical flaws (like the

dog or the kid took a bite out of the edge of the disc) a

misapplied label can create an unbalanced disc. Try ejecting and

reinserting the disc, but don’t keep running a disc in a drive if it

vibrates badly. The disc could end up damaging the drive (discs

have been known to shatter at high speeds) and it doesn't do the

other components in your system any good to be vibrated, which

can lead to connections working apart or worse. Your operating

system may give you an option to run the drive at lower speed,

usually in the interest of quieter operation. If the problem only

occurs with some discs, you can blame the discs. Otherwise,

consider an external USB drive replacement, and save the

internal drive for emergency use while traveling.

Burner problem? Does your problem involve recording CDs or

DVDs? Recording problems are largely independent of reading

and playback problems. The drive uses a different wavelength

laser and much higher power when recording, and the recording

media is often at the heart of recording problems. We

concentrate on problems that are caused by hardware or

software failure going forward, but keep in mind if you’re trying

to copy discs that recording may fail due to various copy

protection schemes.

Boots disc? Does your system refuse to boot known good boot

discs, like operating systems or purpose made virus recovery

discs? Don’t assume a disc is good because it’s supposed to be,

try booting it in another system. Next try setting the boot

sequence in CMOS Setup to boot to the CD or DVD first. This

shouldn't really be necessary if the hard drive is brand new or

has been wiped out, but can fix the problem if the installed

operating system is corrupted. If you’re using an external USB

drive to boot a known good disc and CMOS Setup lets you select

an external USB boot device but it still doesn’t work, it may only

work with a JumpDrive. Some high speed external drives take

too long to spin up a disc, and fail to report to the BIOS that

there's a bootable disc present before the BIOS gives up.

ID recorder, detect disc? Does the recording software installed

on the laptop see the burner and correctly identify it? Get the

latest version of the software from the third party web site. The

fact that the software was packaged with your drive when you

bought it doesn't necessarily mean it's up-to-date for your

particular model or the operating system release you're running.

Burner

problem?

Boots

disc?

recorder,

detect

disc?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

165

Some known incompatibilities exist with virus software, which

will prompt you to download patches. You may find, through the

website of your laptop manufacturer or through the website of

the third party software vendor, that your DVD/CD recorder

requires a firmware update to operate with some recent

operating system or recording software release that you’ve been

automatically updated to use.

Does the recorder software detect that a recordable disc is in the

drive? The most common error when using cheap discs sold

without any labeling is mounting them in the drive tray upside

down. You can try turning it over, or if there are numbers

printed around the spindle hole in the center of the disc, the disc

is upside up when you can read them. Try cleaning the disc. It

may be bad, even if it looks perfectly good to the eye with no

scratches, fingerprints, etc. Failure rates can run as high as 20%

or more with cheap discs that have been sitting around for a

while on a spindle. Make sure the disc type you purchased is

compatible with your recorder, even if it means trying a more

expensive brand the manufacturer recommends.

Starts recording process then fails? Note that this renders the

"write only" or "R" as in CDR or DVDR media useless. The first

thing to check is if the drive successfully records discs to

completion at a lower speed, starting with the lowest speed

possible. If your recorder works at lower record speeds, the

recordable media you have may not be certified for the higher

speed, or it may just not work at the higher speed in your

recorder. You may also be suffering from a buffer underrun,

where the recorder runs out of data to write to the disc and fails.

In today's era of even the slowest hardware being pretty fast,

this is usually due to other tasks overtaxing your resources, or a

poorly planned record session. Try defragging the hard drive

before you record discs, and if the defrag utility keeps restarting,

it's usually a sign that some other task is competing with it for

the hard drive's attention. If you’re running on battery, try

recording with the AC adapter plugged in, as the battery may not

be able to continually source sufficient power to get through a

recording cycle.

Sole task? Close all other tasks so that the recording process is

the only job your laptop is working on. Get offline, turning off

your wireless connection or unplugging your connection to the

high speed modem or router. Other tasks can include work you

Starts

recording

process then

fails?

Sole

task?

DVD/CD Playback and Record

166

are doing in another program, as well as background tasks, like

virus shield programs and fax/phone software. There are

various 3rd party software packages capable of controlling

background tasks, but you can usually get by with Crtl-Alt-Del

and the Windows Task List, once you get a feel for which tasks

are superfluous to what you're doing. If the recording process

won't go through even at slow speed, it's possible that all of the

media you've tried writing is either bad or not suited for the

recorder you are using. Otherwise, the failure is likely due to the

hardware. The recording laser may have failed or may not be

generating enough power (you can try cleaning the lens) or the

speed regulation for the drive may poor. As long as it reads discs

correctly, it’s much cheaper and simpler to replace it with an

external USB burner than to replace the internal drive for what

may still turn out to be an esoteric software problem.

Disc play in other drives? Does the disc record properly, read or

play fine in the drive you recorded it in, but fail to play in other

computer drives or in consumer devices, such as stereos and

DVD players? The rewriteable media often fails completely in

read-only drives, like standard CD ROM drives or DVD set-top

boxes. Check with the manufacturer’s specifications for the

target device, the device you want to read the recorded disc in,

to make sure you are using a compatible media and format.

There are a sickening number of official formats and variations

for recordable CDs and DVDs and many of them aren't

supported by commercial playback devices, and never will be.

The rule of thumb for recording data discs that will be readable

in the maximum number of other computers is to use the writeonce,

CDR or DVD-R media.

Music CDs that you want to play in a stereo must be recorded on

CDR, not CDRW, and the burner software must be set to record

them in the CD-DA (Redbook) format. Writing a bunch of .wav

files to a CD, even at the proper sampling frequency and in

stereo, will not result in a CD that's playable in a stereo. It's the

format that counts. You don't have to buy the more expensive

CDR blanks labeled "CD Audio" blanks or the like, these are only

required for dedicated (non PC connected) CDR devices. DVD

players usually support multiple media types, but you need to

check the documentation for the final word.

Disc

plays in other

drive?

167

Volume

up and sound

audible?

Do music

CD’s play?

DVD/CD

chart

Yes

Voice-in

problem?

Poor

recording

quality?

Mixer

muted,

driver?

Reseat mic cord

in, jack, test mic.

Check driver, USB

mic

Enable

microphone in

mixer, reinstall

driver

Yes

Yes No

Yes

Cables

and hardware

quality?

Set sampling

rate 44 Khz or

higher. Check

source quality

Move system to check

for interference. Upgrade

sound components

Yes

Internet Yes No

sound

problem?

Game

problem?

Player

site requires

installed?

Follow links

from website to

download

player

Yes

Problem not

identified,

likely

software

May require

3-D setup, better

speakers. DOS

emulation for old

games

External

volume up,

connex?

External

speakers?

Yes

USB

Speakers?

Download latest

driver from Internet.

Check on different

USB port and

computer

OS see

sound

device?

Check with

headphones.

Search for hidden

volume controls

Yes

Check Modem and

Wireless diagnostics for

slow Internet connection

Yes

Turn up.

Check jacks

Enable in

Control Panel

Reinstall driver,

hardware failure

WiFi,

network,

modem

OK?

No Yes

When sound

failure coincides

with Ethernet,

WiFi, or modem

failure, I/O

daughter card

issue

Troubleshooting

Sound

sounds?

Yes

Troubleshooting Sound

168

The Laptop Repair Workbook

169

Volume up and sound audible? Check any external volume

controls first, usually on the side or front edge of the laptop.

We’ll come back to the volume being up again, but if you aren’t

getting audible sound out of your laptop, the first thing to check

that the sound isn’t muted by a checkbox on the volume control

and that the slider isn’t all the way at the bottom. The basic

volume control is normally present in the system tray at the

bottom right of the screen, with a little speaker as the icon. If

you can’t see it on a Windows system, try expanding the tray

menu by clicking the left arrow in the tray, and be patient if the

laptop is still booting. You can always get to the basic volume

control through Windows Control Panel, and you can also

change the settings there to add the control to the system tray.

WiFi, network, modem OK? Many laptop manufacturers

combine all of the I/O functions on a separate daughter card

that rides on the motherboard. The daughter card usually

includes the WiFi transceiver, the 100/1000BaseT Ethernet

adapter and the dial-up modem, along with the sound system

hardware. If you lose any of these capabilities at the same time

that you lose your sound, odds are the daughter card has backed

out of the connector to the motherboard or simply failed. Do

your research on the Internet to establish that your laptop really

does have an I/O daughter card before breaking the laptop open.

Make sure you find a photo illustrated guide for replacing your

model’s daughter card online if the manufacturer doesn’t

provide a manual.

External speakers? The volume control on speakers usually

serves as an on/off as well. Some speakers may be powered by

batteries rather than a transformer or USB connection, so

double check that you don't have speakers with dead batteries. If

the speakers aren’t connected to the laptop by a USB port, they

aren’t drawing amplification power from the laptop and must be

getting it from a transformer or batteries.

If your speakers are connected through a standard stereo jack,

you can plug in a simple headphone to see if any sound is

coming out of the jack, just don’t have them on your head in

case the sound is too loud. If you are using external speakers

from choice rather than necessity, disconnect the external

speakers and try troubleshooting with the built-in laptop

speakers first. Speakers that connect directly to a stereo jack on

the laptop (little circular port) are running on the built-in sound

WiFi,

network,

modem

OK?

External

speakers?

Volume

up and sound

audible?

Troubleshooting Sound

170

card. Speakers connected through just the USB port or through

a PC card are running on their own sound device.

External volume up, connex? Laptops come equipped with an

external volume control, which is handy for turning the volume

up or down without having to stop what you are doing and

access the control in Windows. On newer laptops, this control

may be digital and integrated with the software volume, so the

two don’t contradict each other. But some laptops used a

hardwired volume dial that can turn the sound completely off,

independently of the software setting. If the dial is off, nothing

you do in software will induce the laptop to produce sound. It’s

also a good time to check that the speaker stereo jack or USB

connection is firmly in place.

USB speakers? Make sure you have the latest driver for your

operating system version downloaded from the Internet and

installed. Remember that USB speakers are really combining a

simple USB sound card and speakers, so the software is critical.

If the Windows Device Manager doesn’t report any problem

with the USB sound driver, everything is connected properly, all

the volume controls in software and hardware are up and not

muted, and you still can’t get sound, either the USB port or the

USB speakers are bad. Try them on another USB port and

another computer before giving up on them.

OS see sound device? If the operating system doesn’t see the

built-in sound device, you can try reinstalling the latest driver,

but unless the original driver was corrupted, it’s unlikely the

problem. If Device Manager reports a hardware problem, odds

are the built-in sound has failed. Unless the sound functionality

is on an independent daughter card in the laptop, as determined

from your owner’s manual or a little Internet research on your

exact model, don’t even think about replacing it. The cost

effective solution is to add USB speakers or a more complex USB

or PC card sound device to the laptop.

If you can’t get sound through the internal laptop speakers, plug

in external headphones just to make sure that the speaker wires

inside the laptop haven’t broken. This problem is more common

with laptops that feature the speakers in the lid, under or

alongside the screen. But software controls remain the #1

problem for laptop sound problems. Aside from the primary

volume control often found in your system tray, there may be

External

volume up,

connex?

USB

Speakers?

OS see

sound

device?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

171

various other mixer panels and volume adjustments offered in

other applications using sound. One of these can cause a

complete absence of sound if the "mute" box is checked.

Do music CDs play? Does your sound system work properly with

everything except music CDs? If you do have USB speakers, your

DVD/CD player and your laptop motherboard must support

Digital Audio Extraction (DAE) for the digital stream to be fed to

the speakers. Without DAE, music CDs are not digitally

processed by the laptop, only amplified. So if you have an older

laptop and the sound card functions for everything except for

music CDs, the problem is related to the player, not to the sound

system. Check under the properties tab for the DVD/CD player

and change the setting for “Enable digital CD audio” as a test.

One hint that CDs are being played digitally is that the CD drive

may spin up and down while playing music, rather than staying

spun up at it’s slowest and quietest speed. Some people disable

digital CD audio for that reason, if the laptop supports the old

fashioned hard wired CD connection as well.

OS sounds? In Windows, the basic "Sounds" menu is found in

Control Panel. Sound events that have little speakers next to

them are enabled. Enable sounds for some actions that you

recognize (like "exit program" or "minimize") and see if your

speakers work now. Note that Windows sounds don't need to be

enabled for music CDs, videos, Internet phone or radio or games

to be heard. We’re just working through the possible problems

by process of elimination.

Voice-in problem? Is your problem with the microphone? Check

that you have the mic in the proper port. If you are doing speech

recognition, you should purchase a quality noise cancellation

mic, and go through the calibration and testing procedures your

software will support. If you still have a sound quality problem,

you may need to bypass your built-in sound card with a USB

microphone or plug in PC card sound.

Mixer muted, driver? Make sure that the microphone isn't

muted in the software mixer panel. Check Device Manager for

any problems, and if there are any warnings ("!", "?", "i") next to

the sound card, reinstall the driver. If the mute box is unchecked

and there isn't a driver problem, try the microphone on another

audio device and replace it if it's bad. The female audio

connector or jack for the mic in laptops can easily get broken or

Do music

CD’s play?

sounds?

Voice-in

problem?

Mixer

muted,

driver?

Troubleshooting Sound

172

deformed if the microphone cord gets pulled on or kicked, and

likewise, the conductors in the cord can be frayed or broken.

Poor recording quality? If your recordings sound poor when you

play them back, check your patch cables and jacks for loose

connections. Some cables are extremely low quality, so if you

plan to do a lot of audio work, start by getting a good set. Make

sure that your mixer settings (the software mixer panel) aren't

uneven, muting the channels you want, or simply running an

unexpected mix. Try muting any channels that aren’t

contributing to the recording, since they may be introducing

white noise. For example, if you’re recording sound from the

CD, mute the mic. Don't neglect to check the quality of the audio

source - if you're trying to record from a hissing tape or a

scratchy recording, the sound card does not automatically filter

out the unwanted noise. High end recording software does give

you the option to clean up recordings, but usually after the

recording process is complete.

Cables and hardware quality? Laptops aren’t marketed for their

ability to do studio quality sound recording, and there’s a reason

for that. For music recording, make sure the sampling rate is set

to 44 KHz, audio CD quality. Interference is always a possibility,

especially if it takes the form of loud ticking or hum. Try moving

the system to another location if you're recording near any

electrical motors or other possible sources of low frequency

interference. True audiophiles spend hundreds of dollars (or

more) on audio patch cables that could be worn as jewelry, given

the rare metals the wiring is drawn from. They also spend

hundreds of dollars on replacement USB or plug in PC sound

cards for their laptops, and although these are marketed more

for their playback rather than recording quality, you get what

you pay for.

Internet sound problem? Is your problem related to playing

Internet radio or other web based audio applications? If the

quality stinks, it's probably your connection to the Internet. If

you have a broadband (cable, DSL) connection and the quality

still stinks, it could be the ISP or website is overloaded, so try

again later on. It could also be that you're running too many

tasks at the same time or the hard drive is near full and virtual

memory is thrashing it. Check the hard drive and motherboard

diagnostics for potential performance issues.

Poor

recording

quality?

Internet

sound

problem?

Cables

and hardware

quality?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

173

Player site requires installed? Most Internet audio applications

use a third party player, such as Real Audio. These players may

or may not come preinstalled on your notebook, depending on

the manufacturer. If you get no Internet sound at all, but all

other audio applications work, either your OS and the player

software aren't getting along or you’re missing a required

CODEC. Try reinstalling the latest version of the software used

on the particular website or research the problem on Google for

your specific setup. Websites with audio content usually link to

the player site from which you can download a free copy of the

player, though you may have to register and reboot when it's

done downloading.

Game problem? There are a number of reasons the sound

quality on your system may not match your experience on

somebody else's laptop. The sound card or motherboard audio

in your laptop may be lower quality. The same goes for the

speakers, whether internal or external. You could also be picking

up interference on the speaker wires, so try routing them away

from the AC power adapter and any peripheral device

transformers. Laptop gaming sound will never compare well

with PC gaming sound unless you’ve purchased a USB or PC

card external sound adapter that supports 5.1 or 7.1 surround

sound and scattering the required speakers around the room.

Is the audio problem with an older game? Very old games

require obsolete sound card compatibility. The default settings

of IRQ=5, Address=220, DMA=5 are usually required, since the

game communicated directly with the sound card. You may be

able to force your sound card to these settings, or, when

supported by the driver, you might get by with emulating them

under the sound card setup in Device Manager. There's also the

possibility, if your game actually exits and runs in DOS mode,

that you need to have the proper drivers installed in the DOS

Startup files, config.sys and autoexec.bat. This won’t be possible

at all in newer Windows versions without a full DOS emulator

installed.

Player

site requires

installed?

Game

problem?

Troubleshooting Sound

174

175

Laptop

works on

network?

New

router or hub

on LAN?

Random

problems?

No Yes

Check crossover

(X) port wiring

Link

light lit?

Physical

layer (cables,

devices)

Copied

network

config?

No Yes

Clone setup

from good

workstation

Device

Manager

problem?

Yes No

Tried

known good

cable?

Swap cable

or check pairs,

ends

Yes

Laptop

works at new

location?

In-wall cabling

failure, limits, or

hub port

Yes

Reboot,

improper software

configuration or

bad network

adapter

User settings,

software limits,

permissions,

security

Wiggled

cable?

No Yes

Check if port

loose in laptop

Yes

Within

physical layer

limits?

Add repeaters,

re-route cables

Tried

different

port?

Yes No

If connection

stable on new

port, prior port

is failing

Fails on

traffic, # of

users?

Yes

Swap hub

for switch,

check server

utilization

Flaky

off network

also?

Motherboard

CPU/RAM

chart

Yes No

Yes

Direct

to router or

hub?

Bypass any

intermediate

network hardware,

patch in

Yes

Work

external

adapter?

Use USB, PC card or

new daughter card

Most likely

software conflicts,

virus

Problem is unlikely

network hardware if

only this laptop has

intermittent failures.

Try eliminating all other

non-essential software

tasks for testing

purposes.

No Yes

Wired LAN

Troubleshooting

If hardware

fails OS

diagnostic,

replace

daughter card

or use USB

adapter

WiFi,

modem,

audio?

Yes

Failure with

WiFi, sound or

modem, I/O card

suspect

Wired LAN Troubleshooting

176

The Laptop Repair Workbook

177

Laptop works on network? The laptop troubleshooting

procedures on the chart are pretty evenly divided between the

failure to get on the network (to the left) and the failure to stay

on the network (to the right). If the laptop can access any

network resources, servers, other workstations when the

networking cable with the RJ-45 connector is installed, it’s

getting on the network. Note that some versions of Windows

networking software display "remembered" resources, even

when the laptop can't access them, so you'll need to click on a

given resource and refresh to see if it's really available. If your

laptop gets on the network and stays on the network without any

glitches, but you can’t access certain resources or applications,

the problem is with your software settings, permissions, group

memberships or security.

WiFi, modem, audio? If you lose your dial-up modem,

integrated sound, or the ability to connect to a public WiFi

network at the same time as you lose your wired Ethernet

functionality, the problem almost certainly lies with a

communications or I/O daughter board. Check the laptop

manufacturer’s documentation or research on the Internet

before tearing the laptop apart to reseat the daughter board,

inspect it for damage, or replace it if necessary. Somebody

tripping over a cord or trying to walk off with the laptop still

cabled to the network or the telephone jack can damage the

daughter board or the motherboard connector if the ports are

mounted on the board edge.

New router or hub on LAN? Is the laptop the first workstation

on a new router or hub, being stacked or chained to existing

hub(s) in an office network? When connecting hubs or switches

with twisted pair (RJ-45 connector) cabling, whether 10BaseT ,

100BaseT or Gigabyte (1000BaseT), make sure that you either

connect to an "X" port (uplink port), or use a special crossover

cable. A crossover cable, unlike a straight through cable,

connects pins 1 and 2 on one end to 3 and 6 on the other end

and vice versa for 10BaseT and 100BaseT, and also connects

pins 4 and 5 with 7 and 8 on the other end and vice versa for

1000BaseT. When building crossover cables, you must use a

twisted pair for each named pair for noise protection. If you do

have an X or uplink port, you normally see that it is connected to

an adjacent port by a line or other symbol. You can only use one

or the other, since they are using the same physical circuitry,

with the X port making the pair reversal. Bad hubs and routers

Laptop

works on

network?

WiFi,

modem,

audio?

New

router or hub

on LAN?

Wired LAN Troubleshooting

178

or bad ports on hubs and routers are as common as bad network

adapters. Routers and hubs also have a power transformer that

needs to be plugged into a live outlet.

Link light lit? Most laptops have LEDs right next to the RJ-45

port to show the status of the link and network activity (traffic).

Green is good for a link, a blinking LED next to it indicates

traffic. No link light indicates there's a break in your physical

layer. Check the physical connectors at all points on your

network in the failed path, and make sure that you are within all

of the limits for your physical layer in terms of number of

workstations and distances. Swap the laptop's networking cable

to another port on the router or hub and see if it works.

Copied network config? If all you’re trying to do is connect

directly to a high speed Internet router in your home, the

software supplied by the phone or cable company should take

care of any networking settings for you. If your laptop is the only

computer getting attached to a new broadband Internet

modem/router, transfer to the wireless troubleshooting

flowchart and start with the “Works on Ethernet port?” symbol,

following the “No” outcome.

If you’re trying to connect to an office network, clone the

software configuration from another workstation on the network

(everything but the unique portion of the IP address, if you're

set up for TCP/IP). It's easy to make a mistake with which

protocol should be the default or with the spelling of a

Workgroup, etc. At an active workstation, go through every

option in the network setup and print screen every page and sub

page that comes up. Keep it around for future reference when

you run into networking problems with a similar workstation. If

this is the first workstation on the network, or the second on a

peer-to-peer, go with the defaults and make use of the operating

system's built-in troubleshooter, at least in Windows versions.

After making changes, go through a full reboot.

Device Manager problem? Does the Device Manager see the

network adapter and report it to be working properly? If not, try

reinstalling the driver and rebooting. In Windows, start by

deleting the existing network adapter in Device Manager. If

Windows doesn’t find the adapter and reinstall a driver when

you reboot, it’s probably failed. Check that the CMOS settings

are restored to their defaults. If the network adapter is

Link

light lit?

Copied

network

config?

Device

Manager

problem?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

179

integrated on a replaceable daughter board that you can get

cheaply, it might be worth opening up the laptop, but otherwise,

replace it with a USB or PC card network adapter.

Tried known good cable? Even if the link light is lit, it doesn't

mean your cable is capable of carrying network traffic. An

incredible number of techs make these cables wrong out of sheer

laziness or ignorance. Don't say, "But it's a new cable!" Four

conductors are actually used for normal implementations

10BaseT and 100BaseT, and the wiring is straight through, 1-1,

2-2, 3-3, 6-6. Pins 1 and 2 and pins 3 and 6 must each use a

twisted pair, or the longer runs will fail and shorter runs will act

unpredictably. Gigabit, or 1000BaseT cables, use all 4 pairs,

with 4-4, 5-5 adding one pair and 7-7, 8-8 adding the other. In

addition, visually inspect connectors to make sure they are solid

and wired properly (shared pairs listed above). Squint into the

transparent connector and try to take note of the color coding

for each pin. Then go look at the other end of the cable and

make sure that the color coding is the same, AND that a pair (i.e,

blue, blue stripe) is used for the pair 1 and 2, 3 and 6, etc.

Laptop works at new location? Take the laptop to another

workstation location and steal the networking cable out of that

computer. If you get right on the network, that tells you that the

physical link to the location where it failed is bad. That could be

the patch cable, the in-wall wiring, or the port on the hub it

connects to. If it doesn't work at the new location, this tells you

the problem is either the network adapter or the software

configuration. If there's a USB network adapter floating around

the office you can try, by all means give it a shot, but the

software settings are more often the culprit. Make sure the

driver is up-to-date and the correct version for the OS, make

sure that you have cloned all the settings (except the machine

name or final IP address) from a working machine, and try

going through the OS troubleshooting steps.

Random problems? Are your network access problems of a

random or intermittent nature? Check for loose connectors. It's

very easy to install a RJ-45 connector improperly or fail to crimp

it tightly enough to hold to the cable such that it loosens up with

just a minor physical movement. The problem might also be

interference somewhere in the cable run. Make sure the cable

isn’t running directly over your ham radio set or other strong RF

emitters. You could be experiencing software conflicts with

Tried

known good

cable?

Laptop

works at new

location?

Random

problems?

Wired LAN Troubleshooting

180

other processes on the laptop. You can try eliminating all tasks

except the minimal network configuration and do some large file

movements to see if the hardware layer is solid. In an office

environment, occasional problems are often due to loading of

the network, a traffic jam.

Wiggled cable? Try wiggling the network cable very close to the

laptop port while keeping an eye on the link LED. If the link

LED winks when you’re moving the cable and is steady

otherwise (make sure you don’t mistake a traffic LED for a link

LED as the traffic LED’s are always winking), either the

connector on the cable end or the port in the laptop has a loose

connection. If you’re lucky, it’s the cable. If not, you can try to

resolder the RJ-45 connector inside the laptop if you know what

you’re doing, but it’s safer to just buy a USB network adapter

and use that instead. The killer for networking ports on laptops

is when the user forgets the cable is connected and tries to walk

away with the laptop.

Within physical layer limits? Are you within the physical layer

limits for your network? This applies to both wired and wireless

networks. Don't go by the number in the IEEE standard, use the

limit in the router, hub, switch or repeater documentation. Be

aware that the distance limitations are based on a normal

operating environment with the proper cabling or antennas

installed. If your cables are made wrong, routed poorly, or are

low quality, the limits will be reduced. Rerouting cables, adding

repeaters (amplifiers) or eliminating sources of interference can

increase the reach of your network.

Tried different port? There's no rule that says router and hub

ports should have to fail all at same time, so try a different port,

even if you have to disconnect somebody else for a minute. It

could also be that the cable end plugged into the hub wasn't

crimped on as tightly as it could have been, causing the

performance of the link to be dependent on the exact position of

the cable, an unacceptable situation.

Fails on traffic, # of users? Does the problem, be it lost

connections, slow performance or anything else, occur during

periods when network traffic is high or a large number of users

are logged on? There are many reasons a network can bog down

or have trouble in high traffic or high user count situations,

including the natural limitations of the technologies being used.

Wiggled

cable?

Within

physical layer

limits?

Tried

different

port?

Fails on

traffic, # of

users?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

181

In general, if you are using a passive hub in a business or

educational environment, you can greatly increase your network

performance during high traffic periods by swapping the hub for

an active switch. Also, if you are running a hybrid LAN, with a

mix of 10BaseT and 100BaseT and 1000BaseT adapters, you

should think about upgrading them all to 1000BaseT, providing

the cable plant is all Cat 5 and you haven't scavenged the

previously unused pairs for some kludge.

Flaky off network also? If your laptop suffers from random lockups,

data corruption or poor performance when you aren’t

connected to the network, you’ve started troubleshooting in the

wrong place. Start with motherboard, CPU and RAM failure if

the problem is lock-ups, but you should follow through the

overheating and hard drive troubleshooting flowcharts as well.

Direct to router or hub? If you’re in a home or small business

networking environment, bypass any repeaters and hubs and

don’t use a port replicator or docking station until you solve the

problem. In a larger networking environment, you might try

sneaking the laptop into the wiring closet and patching it

directly into the hub with a short cable if all else fails. Check for

physical cable damage on your patch cable. The sheathing on the

Cat 5 cables is thin and the inner conductors can be easily

broken if the cable is stretched or crimped.

Work external adapter? If bypassing the laptop’s built-in

networking adapter with a USB or PC card networking adapter

cures the random drops, just keep using the replacement

adapter. If it doesn’t cure the problem, either you have some

other hardware issue that only manifests itself when you’re

running certain networking tasks, or the problem is of the

malware/software corruption variety.

Flaky

off network

also?

Direct

to router or

hub?

Work

external

adapter?

Wired LAN Troubleshooting

182

183

Keyboard,

Pointer and

USB

Pointer

problem?

PS/2

mouse?

Buttons

working?

Check function

assignments,

hardware

Yes

No Yes

Bad

touchpad

control?

Software

settings or

practice.

Yes

Check legacy

port enabled,

clean or replace

mouse

Device

Manager

OK?

Tried new

driver?

Try device solo.

Re-install driver with

single device

attached Cable

swapped,

port?

Swap cable,

swap USB port

Peripheral device

problem, hardware or

peripheral software, try

reinstall, reboot

Yes

All USB

2.0?

Some

peripherals

require USB 2.0

or 3.0 for speed,

higher power

Connect direct

to laptop USB

Use other port,

use USB hub or

PC card, resolder

Dead

touchpad?

Check enabled in

OS, replace or use

USB pointer

IBM pointer or

trackball, check

internal connection,

replace or bypass

Hub,

dock station,

replicator?

USB port

loose?

Keyboard

problem?

Yes

No Total

failure?

Remove

keyboard, check

ribbon connector.

Try USB or

external PS/2

Yes

Dead or

trick key?

Remove key,

check for

blockage

Yes

Repairable,

save clip if

possible

Key fell

off?

Yes

Hot, fails

after time?

Overheating

Chart

Yes

Software settings issue. See

hardware profiles for setting

special key functions, repeat rate,

defaults for lock keys

Yes No

No Yes

Yes No

USB

hardware

failure

Yes

Keyboard, Pointer and USB

184

The Laptop Repair Workbook

185

Pointer problem? Is the problem with your touchpad, IBM style

pointer, trackball, mouse or graphics tablet? The touchpad is the

pointing device for the vast majority of laptops being sold today.

If your problem is with the keyboard, any USB devices or

peripherals, continue to the right.

Buttons working? Do the buttons for your touchpad, on your

mouse, or in the palm rest area if you have an IBM style

keyboard pointer, select or activate the text or controls on

screen? If neither button works, either the software assignments

for the button actions are set to do something other than you

assume, or there’s a hardware problem. Find the controls for the

button functions for your pointer, usually accessed through a

system tray icon in Windows and always available through

Control Panel. If the buttons are enabled and set to do the

normal functions, shut down and check CMOS Setup on reboot

to make sure they aren’t disabled there. If everything is correct

in software and they don’t work, it’s likely that the cable to the

touchpad or pointer has come undone and you’ll have to remove

the keyboard if you want to check it. Alternatively, you can

switch to a USB pointing device, like a mouse or tablet.

If one button works and the other doesn’t, try reversing the

assignments for the buttons, changing from left-handed to righthanded,

and see if the functioning button changes. If it does, the

problem is that the software assignments for the button that

doesn’t work simply don’t match the action you thought it

would. However, if the functioning button doesn’t change, it’s a

genuine hardware failure of that button, which you’d have to

replace if you really need it and don’t want to work with a USB

replacement pointer or mouse.

Bad touchpad control? Nearly all problems with controlling the

pointer through the touchpad are due to the software settings. If

you keep launching applications you don’t intend to when trying

to move the pointer on screen, or if you get crazy scrolling or

system prompts for actions you aren’t trying to carry out, odds

are the touchpad is set up for various shortcuts. Touchpads offer

a serious array of shortcuts through touching the corners of the

pad, moving your finger along the side, tapping, any specially

recognized action the programmers could think of. You can turn

off all these enhanced functions in the touchpad controls so it

does nothing but move the screen pointer along with your

Pointer

problem?

Buttons

working?

Bad

touchpad

control?

Keyboard, Pointer and USB

186

fingertip, or you can familiarize yourself with the controls that

appear useful and keep them.

Dead touchpad? If you get no action at all from the touchpad,

the first thing to do is to plug in a USB mouse so you can

navigate through the operating system without having to resort

to the <Tab>, spacebar and arrow keys. Check the touchpad

properties in Windows, first making sure that it is enabled, and

then checking the hardware profile to see if Windows reports

that it is operating properly. If Windows sees a problem, power

down and restart the laptop, then enter CMOS Setup and make

sure the touchpad hasn’t been disabled. Finally, check the

manufacturer’s website to see if an updated driver is available. If

everything is as correct as you can make it in software, it’s

possible that the touchpad itself has failed or the connector has

worked loose thanks to all the vibrations from typing. If you can

find a good illustrated guide specific to your model for removing

the keyboard and gaining access to the touchpad, you can check

the connections and decide if you want to try replacing it.

PS/2 mouse? We’re including any type of mouse port mouse

here, one that plugs into a little circular port which is normally

green, as opposed to USB. If the pointer doesn’t move on screen

and the buttons don’t work, check the connection and make sure

it’s enabled in CMOS Setup. If it still does nothing, try another

mouse. If the pointer works in one direction only, horizontal or

vertical, the mouse just needs the lint cleaned off the little roller

bars inside. If the buttons don’t work, check the software

assignments for the buttons, and if they are correct, replace the

mouse.

If you have an IBM style pointer or a trackball and you’re having

problems with the buttons, go back up to the first decision

diamond in this tree and read the troubleshooting for the “No”

answer to “Buttons clicking?” If the little foam cover on the

pointer is loose, you can get a bag full of replacements online. If

the pointer wanders off in one direction when you’re not

touching it, check if there’s a recalibration option included with

the pointer software. If not, you can try over working it in the

opposite direction to see if it was just a little sprung, but it is a

failure mode with pointers and joysticks, and it may have to be

replaced.

Dead

touchpad?

PS/2

mouse?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

187

Keyboard problem? The diagnostic path to the right is for

problems with built-in laptop keyboard. Any problems with an

externally attached keyboard, continue down to USB

troubleshooting, or if it’s a PS/2 keyboard, replace the thing for

a couple bucks!

Total failure? Is the keyboard completely useless, to the point

that you can’t even access CMOS Setup before the operating

system launches? The first thing to do is to try a cheap external

USB keyboard, just to find out if the problem is really your

integrated keyboard, or a laptop that is ignoring all user input. If

the laptop boots and the touchpad still works to navigate in the

operating system, either the keyboard connector has vibrated off

the motherboard, or you have a hardware failure. Since traveling

with an extra keyboard defeats the point of owning a laptop for

many people, it’s worth finding a good photo illustrated guide

online to replacing the keyboard for your exact model, opening

up the laptop and redoing the keyboard connector. At that time,

you can decide if you want to gamble on a replacement keyboard

membrane if redoing the connector doesn’t work. If an external

PS/2 keyboard works on the special keyboard port, the keyboard

controller on the motherboard is good, but if only a USB

keyboard works, a replacement membrane is a real gamble.

Dead or trick key? Does a single key malfunction on a regular

basis, or all of the time? If it’s gotten to the point that you can’t

work with the integrated keyboard and always use a detached

USB or PS/2 keyboard, you have nothing to lose in prying off the

key and checking if it’s gunked up by hair, food crumbs or

anonymous gudge. Using a butter knife or a fine pair of needle

nose pliers, you should be able to unhook the plastic clip from

the key once you pry it up a little, rather than tearing it off and

hoping for the best. If the clip was being interfered with, the key

will work fine when you replace it. It’s an excruciatingly

frustrated job for the uninitiated because it involves working

blindly to re-catch the clip inside the key. If the key behavior

doesn’t change, the failure is in the domed membrane contact,

and the only cure is to replace the whole membrane, which you

buy (thankfully) with the keys attached. If you aren’t a touch

typer, you can download a software key remapper, which allows

you to change the functionality of keys. That way, if you’ve lost

your “A” key, you can change one of the top Function or special

Windows keys into the new “A” for when you use the laptop on

the road.

Keyboard

problem?

Total

failure?

Dead or

trick key?

Keyboard, Pointer and USB

188

Key fell off? A couple of the larger keys, including the space bar,

and sometimes the <shift> keys, <enter> and <backspace>, can

use metal wire spring clips. These aren’t as hard to replace as

individual keys, and you may even find them for sale

individually if you spend enough time searching the web for

parts for your exact model. All of the other keys are retained by

small plastic clips that hold the keys by inserting the clip ends in

tiny holes or channels under the key. There’s very little spring

force involved, the plastic has just enough strength to keep the

clip ends engaged with the key.

Sometimes a key falls off because a little foreign matter has

gotten underneath and eventually worked its way into the hole

or channel, releasing the end of the clip. The clip will be

undamaged, you just have to clean out the key, study the

latching mechanism to figure out how it’s supposed to go on,

and replace the key with a great deal of patience. However, if a

key is ripped off the keyboard and the plastic clip is damaged,

the odds of getting the key back on in a working state are much

reduced. Your best bet, rather than shopping for a replacement

clip, is shopping for a junk laptop from the same model family.

If you find one cheap, you can decide between trying to swap

keyboards (the junk laptop keyboard may have its own

problems), or scavenging a clip from it. You can also download a

software keyboard remapper as mentioned in the dead key

troubleshooting.

Hot, fails after time? The keyboard itself shouldn’t generate any

heat, so the problem is due to overheating below the keyboard

that’s coming right through. Since the keyboard takes up the

majority of the top surface area of the laptop, it’s not that

uncommon of a problem. You should start by researching

complaints about overheating with your model on the Internet

to see if it’s a “normal” problem and if there are any trick

solutions. Otherwise, see the troubleshooting flowchart for

overheating.

If you’re getting extra characters while you type, yet the key isn’t

physically sticking (what we’d call a trick key), the problem is

often in software, with the typomatic repeat control. You can try

changing the repeat rate settings for the keyboard in Windows

Control Panel, and sometimes there’s a hardware control in

CMOS Setup as well. But if it only happens with one key, and

cleaning doesn’t help, it could be the membrane is faulty or just

Key fell

off?

Hot, fails

after time?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

189

worn out. But try an external keyboard before jumping to

conclusions, just to make sure it isn’t a software setting.

Hub, dock station, replicator? Is the USB device you are having

trouble with plugged in through a USB hub, a docking station or

a port replicator? If so, connect it directly to a USB port on the

laptop and if it still doesn’t work, continue the troubleshooting

process to the right. If your USB ports on the laptop work fine,

but your powered USB hub, docking station or port replicator

doesn’t work, you may be dealing with bad hardware, or the

software may not be functioning properly. If the device is plugn-

play, and the operating system doesn’t require any third-party

software to be installed for it to operate, than the hardware itself

is probably at fault. If it does require software drivers, make sure

you’ve downloaded the latest version from the manufacturer of

the device on the Internet.

Device Manager OK? Windows Device Manager will list all of

the USB hardware the laptop recognizes, host controllers and

root hubs. Make sure to disconnect any external USB devices

before checking. Make sure that USB is enabled in CMOS Setup.

If there is a warning symbol, when you click on that USB device,

you may still see the message “This device is working properly”,

but go through the Windows troubleshooting anyway. Either the

driver software is corrupted or there’s a problem with the

hardware. In the advanced properties for the USB port in

Windows Device Manager, there may be an option to rollback

the driver to a previous version. This is always worth trying,

especially if the USB port stopped working after an automated

Windows update.

Tried new driver? You can try to delete the USB device in Device

Manager, shut down the laptop, and Windows should re-detect

it and install the driver again when the laptop reboots. If you did

locate a new driver for the USB ports on the manufacturer’s

website and it didn’t correct the Device Manager error, the

motherboard USB has likely failed. If the ports are reported

healthy in Device Manager until you connect an external USB

device, that external device must be bad.

As long as one USB port still works, you can use an inexpensive

external USB hub to attach multiple USB peripherals. You can

also purchase one of those poorly named PC cards for your

Hub,

dock station,

replicator?

Device

Manager

OK?

Tried new

driver?

Keyboard, Pointer and USB

190

laptop that will host a number of USB ports that bypass the

motherboard USB entirely.

All USB 2.0? Many newer peripherals require USB 2.0 to

function, especially high speed devices like external hard drives

and DVD recorders. While most USB devices can still operate in

a backwards compatible mode with USB 1.1, this functionality

will slowly go away as USB 1.1 ports disappear with obsolete

computers. USB 3.0 is just pushing into the market, but USB 3.0

devices should remain backward compatible with USB 2.0 for a

long time to come.

Some laptops came with a mix of USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 ports. If

you are having trouble with a high speed USB device, make sure

you are using it on a USB 2.0 port, and if you aren’t sure all of

your ports are 2.0 or which is which, just try the device on the

other ports. If you are getting write errors with an external hard

drive, or any time-out related errors with any USB device that

works intermittently, make sure that power management isn’t

cutting the USB power to the port. The USB Root Hubs in

Device Manager have a Power Management option, the default

setting for which in Windows is to allow Windows to turn off the

port to save power. Try changing the setting.

USB port loose? If the USB port feels loose in the laptop and you

are having problems with the devices connected, you should

stop using it. The solder connections may have broken or the

port itself may have been bent or the metal distorted from

somebody yanking or tripping over an attached USB cord. If you

have advanced soldering skills and you really need the port, you

can dissemble the laptop to resolder or replace it. But there are

so many other options, from adding an external USB hub on a

working USB port, to a docking station, port replicator or PC

card solution, that trying to fix the physical failure of a port isn’t

usually necessary.

Cable swapped, port? USB cables, like all cables, come in a

variety of qualities. The USB scheme is very simple, the four

conductor cable includes a signaling pair (the serial bus), a

power supply and a ground. But a poorly made cable or one

made for a USB device you purchased ten years ago and found

in a drawer may not be up to working with a high speed drive,

printer, etc. Never give up on a USB peripheral without trying it

with a USB cable rated for the speed of the device, ie, USB 2.0 or

All USB

2.0?

USB port

loose?

Cable

swapped,

port?

The Laptop Repair Workbook

191

USB 3.0 (also called High Speed). You should always try the

peripheral not only on multiple USB ports as well, but on

another laptop or PC with working USB ports.

USB is very solid technology, and the majority of the problems

you’ll have with USB peripherals are with the software that does

or doesn’t accompany them. Many USB devices are plug-n-play

with the newer versions of Windows, but that doesn’t mean they

will work with older versions of Windows without a special

driver download, if at all. You may also have to install special

drivers for your Linux or Mac OS system. Also, pay attention to

any error conditions displayed with LED’s on your USB

peripherals. You don’t want to call in a technician or start

replacing hardware when the problem is a printer paper jam, a

dead inkjet cartridge, or an external drive with a failed

transformer.

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How to Repair a Laptop by yourself

How to Repair a Laptop by yourself

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