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…