So yesterday, while the laptop was at idle, it decided it had enough of life and
died.
We didn't accept this at first and tried a restart, nothing but 7 beeps. No hard drive whirr, nothing on the screen, just the system fan and the repetitive beeps.
On another internet device I looked up 'the beeps' and 'the beeps' is the computer telling you that something major has cocked up and its time to die. I couldn't let our 'trusty' friend die.
This laptop, purchased in late 2010 on the even of our round the
world trip, accompanied us literally around the world. Dragged across the continents, stuffed in a little bag, sometimes overheating inside the bag because it decides to turn itself on at odd times (it always did this, I disabled every auto update / diagnostic, but it still did this). It was again stuffed in my backpack and made the relocation with us to Germany, where more than ever it has been our lifeline, our connection with friends and family, our tour guide, our adviser, my digital production suite,
my book maker and sometimes most importantly - our google translator.
Over in Germany, the then 2 something year old device was still able to perform every function demanded of it - even the memory intensive photography editing and manipulation work (ok it's not lightning but it gets it done). I've thought about upgrading, particularly when I did the
Apple Aperture course (should I get a mac) but decided to leave well enough alone.
In may I decided to backup my photos, the first time in ages. In July I backed up my Lightroom catalog, only because I was upgrading. Other than that I hadn't thought about backing up anything else.
And then it died. And THEN I thought about all the crap I should have backed up. It's tax time, how are we going to do our tax without the computer, without the old information, and without the new information we have been collecting over the year. All our emails, our important documents, the photos I hadn't backed up since May, the updated Lightroom catalog. It hits you hard with all the 'should'ves' you put yourself through.
But backing up is a pain. And who backs up emails anyway?
So with all that I thought we couldn't let Lappy die. We had to bring it back, at least to back some shit up.
Back to 'the beeps'. We had 7 beeps, what does that mean, looking it up its more referred to as the 'dreaded 7 beeps'. Shit its terminal, CPU failure. Game over....but in desperation you can try three things (but the third thing is ridiculous, surely it won't get to that);
1. Press the function button. I did this. Nothing. I pressed every bloody button, nothing. One button just stops the thing beeping, but it don't fix nothing.
Getting desperate I pulled the thing apart.
2. Unplug the internal CMOS battery. Oh man, this computer is a bastard to get apart, but I was desperate. Operation time.
Unplug battery. Leave for 30 minutes, make the computer forget itself, reboot.
NOTHING. shit.
There's really not much to do after this. I'd looked over the boards, checked everything I could. It seemed to be over. Not worth sending to get fixed, out of warranty, almost 4 years old. Looked like we were done.
Well if the thing was truly fried, maybe option three was worth considering now.
Option 3. Cook your laptop.
No kidding, I thought this was a joke the first time I read it. Two ways to cook your machine, one is literally pull out the motherboard, put it in an oven and cook it for 10 or so minutes. Yep. Bake it up.
This motherboard is too embedded in the chassis and too many integrated components that can't be pulled off the board that baking wasn't an option. The next thing, WRAP IT IN A BLANKET!
Ridiculous. Deliberately cooking the laptop? After all of these years trying to keep it cool.
I did it anyway.
With only the fan running, (no hard drive activity or discernible processor activity, it takes quite a while to get this thing hot. The recommendation is 30 minutes wrapped like this. After 30 minutes the thing was far hotter than you would like in normal operation, scary hot. I tried a reboot while it was still in the blanket. Still a no go. For good measure I incubated this sumbitch for another 10 minutes.
It was stinking hot after 40 minutes of swaddling.
I let Lappy cool down a bit, after all, its unlikely it would boot up when its on the verge of melting. Once it cooled down to touchable temperature I gave it a 'this is it' boot up press of the on button.
Great Scott! Marty, it worked.
Like everyone else that tries this on the internet and writes about this experience, I was pretty surprised.
So with it up and running, and no idea how long the 'fix' would work for, I spent the next few hours frantically backing up everything I could possibly need. The thing worked like normal for maybe 6 hours before I tentatively shut Lappy down, wondering if it would ever wake again after this hell ride.
So how on Earth does this hair-brained procedure work? The idea is that the solder on the motherboard has degraded over time. Not always visible to the naked eye, cracks form and eventually the electrical signals are disrupted. So, baking in the oven or overheating in a blanket gets the solder (ideally) to re-melt enough to 'reflow' the solder, reconnecting bad connections and the invisible cracks.
Sounds crazy, a definite pray for rain move, but it worked. (not recommended for all but extreme circumstances dear reader!)
By all accounts on the internet, this is not considered a long term solution. So in the meantime I'm on the lookout for a new computer in case Lappy dies again and being super mindful of backups. Geez backups are such a pain.
Registration with Multicity also gives customers the entitlement to use Deutsche Bahn's car sharing service Flinkster and e-Flinkster as well as their bike rental program.
Registration was quick in person, less than 10 minutes, though it can also be done online. In person, I needed to show;
