Geekery wins at the Murkworks

[annathepiper]

Some women go PMSy. Me, I apparently go Synthroidal. Bad night tonight--I just pretty much flipped out, slammed doors, even screamed at the bird. I'm pretty much sure this is because of my thyroid issues, since although I've had stressy things happen to me this week, my reactions have been way out of proportion to the actual events. Which means it's a damned, damned good thing that I'm due to have another chat with my endoc this coming Wednesday, because I'll need to tell her about this. This ain't acceptable. So I need to figure out what to do long-term--whether this means I need to tweak my Synthroid dosage, look at some other form of the drug, or what. I feel in a really weird space right now, mentally too wound up but physically not wound up enough, if that makes sense.

In the meantime, my beloved solarbird petted my head and hugged me a lot tonight. spazzkat gently suggested I have a nice relaxing bath. What we wound up doing, however, was laptop surgery.


My Fujitsu Lifebook's been having this really annoying problem lately with the power jack. As I've mentioned in the past, I'm really hard on my tech, and I'll invariably trip over my laptop's power cord or pull on it when I'm shifting positions or whatever. With all the usage it's had, the jack eventually started feeling really loose. This caused the cord to get into this state where it wouldn't solidly connect at all unless I was pressing it in, or unless I had it at exactly the right angle. And then not even consistently working all the time then.

I'd been told by a guy on Fujitsu's support line that if I wanted to send it in, I'd have to ship it to their US headquarters--in Memphis. Ugh. And they'd charge me a hundred dollar diagnostic fee. Also ugh. Now, granted, they'd wave this fee if I chose to let them go ahead with any repairs, but he said it'd cause something like four or five hundred dollars to replace the motherboard. So since we have the specter of hospital bills looming over us, I wasn't exactly eager to send my laptop off across the country for days unknown. Not to mention that, well, I gotta write and stuff.

So in the interests of giving me something constructive to do tonight and getting at least one thing stressing me out dealt with, Dara and I tackled the problem of whether we could fix my laptop ourselves. This involved her Googling for "fujitsu lifebook s6210 disassembly" on her own laptop, which in turn led her to a thread on a forum somewhere that told us that apparently, this jack thing is a very common problem on Fujitsu laptops. Other people have had repeated issues with this, due to a design flaw with the jack. And other geek types have tackled the problem of taking the boxes apart to fix it themselves rather than send it off to a repair place that'd charge way more than the effort was worth.

And that led us here, to this guy's step-by-step, detailed effort fixing his own Fujitsu laptop. It was a different model than mine, but almost identical in the general arrangement of components, so we were still able to follow his instructions clearly and get the job done. Dara did some of the finer work of unscrewing and un-tabbing more delicate parts of the box, as well as the actual soldering required. Turns out the issue is that the badly designed AC jack is held onto its board only by a bit of solder, which easily wears away. So Dara got more solder on it, and although she was leery about not being able to properly test it before we put the box back together, we gave it a shot.

We had to take it apart and put it back together at least partially two more times--one because the LCD panel above my keyboard hadn't been properly reconnected the first time, so none of the symbols were showing up, and the second time through when the panel hadn't been properly popped back into place on one side.

Dara also did one clever, simple little thing: she stuck a bit of velcro on the top of the laptop case and another around the power cord, so now I can tuck the cord out of the way and give it a bit of support. So hopefully any further stresses won't be so much of a burden on the actual jack. We'll see what happens.

I'm now typing on the third time around and everything seems okay now. The laptop is functioning and I am calmer. Tired and drained, but calmer.

Geekery is the win. And so is my lifemate.

Comments

[firni.livejournal.com]

Interesting. The part on P's Fujitsu that went belly-up ended up being the monitor, not the power port.

[annathepiper]

What died with the monitor? Did it just go dark?

My previous laptop, the Compaq Presario, had all those hinge problems I've whined about before. The Fujitsu at least doesn't have that problem. ;)

[firni.livejournal.com]

The monitor got these weird lines in it down near the bottom. I think eventually it just went kaput. This was years ago. He replaced it with an HP laptop and then another HP laptop (I got the first HP after he dropped it and broke the CD drive, thanks!)

[annathepiper]

Huh, funky. I've had this Fujitsu for a couple of years now, and the monitor so far is holding strong. It's one of the big things I like about it, it's marvelously clear.

[firni.livejournal.com]

I think P got his back around the time I got preggo, so ... at least seven years ago.

[annathepiper]

Okay, so I may have a while with mine yet. Here's hoping. :)

[firni.livejournal.com]

Note: the monitor crapped out FIVE years ago.

[annathepiper]

Heh, meaning mine may just up and croak if I sneeze on it too hard. ;) Here's hoping it continues to behave, anyway! Dara and I figured out how to fix the power cord problem, but I don't think we'd have nearly as much luck with the screen.

[firni.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he ended up being able to use it for a while, attached to an external monitor, so it wasn't the video card.

Not sure what happened after that. He goes through laptops the way he goes through pie.

[annathepiper]

I'm on my... let's see. My fourth laptop, I think. My previous was the Compaq Presario. Before that, I had a Sharp. Before that, I had a NEC. Before that, I go clear back to my first computer, the Amiga!

I've gone through many more pies. ;)

[borntofr4g.livejournal.com]

Whoa whoa whoa, what goes wrong with Presarios again?

*using one right now to type this and now mildly distressed*

[annathepiper]

I don't know if this is still a problem, mind you, with the more recent models--I got mine back in 1996 or so. But the issue was that the hinges that hold the screen up eventually gave way. I had to replace one or the other on mine two or three times, and it took looking up on the Internet where I could find the replacement part.

Fortunately I was also able to find step by step instructions on how to take the machine apart and actually do the replacement, but it was still a pain to have to do.

[borntofr4g.livejournal.com]

Oooooh, okay. I got mine in 2005-2006 or so, so I'm guessing I'm fine?

I didn't know that the same model comp could get produced for so long...Innards are probably different, but still...

[annathepiper]

I haven't followed the current models, so while I'd like to hope you'll be fine with your Presario, your guess is as good as mine. But it couldn't hurt to keep an eye on your screen usage. And be careful with how you open up the box. Try not to grab it by the hinges. That's the part that always did me in, I think.

[borntofr4g.livejournal.com]

I always grab it by the outside edge of the screen, myself.

[annathepiper]

Good plan! :)

[caligogreywings.livejournal.com]

Ya know, I had a moment tonight as well. I've been seriously suffering from a bout of insomnia, of increased hunger, and tonight, I just... got really depressed and pissy at the same time.

I guess it's the time of year? I'd say we should all have a thyroid convention but I think we'd end up killing each other.

[annathepiper]

Yeah, really. And when the zombies come and we all join the hordes of the shambling undead, and our companions are groaning "BRAAAAAAAAAAINS", we'll be the ones yelling "THYYYYYYYYRRROOOOOOOIIIID" instead.

[caligogreywings.livejournal.com]

IODIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE lol

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

My old Dell did the same thing - same bad design too. It was past warranty, and the guy at the shop said it wouldn't be worth how much it would cost to fix. So go you two for the surgery!!!

I've never had any emotional response to Synthroid, sounds like I should be glad. :-P Of course, the Prednisone I'm taking right now makes me like a hyperactive 12-year-old with PMS; Monday the dose gets halved and hopefully the effect will be less crack-like.

[annathepiper]

I don't know if it's the Synthroid itself or not taking the right amount or what. Guh. I'll be asking my endoc about it, and about some of the other possibilities available.

Hope halving your dose works okay!

[peregrine-ek.livejournal.com]

Anna, does your doctor adjust your dosage to a higher dose in the fall and winter? Because your body needs more medication in cold weather to stay warm. It sounds like that could be one of the reasons.

Also, some people have had better luck with a combination of T4 and T3 medication. I used to take compounded T3 with Levoxyl. I also had luck with Armour.

[annathepiper]

We haven't really had time enough yet to adjust my dosage to the seasons. Last year, after I had gotten onto Synthroid for the first time, I spent most of the fall months on 100mcg and then 137mcg, but we were still trying to figure out what dosage was right and weren't focusing on the season. Then I went onto 150mcg in January and have been on that since.

I've heard about the T4/T3 combo, yeah. I'll ask her what she thinks. Usually I'm okay, but I've found that if I have the slightest bit of stress in my life, I just lose it. Ugh.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

You know how my brain works. I momentarily conflated "laptop surgery" with "lapdance." ;-)

[annathepiper]

Of course you did. Heh.

[borntofr4g.livejournal.com]

Tragically, given the lack of romantic opportunities severe geeks encounter, you're probably not the only one who thinks that. =^P

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Geekery is the win. And so is my lifemate.

Yes, and yes. Cheers to solarbird (whom I'm assuming is doing well in her recovery?) and ubergeeks for teh win... :)

[annathepiper]

Minus a bit of a problem with her hearing and her sense of smell, which she's spoken with a specialist about, she's pretty much recovered. (The overall idea seems to be that the place where Dara took the clonk is among other things in charge of processing incoming sensory data, so her hearing is a bit wonky. It may take months for it to truly come back online.)