Bent Pins, Lost Screws

[Robert L Cochran]

Robert L Cochran wrote:

> David Liguori wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Robert L Cochran wrote:
>>
>>> When I installed a new hard drive in my aging Sony Vaio PCG-F350 
>>> laptop this evening, two tragedies befell me. The 
>>> worst...shudder!...is that I fumbled one of the 3 mounting screws 
>>> for the hard drive cage on the motherboard, and I can't find the 
>>> darn screw. It's somewhere in the guts of the laptop, possibly 
>>> around the region of the touch pad. So far, the motherboard hasn't 
>>> shorted out or shown strange problems. But the hard drive light 
>>> stays on all the time now -- unusual -- and I had to turn off acpi 
>>> in the 667 kernel. Can anyone suggest how to find a screw dropped in 
>>> a laptop's motherboard area?
>>
>>
>>
>> Clear out an area where you can definitely see and hear the screw 
>> fall.  Dismantle the machine as far as possible and give it a good 
>> shake, in all different directions and orientations.
>>
>> A corollary to Murphy's Law says a screw will always fall so as to 
>> cause the most damage.  If you haven't been bitten by this yet, you 
>> will.  So I too recommend not powering up the computer again until 
>> you find the screw.
>>
>> -- 
>> David Liguori
>>
> I have taken apart a fair bit of the laptop's surface components: the 
> speaker plate, the keyboard, and the upper frame with the touchpad. 
> The lost screw has been found, jammed between two capacitors on the 
> motherboard. It has been extracted and returned to its home the drive 
> cage. However, I still wasn't using my head very well, and the very 
> thin ribbon that connects the touchpad to the motherboard tore off 
> from the motherboard connector when I removed the upper frame. The 
> ribbon is so thin and narrow, it is more like a film. Does anyone know 
> how I can reconnect it? Otherise I am out a touchpad, I guess.
>
> Thanks for the help!
>
> Bob
>
>
>
I've fixed the problem. These very thin, almost filmy or 'tape-ey' 
ribbon cables have connectors with little slides that pull up to release 
the ribbon and push down to snap it back in. My touchpad works fine. I 
did break off the battery door in my clumsiness, but it's a cheap price 
to pay for the valuable lessons I gained in working with laptops.

I'm now downloading 194 Fedora Core 3 updates which I'm sure will take 
all night and then some to install on this machine.

Bob