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Old 06-24-2016, 07:01 PM   #1
Andrew B.
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Default Wireless anti-static device

When I bought my HP laptop I purchased 3 years of onsite service. There was a tech here today. He had a wireless anti-static device. I have no idea of these actually work. His is a Shaxon Wireless Anti-static Wrist Strap.

As a side note, I watched him begin the replacement of my keyboard (one of the keys was not working all the time). What I job. He had to disassemble the whole computer. The keyboard came as a single unit combined with a mother board. Turn the computer upside down and inside you see the mother board with battery and other stuff attached. He had to remove everything on the motherboard to replace it with a new keyboard/mobo combo. I was not well enough to sit and watch the whole thing. Plus, watching him do it was making me a nervous wreck, as I imagined how I would feel trying to do it.

I also noticed one thing he did to make it easier. He drew circles on a piece of paper and grouped the screws into different circles. Some of them he labeled. And best of all, when he was done there were no screws left over.

   
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Old 06-25-2016, 06:12 AM   #2
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I also noticed one thing he did to make it easier. He drew circles on a piece of paper and grouped the screws into different circles. Some of them he labeled. And best of all, when he was done there were no screws left over.
Even after seeing that, you can't imagine what was involved in one laptop -- an Averatec -- I had in order to change or add RAM -- it came with 512MB !

Someone created a YouTube video, thank goodness, and what he did was to draw a diagram of the layout say of the what you saw on a sheet of newsprint and put a dot where there was a screw.

Then as he removed a screw he pushed it through the hole in the paper ...

I think there were 13 screws of different lengths that had to be removed to get at where the RAM was and if you put the wrong length back into a hole you risked damaging the motherboard underneath that bit!

I decided to live with the RAM .....

   
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Old 06-25-2016, 04:07 PM   #3
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OMG.

My bet? The guy who designed those GM cars that required you to pull the engine in order to change the rear sparkplugs? They canned him and he went to work designing laptops.

I've got to hand it to the Thinkpads I've owned. Replacing RAM, HDD and such has generally been somewhere between simply and ridiculously easy. ISTR one that required sliding the keyboard out after a bit of judicious prying but even that was simple enough with a little care.

   
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Old 06-26-2016, 06:35 AM   #4
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I had, I think it was a Vauxhall, where you had to pull the engine out to replace the clutch plates which was not that infrequent.

Yes, most decent brands make RAM and hard drive replacement easy enough although in the very cheapest they tend to be configured like this

Quote:

2GB system memory

Enough high-bandwidth RAM to meet the system requirements and run basic programs, but not many at once.

64GB eMMC flash storage

This ultracompact memory system is ideal for mobile devices and applications, providing enhanced storage capabilities, streamlined data management, quick boot-up times and support for high-definition video playback.
with neither configurable -- the hard drive isn't really one but just a bunch of memory chips on the motherboard.

   
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Old 06-27-2016, 06:01 AM   #5
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My first car *was* a Vauxhall. Luckily, I never had to replace the clutch plates, but the engine block was easily accessible, with lots of room around it. I helped a friend change a clutch on an MG-B, where everything was a tight fit. As I recall, we had a horrible time getting the engine back in. You had to maneuver it in at just the right set of angles and turns or it wouldn't go. I had a Triumph GT6; the whole front of the car lifted up, so pulling the engine wouldn't have been all that bad. So naturally, you had to remove the transmission from the interior of the car to get at the clutch. Gahhhhhh....

   
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Old 06-28-2016, 07:36 AM   #6
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Makes you sympathize with Motor Mechanics ... !

   
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Old 06-29-2016, 05:48 AM   #7
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Indeed. And appreciate them all the more.

OTOH, at least we *could* do quite a bit of our own mechanical work back in The Good Old Days. But when SWMBO bought a new Mazda in '85 or so, I took a look under the hood, took a long look, took it on faith that there really was an engine under all that plumbing, and took an oath never to go back in there again if I could help it.

Of course, that same engine still ran like a little sewing machine when we sold the car 25 years later.

   
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Old 06-29-2016, 06:08 PM   #8
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We are Mazda addicts -- I was still running my Mazda 2000 Protégé until a few months ago -- needs some front suspension work which I don't want to invest in at the moment so I'm using Dottie's 2002 626 ....

   
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Old 06-29-2016, 06:24 PM   #9
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We are Mazda addicts -- I was still running my Mazda 2000 Protégé until a few months ago -- needs some front suspension work which I don't want to invest in at the moment so I'm using Dottie's 2002 626 ....
I still have my 1994 Mazda 626, but usually it's my caregiver who drives me in it. It still runs great. I don't know what I'll do if it no longer passes the smog tests, which are becoming more stringent every year.

   
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Old 06-30-2016, 03:05 PM   #10
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I hear this from most other Mazda users ....

Dottie's car previous to this was a 1994 Mazda 626 she bought in Spartanburg SC just before we moved down here.

In the UK where I drove a friend's Mazda 323 Hatchback Mazda were considered the Japanese equivalent of BMW for engineering and when I moved here with Dottie I bought the last 323 Hatchback the dealer had which had been used as a demonstrator -- it really was the front end of a full size car like the Protégé but only 2 door + hatch so you didn't feel cramped at shoulder level.

With us, Dottie no longer drives so we don't need 2 cars and my Protégé unfortunately was a souped up model with low profile tires and rides like a hay cart although the other features like moon roof and a bit of extra HP are very nice.

So it's not worth spending maybe near to $1000 on fixing the front suspension and then selling the car and I'm not in a position to do any direct selling to users.

However the man we see at Mazda's service reception referred to it as a soon to be collectable and hinted he wouldn't mind having it to do up ..... so I may see if he'll offer me more than "we buy junk cars" .....

   
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