Well, I guess you do it for a living while I do it for pure enjoyment, so for me, having someone else do it doesn't help me learn any. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Darragh Ó Héiligh Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2013 2:07 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Recommendations for blind people to repair laptops Catherine, I should clarify. It's not a case of I can't do this because I can't see. It's more that I can't do this because, firstly, I couldn't be bothered, secondly, it doesn't pay very well and most importantly, I have much more interesting things to do than fiddle around with laptop hardware. It's always so small and complicated. Getting a simple screw into place even for my wife who is fully sighted is a pain. She usually gives these things to me because I don't need to worry about lighting and line of sight to get a screw into a really stupid part in a laptop. The most recent was a HP ultra-book. They tried to be smart about it by letting the screen become a tablet but of course. After about six months the whole thing became strained. HP washed their hands of the whole thing. It was the most fiddly laptop I had ever come across. Pull that, push this, snap that out, don't snap this, slide it. Push this while moving that. Absolutely stupid. I understand that they have a very small space to work in but these things are becoming very hard to maintain. Not just for people who are blind. But for everyone. I almost think the manufacturors are trying to do this deliberitly. It's one of the reasons I purchased an extended warranty from Dell plus extra ensurance for my XPS11. I know that if something goes wrong, I'd rather pay for a new machine than start opening it up. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss Sent: 23 November 2013 18:50 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Recommendations for blind people to repair laptops You don't have to hand the problem off to someone else; there are plenty of folks willing to describe the procedure to you on the internet; (join and use Bleepingcomputer.com) replacing a motherboard does take a long time, though if it's going to take us a few hours, then it may take a sighted person the same amount of time; it all depends on how complicated the vender made the procedure in the first place. Even sighted folks take a while with motherboards and processors in laptops depending on the model and vender; Toshibas are hell, though I like the brand and think that they and Dell are the best laptops you'll ever find anywhere. After all, try looking in the manual to figure out how to replace the fuser board, and if it's a soldering job, ask a sighted friend to help you. You don't need to be technical to be a good solderer. After all, what even is the fuser board, and how did you diagnose the problem,while we're at it? -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Darragh Ó Héiligh Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2013 12:43 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Recommendations for blind people to repair laptops Catherine, I've had to do a few laptop repairs over the years. I find that a magnetic screw driver is the most important tool. The screws in laptops now are tiny! Especially in the ultra portables. I've never replaced a mother board or a processor in a laptop but I've done the rest. Mouse pads, screens, keyboards, RAM, disks are of course simple, wireless network modules, Bluetooth modules, card readers. There's a fuser board gone in a laptop a few feet away from me at the moment and I haven't the first clue how I'm going to handle that. I think I'm just going to suggest that the person brings it to someone else. I'm comfortable enough at this stage to just be straight with people when I cant do something when it's a private transaction. Especially if it's going to take a few hours. I just don't have the itme or patients with it any more. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss Sent: 23 November 2013 17:37 To: 'blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org' Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Recommendations for blind people to repair laptops Hey guys, I'm big on the hardware side of the equation as well as the software side of it, so I'm wondering if you can provide some pointers on how visually impaired folks repair laptops with as little sighted assistance as possible? Desktops and servers I can usually do just fine with, though laptops are harder since every manufacturer is different, and I never want to just start taking screws out willy nilly, for I don't want to end up destroying something in the process. What do you guys usually do when a laptop has a hardware problem? Have any of you devised a method to be able to take apart laptops? I mean, sometimes it's easy to do without the diagrams by using common sense, though for example, take this Dell Latitude E6530 I have. Getting to the back of it is easily done; there is only a singular panel that needs to come off; gosh, I changed the ram out on this one without any help at all. But getting to the keyboard? I couldn't figure out that without sighted assistance if you paid me to. The manual instructs you to pry up on the medal framing around it (the entire keyboard is surrounded by aluminum), but they don't specify in a very good description where, and my CompTIA A+ certified friend can't even figure it out. And when he tried to, he had a sighted tutor with him, and the tutor couldn't figure it out without the manual. Another example is my CA. 2005 Toshiba laptop, and that thing had supposedly a dead clock battery and a dead hard drive. I'm not sure what happened, but the thing clearly died. I just had to throw it in the garbage today since it was giving off a burned electronics smell before I managed to figure out what else was wrong with it, and after replacing the clock battery and hard drive, the motherboard basically died of me and my sighted, though more hands-on than technical herself, friend and I handling it. Every sign was there, and I stopped worrying about a disconnection; since it was smelling, it had to be DOA when my friend returned it to me four years ago when it had been in his possession. But the point is, every laptop is different, and since those little wires in there are tiny, so how do we keep track of them? Those tiny slots and connectors; even my sighted friend was struggling with the Toshiba, probably part of the reason why the board fully died (before we had attempted to fix it, it was smelling bad, though the laptop was basically working, though the time was wrong and there was, of course, no OS installed). I mean, replacing a CMOS battery is of course a bigger deal on a laptop than it is on a desktop or server, so how do you go about it? Do you just leave the deep repairs to the sighted? If so, then we should change that. _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins