My wife and DD removed the Captive Screw from the Access Panel on laptop. New RAM installed

[Lanny]

One of several things I had on my list, if we had time to shop in Orlando, which we did not, was a "Screw Remover", so I could try, again, to remove the "Captive Screw".

 

I gave that Dell Latitude E6410 laptop to my wife, to use for Gaming. Yesterday, I told her, "if you can get the "Access Panel" off, you can destroy it.  I can buy another one, for 5 or 10 dollars, and we can replace the 4 GB of RAM with the 8 GB of RAM I bought in February.

 

When I came home yesterday, the "Access Panel" was off of the Laptop. The "Captive Screw" and a metal ring were also off. The "Access Panel" is OK.

 

With the "Access Panel" off, replacing the RAM took about 2 minutes.

 

When I left, my wife was working on it, but she said DD gets the credit. DD told me she used a Needle Nose pliers and a Knife...

 

My wife is a "Happy camper" again. She'd given her E6410 to DD, several months ago. There is a huge performance increase, between our 3   E6400 laptops and the 2   E6410 laptops, because of a Technology leap on the motherboard, the i7 CPU, etc.   Her birthday gift (things she wanted) was 2 Logitech Gaming accessories.  

 

I ran Memtest86 on the new RAM for 10 passes (16 hours) and there were no errors, so it is working properly. 

 

GIRL POWER!        :hurray:

[MercyA]

That's great, Lanny!  :thumbup1:

[El...]

I saw a t-shirt somewhere that read, "I void warranties."  I really want to get one for DH; perhaps you should get a few, too! 

[wapiti]

I let ds13 take apart dh's very old Thinkpad and our 14 y.o. Dell desktop last weekend.  Me:  "Now remember where these go for when we put it back together."  Ds:  ??  "What do you mean we're putting it back together?"

 

(eta, his computer class had him design a motherboard in blender.  At least he can identify RAM on sight.  He pronounced the two computers not good for anything because the parts were so slow and out of date.)

Edited May 15, 2016 by wapiti

[Lanny]

I saw a t-shirt somewhere that read, "I void warranties."  I really want to get one for DH; perhaps you should get a few, too! 

 

Ha LOL   I won that laptop, used, in an eBay auction and it is otherwise in Pristine condition.  I think either the Captive Screw was inserted with way too much force, in the factory, or that I did the damage. The idea is that one loosens the Captive Screw and can then remove the Access Panel. In this case, that did not work and it was very frustrating.  Fortunately, there wasn't a problem that needed fixing and it was only that we wanted to remove/replace the RAM.  

 

I may need the T shirt.   

 

BTW, in 2008, my wife "fixed" (Gerry rigged) the push in Switch on our Microwave Oven. The distributor didn't have any and I don't think the local distributor could have ordered them.  It is still working. 8 years later and I used that Microwave Oven to heat my cup of coffee, a few minutes ago.  Very frustrating when replacement parts are not available, at any price.  In 2008 it was probably less than 4 years old.

[Lanny]

I let ds13 take apart dh's very old Thinkpad and our 14 y.o. Dell desktop last weekend.  Me:  "Now remember where these go for when we put it back together."  Ds:  ??  "What do you mean we're putting it back together?"

 

(eta, his computer class had him design a motherboard in blender.  At least he can identify RAM on sight.  He pronounced the two computers not good for anything because the parts were so slow and out of date.

 

 

Being able to take it apart and then not knowing how to put it back together is known in Motorcycle circles in the USA as a "basket" case.  Mechanics love people who do that and then bring the remnants to them.

 

You can probably Download the Service Manual for any Dell computer from Dell.com   

 

My next little project is to try to figure out what is wrong with the Dell Inspiron 660s.  It is the only Desktop/Tower we have now and failed after 3 years 7 months of being powered on and used, 10 or 12 hours a day.  I think the RAM has a problem (because of 2 beeps) but that could also indicate a bad memory slot on the motherboard. Or, it could be a Thermal Shutdown. Probably not that, but possible.  I have (on this laptop) the .PDF   Dell Service Manual for the Inspiron 660s.   It is our only "Consumer" model, so it is more complicated to work on than an "Enterprise" model. 

 

It is IMO much harder to work on a computer that was designed for the "Consumer" market, because the Mechanical Engineers do not have Serviceability as a priority, as they do with models for the "Enterprise" market.  Bottom line there is that tearing anything down completely, it is hard to remember where everything goes and in which order. In addition to the Service Manual, sometimes there are YouTube Videos and web sites that detail this.

 

We have an OLD Dell Tower PC that still works. I think it is from 1997 or 1998.  I have it sitting in the office.   The last use for it was as an IPCop Linux Firewall/Router.  The hard disk drive in it is tiny (4.3 GB?) and has an issue. I think it can hold a HDD up to 7.3  GB.   Possibly with time I will find another tiny HDD for it and restore it to operation.  

 

You and your DS would probably be surprised at how many Enterprise (Corporate) customers are running old hardware to do daily tasks they can do, properly, without spending the $ for new hardware and new   software.  Microsoft discourages that...

[wapiti]

LOL his class instructor used to work at Microsoft and it was he who suggested I give ds an old tower.  Ds has an idea stuck in his head that he really wants to build a computer with an expensive gaming video card (he says it has the best price to performance ratio).  I am still hoping he'll be able to scrape up a few parts from these old machines that he could use - that's half the fun of building, IMO

 

The desktop he can put back together easily - it was the thinkpad where he wasn't paying attention (it's ok, I put it back together).  You are so right about the work laptop being easy to service though - the ram is right there on the back (we never removed the RAM, just looked) as is the wireless network card.  Keyboard is two screws and 10 seconds!

 

Our dell tower is maybe 2002-ish with a pentium 4.  What I don't understand is why it had a 400 GB hard drive (I wrecked the OS years ago trying to "fix" something LOL - could be a good opportunity to install a Linux OS).  Dh said I must be wrong but that's what it says and what the specs online say - I don't recall HDDs being that large that long ago.  But it only had a little bit of RAM - something measured in MB.  I should ask ds if he can use laptop RAM in a desktop...

 

I think there was 4 GB RAM in dh's old work thinkpad - I'd like to just replace the keyboard (another ds spilled a cup of kefir all over it a few years ago) but I'm not sure the kefir didn't somehow short-circuit the whole thing.  But, the power button is part of the keyboard; not sure I want to spring the $45 for the special keyboard if that isn't the problem turning it on.  It has an intel core 2 duo.  If we resuscitate anything it should probably be this computer because it ran Windows 7.

 

I also have an old XPS laptop laying around, heavy, 2gb ram and ran Vista but would need a new hard drive - I dropped something heavy on it and it broke years ago.  It was a really nice machine in its time.  Somewhere along the way, I stupidly allowed dh to throw out the Vista disks.  My other ds13 would like me to give it to him if we could get it running but... the trouble is that his Surface 3 already runs more stuff.  Maybe it would make a good linux project for him - I could put in the HDD from my old laptop that the first ds13 is using, the one where we replaced with an SSD a couple months ago.  It has a glitchy windows 7 but we used that product key for the new SSD so I think he should wipe it and put a new OS.  I'm not sure I can run two machines with the same windows 7 product key.

 

You are making me realize that we really do have a lot of spare parts around here.  If the motivation is building some sort of gaming rig, I just don't know how useful these old parts would be.  I need a whole extra room to store our computer graveyard.

 

And another project for another day:  the i3 dell laptop where I reinstalled windows a couple months ago - it seems to be working well, dd6 is playing on it right now, but the fan is still running constantly, loud and annoying.  Maybe it's a fan issue and I could replace that with something from another laptop.

Edited May 15, 2016 by wapiti

[Lanny]

@wapiti    My wife is a Gamer.  Her birthday was on Mothers Day and she had requested, before we went to Orlando, 2 Logitech Gaming accessories and another item. The last item will hopefully be delivered tomorrow.  

 

IF she had the funds to build a Gaming machine with an Expensive Video card, I would never suggest to her that she combine that with components from an earlier generation machine. If one is going to include an Expensive Video Card, one should, IMO, use other components of equal quality. That's what makes "Alien" (?) brand machines expensive. Expensive components make expensive machines.

 

I don't know if Windows Vista is EOL. We are mostly on Windows 7, which is not EOL and one box is Windows 8.1 which is not EOL.  Assuming Vista is not EOL, on eBay, you can probably buy a DVD so you can reinstall Windows Vista, if you have a COA with a Product Key.  I bought a DVD like that on eBay for Windows 7 and have used it on 4 different boxes so far. 

 

No, I do not believe you can run 2 boxes on one Microsoft Product Key.  I would not try that.  I have an idea, about how, when I get (eventually) another Dell Latitude E6410, that I will restore the System Image I made of the hard disk drive in the machine I just gave to my wife, and then change the Product Key, on my "new" E6410, to reflect the COA on the new E6410.    I think Microsoft would eventually detect 2 boxes on the same Product Key and at the minimum stop the Windows Updates to them.

 

Laptops are IMO more complicated to disassemble and the screws are tiny and soft.

 

The laptop keyboard that something was spilled on.  On the first E6410, I think it was on that box, eventually there was a dead key.  I bought a "New" keyboard from someone on eBay.  The "new" keyboard had far more problems than the original keyboard did.  That eBay Seller refunded my money. My wife discovered by Googling, that a lot of people were complaining about keyboard problems.  I then found another company on eBay, just North of Dallas (Richardson TX) that said they tested things, before shipping them.  I thought, if they really test everything, that is practically a guarantee it will work properly.  I bought one from them, and it does work perfectly. Bottom line: There are a lot of new keyboards that are defective. Get one with a warranty.  I think I paid about USD $22 for each keyboard on eBay. With a different model, the cost may be higher  (or lower).  

 

Those were New OEM (Dell) keyboards. One can also buy an Aftermarket keyboard.

 

On eBay I have purchased 2 or 3 used things that work pefectly from DiscountedLaptopParts in Central FL

[wapiti]

Thanks Lanny!  That's what he said - needed newer components - and that makes sense.  He would allow me to bribe him to attend a summer math camp by buying the video card except that he has nothing to attach it to yet, LOL.  I don't mind him building a gaming computer as a learning motivator except that he doesn't seem to lack for games as it is (he's the one with my old dell laptop i5, hooked up to a giant leftover monitor and keyboard, and also has his own Surface).  He's fascinated with the technology.

[Lanny]

@wapiti   IMO the project should be postponed, until he/you have the funds necessary, to buy everything, Brand New, top quality components.  The assembly will only take an hour or two, but if all the components are not top notch, it will not be a top notch gaming machine.  GL to him in the Math camp!  If he wants to attend the camp, he will benefit from it, if not, time and money wasted.