Another long story. Again, to avoid mixing up things, it consists of two parts.
- Part one: A really cooked laptop
My cousin gave me his dead laptop to see if I can resurrect it. The system is an old but still decent Toshiba Tecra S-11 equipped with a dual core i7-640M, 8GB of RAM, Nvidia Quadro NVS 2100M video card and a 15.6 widescreen display with 1600 x 900 resolution. There was no hard drive or DVD.
The system was totally dead, not even a single LED worked. I suspected a bad mainboard. I’ve tried searching eBay and other places for a replacement board but found nothing. So I’ve decided to bring the laptop to a local computer shop (they have a service center as well) to see if they could do anything. The shop confirmed my suspicions: the system’s power IC was totally fried.
They did manage get a new (well, refurbished) board from a local Toshiba service center. I paid 100 € for a new board and re-assembly.
Since the system had no hard disk or DVD drive, I’ve also bought an 120GB SSD and a DVD burner for about 72 €.
Before installing the SSD and the DVD burner, I wanted to do some basic tests to see if the system works. So I’ve plugged in my boot flash drive and tried to boot my custom Windows PE recovery environment. It failed to boot with a BSOD. Then I’ve tried a Linux Live DVD. It also failed to boot with a kernel panic caused by a MCE (machine check exception).
I could only get anything to boot by disabling the second CPU core or limiting the OS CPU count to 3. That really smelled like a CPU problem to me…
I know my cousin did some heavy compiling on that system and it was overheating badly (the cooling system is very poor) but to damage a CPU ? How hard do you have to torture a system to not only fry the mainboard but to damage a CPU as well ?
Indeed my suspicions were confirmed. After I’ve replaced the original i7 with a slightly weaker i5-560M (which I got for 35 €), all MCE errors disappeared.
So, after paying 207 € and spending a few hours on dis-assembly and re-assembly, I had a fully functional system. Yeah, I know I paid too much, but whatever…
The complete specs:
Model: Toshiba Tecra S11-14P
CPU: Core i5-560M (Dual core with HT)
RAM: 8GB DDR 1066 (2x 4GB)
GPU: Nvidia Quadro NVS 2100M
Storage: 120 GB SanDisk Ultra 2 SSD
DVD: LG (HL-DT-ST) GTC0N
Wifi: Intel AGN 6200
Display: 15.6″ 1600 x 900
- Part Two: bad luck with T100TA
I’ve smashed my T100TA AGAIN. The damn thing fell down while it was in the bag. The glass was totally smashed and unusable, way worse than my first time.
The screen on that tablet is extremely fragile. I’ve dropped my old TF300T countless times without any damage and only managed to crack the screen by accidentally pushing it against the phone charger while the tablet was in the bag.
But the glass on T100TA’s screen is nothing like that of TF300T: it’s thin. Really thin. Seems like you could crack it by just pushing your finger harder against the screen.
I haven’t yet decided whether I will replace the screen. I can get an used T100TA for about the same price as a new screen. But then again, I’m not sure I even want another T100TA.
I will try bringing the tablet to a local computer shop to see if they can repair the screen for less that what Asus service charges. If they can’t, I will probably just get a new tablet.
Will update.