Out of Warranty!? DIY!!

Have you ever purchased an item only for the item to not work after warranty expires? I'm sure many of us have experienced that scenario or know someone who has. Today, I will specifically discussing my experience taking apart a note book, specifically a Toshiba A105-S4084. [caption id="attachment_1850" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The LCD and Motherboard Case"][/caption]

A bit of background first. I purchased the computer in 2006, without warranty. Following the subsequent purchased it has been pretty reliable until the hard drive failed which i replaced and upgraded my self to a 320 gb and 7200 rpm hard drive from the original 120gb and 5200 rpm. I always try to make it point to others that often you could do the fixes yourself, especially when sending it in for repairs could be more costly. Most laptops these days have easily interchangeable parts.

[caption id="attachment_1851" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Keyboard, Hardrive, CD Drive, batter, ram modules"][/caption]

Unfortunately, the past year or so my laptop has had problems charging the source of the problem was determined to be the DC power jack. I looked up how much it would cost if it were taken in for repaired it would be more than $100 while the part alone costs $10. Therefore, I took this as an opportunity to put my skills to the test and learn something new about computers by disassembling the computer. Fortunately, i had backed up all my data two weeks before predicting the day it would not charge at all would be soon.

[caption id="attachment_1852" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="DC Power Jack (The Problem)"][/caption]

As mentioned earlier, i did my research. I goggled searched for guides on how to take disassemble the computer laptopka provided a good guide to do so. (NOTE: laptopka has guides only for toshiba for others ones try laptoprepair101)

[caption id="attachment_1853" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Motherboard"][/caption]

Subsequently, the process went smooth, I did not break anything- i think. The entire disassemble took about it 2 hours but afterwards could do confidently do it again in less than an hour. This is my first time taking a notebook apart and fairly comfortable working with the necessary tools. The guide i used also listed the required screwdrivers to make the repair easy. The only difficulty i experienced was with disconnecting the ribbon type connections for example the connector with the keyboard and motherboard. Eventually, I found the source of the problem but did not have the replacement part. Unfortunately, the part was set to arrive the day after the disassemble but sadly has gotten lost in the mail :'( . I have to reorder the replacement. Hopefully, next weekend I could update you with how everything went being my first BIG repair. In the future, I hope to fix my broken camera LCD screen so look out for that as well.