the old cup of tea again : (

I have an IBM thinkpad, and managed to slosh a load of peppermint tea over it... yippee.
Turned it off straightaway, and took out all the bits that i could get out fairly easily.
Hairdryer time!
The next day, with bated breath turned it back on, everything working fine, no keyboard keys broken, however, the sound wont play.

Checked on device manager, and get a code 10 error;

"cant turn this device on," it says in a rather sombre way.

All recommendations on computer and internet say to update drivers, but when i try this it says "cannot find a better configuration than you have already" this time in a rather condescending way!

Possible solutions that i've come up with:
1. the sound card is covered in tea and has gone to the great motherboard in the sky, or
2. when i took all the bits out i messed up a connection to the sound card...

Either way, I need to find a way of examining sound card but have absolutely no idea what they look like, or where to look...

If anyone has any suggestions at all (getting kinda desperate)...

laptop soundcards are built in to the motherboard, normally once you take it apart, it is a few chips soldered on the board, recognizable by the manufacturers name, and are not replaceable,unless you are a dab hand with a soldering iron!!!only way round it is to return laptop to manufacturer, or buy an external soundcard

andy

Oh dear...
Doesn't sound good...
Is there any way that I might have managed to pull out a lead or something?
Or maybe a bit of gunk somewhere that i can oh so delicately scrape off?
Opening the panel covering the motherboard, reveals several chips, some made by NEC in Korea, some by Hyundai in Singapore, but the device is listed as a Crystal Fusion device...?
Am i missing something here, might the sound card/malfunctioning part be located elsewhere, or do i have to physically hack the damn thing apart to find it?
What am I looking for anyway?
Is it a little black rectangular thing about 2cm by 1cm embedded in the motherboard? or something else entirely?
And if I do take the whole motherboard out, lock stock and barrel, is there any way that this may wipe my operating system or hard drive generally?
Thanx

Quote:

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Originally Posted by harryrowe

... gone to the great motherboard in the sky, ...

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I think this is termed 'silicon heaven'. Dont worry, you're not there yet!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by harryrowe

Am i missing something here, might the sound card/malfunctioning part be located elsewhere, or do i have to physically hack the damn thing apart to find it?
What am I looking for anyway?
Is it a little black rectangular thing about 2cm by 1cm embedded in the motherboard? or something else entirely?
And if I do take the whole motherboard out, lock stock and barrel, is there any way that this may wipe my operating system or hard drive generally?
Thanx

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Looks like you're going to have to take things apart to find out what you've got tea on. Most laptops these days have a battery and harddisk (and one or two other things too) that can be removed from the bottom of the case - do that first. Once the hard disk is isolated, you wont lose your installed operating system (the mainboard might never boot up again, but at least the hard disk will still work...)

Then carefully dismantle the notebook, working down if possible from the keyboard area. As you go, keep a not on which screws go where, and look for places where the tea might have seeped - you want to be sure you've cleaned it off from everywhere.

If it's got as far as your mainboard, then you could be in trouble, but all you can do is get some distilled water and a cotton bud and try to gently (and I mean GENTLY) wipe off any tea from any electric components it might have come into contact with. Then leave it to dry somewhere warm (not hot) for at least 24 hours with the machine still disassembled. Dont use a hairdryer or anything that might warp tracks on your mainboard.

Distilled water is better than tap water because it wont leave calcium deposits as it dries.

Carefully re-assemble the machine and re-attach the battery and hard disk and give things another go.


Here's an important tip for anyone who spills a drink on their laptop: if it happens to you, remove the battery straight away, its the power running across connections shorted out by liquid that cause the real damage, and if you take away the power, you take away the chances of doing more damage. Always try to disassemble the machine to allow it to dry properly before reconnecting the power.

(deep breath)
Ok, have attempted to take off the keyboard.
some of the screws near the bottom were easy to see, so i unscrewed them, and the bottom side was clear.
some b*****d had put little black circles over the bolts near the screen end, so i spent a while just trying to pull it off forcibly before discovering them.
Unscrewed them, and its all able to come off, except one point of contact, by the left, (power) side, at the screen end.
tried to force it off for a while, but decided that i must be doing something wrong, so gave it up and put it all back together.
I think i did it correctly, and its all working properly so far, so that seems ok.
So what i want to ask is,
1. Do I want to take the screen off first, and if so how?
2. Is there any tips that anyone has about taking thinkpads apart?
3. Are there maybe more hidden screws or catches that i haven't removed?
4. If I do get it all off, what does a soundcard look like, and will it be marked by a particular manufacturer?

(just been on a date with an absolute psycho! phew, only just got out of there on time; snuck out when the pizza was being delivered)

1. If you can do it without disconnecting the screen, so much the better; you didn't spill tea on your screen.

2. I've never taken a thinkpad (or, indeed, any laptop) apart. I've only ever fixed a mobile phone using this technique.

3. Probably, space is tight in a laptop, so there could be some little buggers hiding away somewhere you didn't see.

4. The soundcard chipset will probably be on the mainboard, so you wont be able to remove it. Cleaning may fix it, but it's only a maybe.

Hope your date didn't get your number. But if you didn't like her, then the feeling is probably mutual, lol.

Sadly she has my number, but am ignoring her calls... Strange lady, burst into tears as i was about to kiss her! mumbled something about trauma etc...
Opened up the laptop... Having no experience, this was quite nervewracking...
Found the hidden bolt, and managed to get the keyboard off.
Several poke abouts later, I decided that I was not even remotely qualified, had no idea what the sound card should look like, or what to do if i found it, so put it all back together.
Turned it on, and heard a strange shaking noise from the speakers and found, to my disappointment, a screw!
Took it all apart again, found the place for the screw, sealed the speakers back up, tho i don't know how long it'll last, and put it back together again, tho it does bulge now in the middle slightly, and one of the screws will now never come out again, as the head of the screw came off!
So.
Options...
1. Sell the laptop for scrap
2. Sell it to some rich sucker calmly avoiding all mention of problems
3. Buy an external sound card

I tend to favour option 3, but want to know roughly what price I should be paying, and whether it will work.

Any ideas?

Dunno what territory you're in, but here in the UK you can get external sound cards for about 40 quid, here's one on ebuyer:

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=78427

Do some shopping around and you'll probably get a good enough deal - you might be able to get something chaper than this too.