Category Archives: Computer Repair

Sharp PC-MC24 Resurrected

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This sweet little laptop was given to me by a very talented friend, with reports of unexpected shutdowns. My first thought was an overheating CPU, which was backed up by the constantly running fan and the smell of hot plastic when I tested it. Sure enough, when I took apart the CPU heat-sink it was completely clogged with fluff and the thermal compound was dry and crumbly.

With the fluff removed and the heat-sink reassembled with fresh thermal compound, the machine booted up and ran just fine. After creating a set of system restore CDs, I securely erased the hard drive and reinstalled Windows. It took a few updates to get the wireless card working with our WPA2-PSK network, and I discovered that the power supply was faulty ($15) and the battery wouldn’t hold charge ($52 + shipping). I took the plunge and ordered one of each on eBay. Not sure yet if I’ll keep it or try to sell it.

New Life for Old Laptop

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This old Dell Latitude CPx was brought to me after being declared dead by another tech. The known issue was that part of the keyboard didn’t work. It also had a battery that wouldn’t hold any charge and a meagre 128MB of RAM (running Windows XP Professional). I priced up some parts on eBay, put together a quote and the client said, “Do it”.


The “new” keyboard, when delivered from HongKong, turned out to be either damaged or used, with deep scratches in the spacebar and a bent mounting post. The seller made it right with a full refund, the client is happy with the $0 parts cost, and it works just fine. Everything now runs a little smoother with 512MB of RAM, and a new battery restores portable operation. The pièce de résistance has to be the fix for the broken battery latch, which would dump the battery on the user’s foot whenever the machine was picked up.

Gotta love duct tape…