Thump

This happened last weekend, and I am just now getting around to posing about it. I dropped my PC laptop. it was sitting on a coffee table. I was stretching the power cord to plug into a wall. It pulled the lappy off the coffee table and made a horrific, crackling thud as it hit the hardwood floor. CRAP! Fortunately, the damage appears to be only cosmetic. It dented the floor and bent some plastic on the lappy. I decided to take it apart and try to bend the plastic back. The end result is that it is pretty much fixed. But not until I disassembled/reassembled the thing three times. The first time I put it back together only to find that it wouldn't power up. I had quite the case of cold sweats then. I took it apart to find that a cable had come loose. Then when I put it back together the second time, despite my meticulous attempts to keep track of all the screws, one of them got down in the guts. I didn't figure that out until I lifted the fully assembled (and working) device off the counter to hear a little metal rattle. The third time worked. By that time I felt like such an old pro that I decided to monkey around and see what it would take to replace the lid and the wireless network card. The network card I would like to upgrade from 802.11g to 802.11n. That turns out to be very easy to replace. I also would like to replace the lid. I got a big, bright yellow lid (it's an Inspiron 1720). I really like the yellow, but Dell was having a lot of problems with paint at the time they manufactured mine. Mine got worn and faded spots within a few weeks of purchase. Dell support doesn't want to replace it for me for free. I looked today and found that replacing the lid would cost $55. Probably not worth it since there is no guarantee that a new lid wouldn't be just as bad. I'll tuck that money away and use it in a year or two on a big MacBook Pro that I can dual boot.

OK, anyway, here is some open motherboard surgery pics.