Three notebook repair in Nov.2012

1. DELL Inspiron
29/Oct/2012
"HDD not found"
Cannot boot the system

Dell's design is quite disgusting, you could only replace the memory from back panel but not HDD.
The HDD is directly fixed on motherboard. After I unmounted the HDD and connect it to my laptop. My laptop could not identify it, totally broken down. The customer said there is no sensitive data in that HDD, no need to do data recovery.

The rests is simple. Buy a brand new HDD, replace the broken one and install OS.

2. Lenovo V460
14/Nov/2012

Overheating issue. Auto-reboot when playing 3D games.
CPU standby Temp = 70 C
When doing pressure testing, both CPU & GPU Temp > 99 C
2 or 3 seconds later, system frozen, no response and then reboot.

Because of the heat pipe radiator is embedded on motherboard, I must disassemble the machine.

Clean and reapply thermal grease.

3. Asus K42Jc (My own laptop)
19/Nov/2012
Remove dust only

Wireless NIC

Empty chip

Reserved space for Bluetooth

Left-Right button of touchpad

Power button and a LED on the left

Heat exchanger with dust

Heat exchanger without dust

Fan

CANNON PG-510 Printer Cartridge Refill

Printer: Cannon MP280
Color ink printer & scanner

Third party ink (black)

20ml

Could refill 2.6 times for my printer cartridge
So, it is easy to calculate the capacity of cartridge:

20 / 2.6 = 7.7 ml

I also brought a larger ink tank from China:
150 ml

150 / 7.7 = 19.5 times

WOW!

There is an air vent on the cartrige but it is too narrow for the injecter. Expand/Ream it.

And tear off the sticker. You will see the air gateway

Prepare for injection

7ml

Done.
Paste a new sticker.

HowTo: Play League of Legends on Linux

Tested on Ubuntu 12.04, League of Legends North America server


http://youtu.be/dfrq26NsFZE

Step 1: Install Wine1.4 and Winetricks

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa

(adds ppa repository of wine)

sudo apt-get update

(updates the database/list)

sudo apt-get install wine1.3

(installs wine1.4)

sudo apt-get install winetricks

(installs winetricks)



Step 2: Install Winetricks Extra Components

winetricks vcrun2005

(installs visual c++ 2005)

winetricks wininet

(installs inet)

winetricks ie6

(installs internet explorer 6)

winetricks d3dx9

(installs directx 9)

winetricks corefonts

(installs several windows fonts)

winetricks adobeair

(installs adobe air)

Step 3: Change Wine1.4 Settings to "Windows 7"

winecfg

(opens wine config)

Then, change the Windows Version Setting to "Windows 7"

Step 4: Move a Previous Install of LoL

You should place the folder (Riot Games) into the following location:
(/home/[USER]/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/)

Make sure you replace [USER] with the correct name.
ALSO, .wine is sometimes hidden from view, so you may have to find it.

Now that you have completed the above tasks, you will now have to open the LoL Launcher. To do that, you will have to type the following two lines of code into a terminal every time you want to play LoL.

cd "/home/[USER]/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/Riot Games/League of Legends/RADS/system"

(changes directory to where you have LoL folder installed)

WINEDEBUG=+ntdll wine "rads_user_kernel.exe" run lol_launcher $(ls ../projects/lol_launcher/releases/) LoLLauncher.exe

(runs program under debug mode)

(make sure to replace [USER] with the correct name)

If everything is okay, you could also write a script to do that
(Please ignore "optirun" section in the command because I have special video driver)

Enjoy the game.

Special thanks to:

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=1946188

Mac book Pro Repair: Replace Keyboard & Touch Pad

[Note: disassembling Mac Book Pro requires specific tools and much more patients.]

This is a 2008 Mac Book Pro (Warranty expired). Dropped to the stairs by the customer. Screen and HDD are okay, but the touch pad cracked and "SDFGHJKL;" on the keyboard didn't work.

Time to work.

Open the back cover

Layout of components

Dusts at outlet

Remove the battery. Now I can access the touch pad. But for the keyboard, more work must be done.

Hitachi HDD

Disconnect all cables

Remove speakers.

Remove DVD-ROM

The mother board.

Need to unscrew the screw to remove this triangle.

Tiny x86/x64 mother board.

The keyboard is behind this plastic mask. This mask is used to reflect the keyboard LED back light.

New keyboard & touch pad from eBay.

Ready.
Lots of screws to work.

They are very small, tiny. Be careful.

Due to there are various types of screws. I wrapped them in paper and draw an assemble map.

There is a small gap on old keyboard panel while the new one doesn't. A grindstone can fix it!