Inside "Bahamut"...

Well I decided that I would have a tech blog, not about a game or console, but on a rather unsung hero of our household. My laptop (which has always had the name Bahamut after the legendary dragons in the Final Fantasy series, my old Equium was called Behemoth and my old netbook was known as Highwind, its a kind of tradition to name things after Final Fantasy characters or creatures) was feeling and looking a bit poorly, and after 4 years of faithful and loyal service it is understandable that a few things were starting to get a bit worn out or had even stopped working altogether.

I will admit that this year, I have thrown a lot of time and money towards this device. I mean, the first things to replace were chargers (they do tend to wear out, especially when you take your laptop out) and I needed to replace the battery (again because I use my laptop here, there and everywhere). Considering the internal work that needed to be done (the power button board was worn and the mouse control was a bit poor these days, funny thing was once I had it all functional again, I had forgotten just how much I compensated for it!), those repairs were fairly minor.

So for a laptop repair, obviously the first task is to actually get inside of it. Often, laptops have veneer plates that cover the screws that hold the keyboard down and the screws under the keyboard (which have to be undone to get inside the machine), on my particular laptop (a Toshiba Satellite L500-1XL) the veneer plate was directly above the keyboard. Once I had taken that up, I was able to get at the small screws that held down the keyboard, undo the catch that holds the ribbon for the keyboard in place (sometimes it lifts up, other times it slides out) as well as releasing the ribbons for the power button and mouse button boards. Once everything was undone, here came the fun part. Lifting away the top casing, that gave access to the motherboard, processor, and the screws to release the (also broken) optical drive which I replaced and refitted a new, working drive.

Now, luckily nothing was wrong with the motherboard, hard drive or the RAM, so that in itself was a relief and saved me a lot of worry about repairs to the more vital workings. One thing I did need to do, however was carefully cleaning out the cooling fan as, again is understandable after 4 years, it had become a bit clogged up with dust and the kind of debris that only comes with 4 years of work. My attention could be turned to something a little more pressing.



I had to get a couple of really specific parts, a mouse button board and a power button board. These were incredibly simple to get hold of for the make and model and they weren't too expensive either so repairs could be done quickly and easily, all I really had to do was screw the parts down and connect them via their ribbons to the motherboard. In all, I think the entire process took me less than an hour and after testing that everything was back where it should be and functioning I was soon sorted and ready to go, very pleased with myself. Now I have made this laptop very much my own and had a LOT of fun doing so.

Loves
Wendy xx