Removing an Asus laptop keyboard

Boy, this one had me stumped.  Every now and then, we have to turn to the Internet to figure out the best way to remove a keyboard on a laptop.  There was practically no help available for the particular Asus notebook we were working on.  There was one screw on the underside that was identified as being for "K" or "Kbd", so that part was easy.  Getting the keyboard off was not so easy.  Frequently, the strip of plastic between the top of the keyboard and the LCD has to come off in order to expose screws that hold down the upper edge of the keyboard.  That did not appear to be a possibility for this Asus, so I knew the keyboard just had to come off.  I could see 4 spring-loaded latches spread out above the Function keys, but pushing these in didn't seem to release the keyboard at all and certainly did nothing to loosen up the bezel above the keyboard.

I finally employed a dental explorer by inserting it into a small crevice that was visible along the upper edge of the keyboard and pressed in the leftmost spring-loaded latch.  Pulling up on the keyboard with the dental explorer, I got it to come away from the laptop slightly and was able to work my way across the upper edge, pressing in each latch as I came to them.  When the upper edge was completely free, I was able to lift it away, finding a second unused screw post under the keyboard also.  Beyond this, it was just the typical ribbon cable to release and the keyboard was uninstalled.

When reinstalling the keyboard, I could see that my difficulty in removing it was due to the tight press fit of the keyboard within the area allowed for it on the palmrest.  Also, there had been some spill on the keyboard that left sticky residue underneath.  This frequently locks parts in there so well that a technician is sure there is a screw or tab holding something in place when there is really nothing but a dried spill.

Daryn

Automatic Software Updates for Windows eliminate security risks

Apple OS X has a great feature that beats the pants off of Windows.  You click on the Apple logo and select "Update Software", and the operating system simply checks for any updates to any installed software and updates it for you.  Pretty danged convenient.  You might have to say "OK" to a license or provide your administrator password to complete a program update, but that's the worst of it.

We recently heard of a cool free utility that helps with this for Windows users.  Secunia offers their Secunia PSI product free for home use.  It examines software you have installed on your computer, references the Secunia database for any known security risks reported for the versions of the software you have installed, and provides simple links that allow you to download and install the latest versions that eliminate these risks.  Not quite as automatic as the Apple OS way of doing things, but what a help!  Check it out.

MacBook 13.3" OS X Install Hell

Wow, what a long day.  Still battling the MacBook Air.  OS X Disk Utility changed it mind concerning the hard drive's S.M.A.R.T. status from "Pending failure" to "Verified".  I had to go find a trial version of a Mac disk utility that would more accurately report the S.M.A.R.T. status.  I just now found SMARTReporter also, which is a free utility that periodically polls the status of the drive and reports on its health.  It is ALWAYS better to know ahead of time when things are about to go south!  Anyway, got an 80GB ZIF drive on the way so we can get it back on its feet.  Very rare drive now, very tough to find.

We've been working on a MacBook 13.3" A1181 that was brought in with some mysterious ailment.  We've got retail install disks for Tiger, Leopard, and Snow Leopard and also original install media for Leopard for the MacBook.  Various attempts to get something to install using the superdrive kept resulting in kernel panics and an instruction to power off the computer.  Some of the media would take and would get just past the language selection window but would then report that "Mac OS X cannot be installed on this computer".  Research into this took me down several roads.  I won't report all the options, but they include checking for the proper partition format on the drive, creating new install media that has been somewhat modified to ensure it will accept the particular Mac you're trying to install it on, and connecting the computer to another Mac as a firewire target drive and installing it that way.

I checked the partition and it looked fine and was formatted as GUID, which is required for the Intel Based Macs.  What I did notice when looking at the "Info" window was that the partition was "Partition 2" and contained 3 folders and 3 files, despite the fact that I had just erased it and told it to create a single partition.  If you look at the partition tab in Disk Utility, you'll notice the "+" and "-" below the graphical representation of the partitions.  I clicked on the "-" and applied that, which deleted the existing partition and left no volume whatsoever.  I then recreated a single partition.  This time, the partition was numbered "Partition 0".  After doing this, I tried the OS 10.6 retail install media, which finally took.  Yay!!!  so, 30 minutes late, the MacBook rebooted and I was back to square on - kernel panic, need to power off.  So depressing.

More research into kernel panics revealed that memory can often be the cause.  Who would think?  It ran find to install the OS and crashed during the reboot.  It would seem that the memory was fine.  So, I took out the memory anyway and found a white paste on the contacts of both bars (maybe it was supposed to be there) and I cleaned it off.  Put one bar back in and restarted and voila, it continued the initial setup from the hard drive finally!  It is now downloading the 1GB update for OS X.

I did try the firewire target method for installing the OS.  It seemed to work great and even restarted and ran through the initialization of the OS, all through the other Mac. Very interesting.  Shut it down, restarted it on its own, and kernel panic!

I also used SuperDuper! to create an exact copy (clone) of the functioning MacBook's drive onto the problem drive.  When installed into the customer's Mac, nothing but grey showed up on the screen during the bootup.  Tried the drive in my MacBook and it worked fine.  Very frustrating.  Maybe always associated with the memory issue, maybe it had something to do with the partition showing up as #2.

Daryn

No need to pay the $80 for a laptop AC adapter from Best Buy

At 9th Street Computer Cellar, we love it when we're able to help our customers save money, a lot of money.  We get to do this all the time.  Today, it was a matter of a customer coming to us with an older Toshiba tablet computer that had an AC adapter that had failed.  The only option available at Best Buy was some type of universal adapter for $79.99.  We sell those also (for about 1/2 the price), but we have junk drawers full of a variety of mixed adapters that we can try also.

So, we got to pull one out, get the customer's computer working immediately and also saved him about $60 in the process.

We offer a free 15-minute diagnostic, a time that we can look over a computer and see if there are any issues with it and possible solutions.  Although we don't get a repair job out of the deal, it is a really good feeling when someone comes in with a self-diagnosed problem with the DC jack, the part your power plug sticks into and it turns out to be just a defective notebook AC adapter.  Not many folks do that type of board level repair here in Durham, NC, but we do.  First thing we always do though is test the AC adapter and see if that is the problem; sometimes, it is.  In that case, the customer only has to pay for the AC adapter and can immediately walk out with their computer functioning, rather than having to leave it for a couple of days or more as originally planned.

Daryn
www.thecomputercellar.com

MacBook Air with occasional delays and spinning colored disc

We worked on a MacBook Air today.  Beautiful laptop, really, really thin.  It was brought to us because its owner was frequently encountering the spinning, colored disc for a mouse pointer rather than the productivity that she'd prefer to encounter.  It would occasionally make it a real bear to get anything typed.

While diagnosing it, the computer ran like a dream.  I only encountered the spinning disc once.  I was going down the antivirus install and scan path when I decided to take a chance at repairing the disk drive's permissions through Disk Utility.  Once I got in there, I found that the 80GB hard drive was reporting imminent failure; the S.M.A.R.T. drive diagnostics must have seen the drive working really hard to get information from failing parts of the drive.  This is a great tool and was very helpful in this case.

I installed my external HP 320GB hard drive to the single USB port and formatted it for Apple, then went to Time Machine and began a full backup to the external.  This is really the best backup you can have - one that is not saved on the equipment itself.  If the laptop's hard drive fails or the computer is stolen, you cannot get back to your information if you failed to back it up somewhere externally.

It turns out that the MacBook Air series use the tiny 1.8" IDE (ATA) hard drives with a ZIF connector.  IDE drives in general are beginning to become rare, particularly if you're looking for new.  Be prepared to fork out some bucks!  We provide value by knowing who to go to get the best possible prices on the new parts that are required for our customer's repairs, but in this case we'll probably go with used equipment to try to keep costs reasonable.  So, we've got to get the hard drive, install it and install Mac OS 10.5 using USB DVD drive, then restore the OS to her current configuration using the Time Machine.

An option would have been to use one of the disk cloning softwares available.  Hands down, the most popular is the paid for SuperDuper!  If you use both SuperDuper! and Time Machine together, you can really make recovery a cinch.  Use nothing and you'll be crying useless tears over data you'll never get back after an equipment failure.  We see it all the time, unfortunately.

Daryn
www.thecomputercellar.com

Dealing with iPhone power-on issues

If your iPhone is not turning on or getting locked during the power-on process, give these few things a try.

One of the first things you should generally try when your iPhone is misbehaving and won't turn on properly is a hard-reset.  Hold the Home button and the Power button down at the same time for 10 seconds.  This will get you out of an amazingly large amount of fixes.

One common infuriating issue we hear about with the iPhones is that the phone will suddenly not boot normally but only get to a silver Apple logo.  When this happens, you pretty much have to follow the instructions below to get back into the swing of things:

To fix (you have to restore, it is the only way to get it back):
1. Hold the home and power button until your screen goes off.
2. Start iTunes on your Mac and plug your iPhone's USB cable into your Mac (just the cable, not the phone too).
3. Connect the iPhone to the USB connecting cable while holding down the home button until you see the icon telling you to connect to iTunes.
4. Your iPhone will show up in iTunes and will be in Recovery mode. Release the Home button at this point.  From iTunes click restore and when the restore process is done choose setup as new iPhone. Do not restore from backup. You will have to resynch your phone with your iTunes library and may have to reload apps.  We'll look further into this to see if you can restore the backup after doing the restore process.

You may have also heard about trying DFU mode. This can be used to downgrade or replace your iPhone's firmware with a specific firmware file that you have downloaded.  Very similar to recovery mode, but your phone connects to iTunes without loading it's OS.  Check out these instructions here:  http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=1034.  We need to investigate further how best to use DFU, but we understand that there are various options available when you hold down "Shift" or "Option" as you click on the "Restore" button in iTunes.  Google this to get more details.

Another problem is that the iPhone only displays a battery with a thin red slice and the lightning bolt, but is not actually charging and never gets beyond this point.  When this happens,  you need to turn off the iPhone, allow it to charge from either the wall charger or directly from the high-powered USB port on your computer for 10 to 30 minutes (not from the keyboard or a hub; they don't have enough power), and then turn back on.  Most likely, you'll now be showing that the battery is charging.

You may find the troubleshooting tips on Apple's site minimally helpful: http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/assistant/phone/#section_1

Daryn

Pretty Freakin' Hot!

We've gotten in some laptops lately that have run pretty freakin' hot. One of the big problems tends to start with the basic design of most laptop computers. The cooling fan tends to draw air in from the bottom of the computer, often through a single hole or rectangular slotted area, and then discharges the hot air through some holes or slots on the side or back.

All this works fine, usually, until you actually use the laptop. If the laptop is on your lap, or on the bed or carpet, or some other flat surface that reduces air flow from the bottom, then the CPU and GPU lose their ability to shed heat and they get hot, upwards of 150 degrees!

Another design problem is that dust and fiber is sucked into the cooling fan and sent toward the cooling fins from the CPU/GPU heat sink. These tend to be slotted areas that maximize surface area and therefore heat dissipation, but the slots through which the air must travel are very narrow and the dust and fiber collects on the inside of the cooling fin surface, between the fins and the fan, right where you can't get to it. 

We've seen two in the past couple of days that had so much crap collected in the cooling fan and heat sink fins that there were literally dust bunnies in there that prevented the fan from turning. In a situation like this, there is not much choice but to disassemble the notebook computer to the point where you can remove the heat sink and cooling fan and clean it out properly, using a brush, compressed air and possibly a pipe cleaner to help remove caked on dust from the fan blades.

You'll also find that many GPU, or graphics chips, have a foam pad that serves as the connection between the GPU and the surface of the heat sink. These don't work so well and tend to cause eventual failure of the connections between the graphics card and the motherboard. When this happens, you may just lose part or all of your video display, or your computer may fail to start altogether. We can correct this by replacing the foam spacer pad with solid copper shims that make much better contact and transfer heat significantly more effectively.  (If you research it, you may find that some manufacturer's like HP and Dell have had lawsuits against them to correct manufacturing defects like this.  Your warranty coverage for this particular issue may be extended.)

The installation of the shims is a tough sell. Generally, it is best to install them BEFORE you have problems, but we'll generally never see a computer that hasn't already exhibited problems. Still, we can hope that customers will bring in their computers when they first notice that they are getting abnormally hot but have not failed yet. We can do something to repair the issue at that point. Wait too long and there is no choice but to send off the motherboard to have the GPU or BGA (ball grid array) replaced and or reflowed in order to repair the overheated components.

Daryn

A Pain in the Aluminum A**

Can I just say it? We're not fans of the aluminum MacBook construction. 


What a pain in the butt to switch out the keyboard. If somehow it all equated to protecting your system from spills, we'd understand, but it doesn't. Lots of tape everywhere that is useless once you pull it off. We figured out that the touchpad and clicker are even installed using double-sided adhesive tape. The surface of the palmrest is connected to the frame of the palmrest with an array of microwelds, which work great until they start to come loose. Then, they can fail in quick succession.

Anway, we had a devil of a time getting the keyboard's ribbon cable stuck back into the connector on the underside of the touchpad. It pulled free fairly easily and we were too confident in our skills to go check out a video or one of the sites out there that has photos and instructions. After struggling with it a bit and not doing anything other than bending up the end of the ribbon cable a bit, we finally figured out that there is a flap along the BACK side of the connector (opposite of the end where the ribbon cable inserts) that has to be rolled up with your fingernail or spunger, and that released the tension in the pins on the inside of the connector and allowed the ribbon cable to be inserted. We still also used a razor with tape over the sharp edge so we could hold it under the cable and maintain pressure against it on the top side we we slid the ribbon cable into the connector. That definitely helped to stabilize it, despite the fact that it had folded a bit in our previous struggles.

You can sometimes get the new replacement keyboards from Triangle Laptops here. 
The devil's in the details...


Daryn

Dang those fatal errors...

We've run into an issue a couple of times recently where we have slaved over a laptop, creating a very up-to-date image starting with a manufacturer's restore CD that includes Windows XP Service Pack 3, all the latest security updates, Firefox, Microsoft Security Essentials, etc. Ready to go, ready to sysprep so we can legally register and activate the existing COA key on the target computer.

Problem is, we get the following error upon formatting a hard drive and restoring the saved sysprepped image to it using Norton Ghost:

"Fatal Error: An error has been encountered that prevents Setup from continuing.

Windows is unable to start because the registry could not be updated. To address this problem, please contact your computer manufacturer. Windows must now Shut Down.

Press OK to view the Setup log file."

At this point, we're pretty well screwed. There is nothing to do but to start over. Very, very disappointing. Microsoft explains the issue here, and offers the solution of limiting the image to only include Service Pack 1. Sure, whatever. Like that accomplishes the final goal of saving a quality image that is ready to go?

The overwhelming solution that we've seen is to delete the files that show up in C:WINDOWS\system32\Microsoft\Protect\S-1-5-18 and its User subdirectory. You'll need to unhide files in order to see these protected system files.

When we reinstalled from a different manufacturer's XP install that included Service Pack 3, we found that the aforementioned S-1-5-18 folder and the User folder within it were both empty, despite the fact that the Windows installation had already been activated. We'll give this a try and report on the success of our new sysprep image. We'll be sure to save an image of the drive before running sysprep, though. We'll also double check that the version of SYSPREP that we have is from the Service Pack 3 install, per suggestions that we've seen out there.

Eeek.

LoJacking Laptops!

If you own a laptop, it's probably occurred to you that some fateful day, you might just lose it, or worse, have it taken from you. There have been a number of recent thefts, for example, in our own neck of the woods, and if you're like most people, your LIFE is on your laptop. Its loss represents a substantial amount of pain and anguish, not to mention a lot of hair pulling and heart pounding should the worst happen.

So what can you do about it?

The Computer Cellar offers lo-jacking services.

Believe it or not, there are services and software available to "lo-jack" your computer. The software basically works like an alarm service:  software is installed on your computer that will connect you to a monitoring service at a remote location. Should your laptop go missing, you notify them and the police (required, apparently), and the monitoring team "pings" your computer every 15 minutes in an effort to locate it. 

In addition, some manufacturers of laptops now offer security services to their customers. Dell is one, their service being called ProSupport Service. And Apple users now have options as well, from Absolute Software. They offer a contract-based service for Macs.

It does conjure up images of a virtual swat team rushing in to save the day, but these days, with so much information in one place, and on something so portable, it's worth considering.

Come in for a free 15-minute diagnostic, and talk to us about Lo-Jacking!