I did, by pushing really hard in random directions =/ I’m going to have to take it apart and clean things with a hope that it gets fixed. Until then, I’m going to have to only use sleep and not turn it off for real.
That’s how I used to turn my tower on when I was a teenager. The motherboard was also outside of the tower, lying on a piece of bubble wrap on the floor. When playing an exciting game, we’d sometimes kick the graphics card out of place.
I can’t do the lid shutdown thing because the built-in screen also has serious issues. It is very finicky. I just use either the terminal or KDE’s built-in feature to do it. I’ve really put this poor machine through hell.
Honestly, momentary switches are the simplest of all circuits. The only hard part will be soldering a new one into the old leads. What laptop is it? I can look and see what I think.
I did a quick look and it doesn’t look like the switch is directly on the motherboard so most likely there’s a JST plug or something similar with wire leads that then hook into the switch and/or a daughter board. If it’s just two wires into a JST plug you can replace the switch with anything similar or if you wanna be ghetto about it just touch the two wires together to make a short.
You can probably get the exact switch if you look hard enough since almost everything but the exterior shell will be commodity components.
I ordered a keyboard replacement. This thing is a serious pain. The power switch is directly part of the keyboard. Under that button is nothing but silver paint for the contacts, which had firmed a crack over time.
The worst part? Above the keyboard is a thin piece of sheet metal. It is “riveted” on by melting a fee dozen plastic standoff that affixed the metal piece by melting the tips of them. I spent an hour carefully popping them off with a screwdriver. The replacement keyboard fits (good news!), but I have to carefully use a soldering iron to melt the tops of these pieces back into “rivets.”
On the plus side, I have upgraded the RAM and added a hard drive. If it POSTs at the end of this, I will have 16gb of RAM and a 4 to add, which will let me ditch the external drive.
Yikes! That’s just about the worst case scenario. It’s maddening the shortcuts companies play to save literally pennies. Sounds like you’ve at least solved the problem so hopefully the replacement and all that work is fruitful!
Yeah that kind of device failure is really frustrating, did you manage to make it work?
I did, by pushing really hard in random directions =/ I’m going to have to take it apart and clean things with a hope that it gets fixed. Until then, I’m going to have to only use sleep and not turn it off for real.
You can just yank it off and short the wires manually to boot ☝🏻🤓
instructions unclear: hooked the power button circuits up to a car battery and caused 2 battery fires
Nice, now it is warm
That’s how I used to turn my tower on when I was a teenager. The motherboard was also outside of the tower, lying on a piece of bubble wrap on the floor. When playing an exciting game, we’d sometimes kick the graphics card out of place.
I rarely shutdown my laptop. Most days I just close lid when I am done and back to what I was doing next day instantly.
I can’t do the lid shutdown thing because the built-in screen also has serious issues. It is very finicky. I just use either the terminal or KDE’s built-in feature to do it. I’ve really put this poor machine through hell.
I got the power button of my laptop repaired at an electronics repair shop, you could try that. It has been running well for 8 years with Arch.
How much did it cost? This laptop needs other repairs.
I can’t remember, but something negligible compared to the price of a thin laptop.
Honestly, momentary switches are the simplest of all circuits. The only hard part will be soldering a new one into the old leads. What laptop is it? I can look and see what I think.
I did a quick look and it doesn’t look like the switch is directly on the motherboard so most likely there’s a JST plug or something similar with wire leads that then hook into the switch and/or a daughter board. If it’s just two wires into a JST plug you can replace the switch with anything similar or if you wanna be ghetto about it just touch the two wires together to make a short.
You can probably get the exact switch if you look hard enough since almost everything but the exterior shell will be commodity components.
Good luck!
I ordered a keyboard replacement. This thing is a serious pain. The power switch is directly part of the keyboard. Under that button is nothing but silver paint for the contacts, which had firmed a crack over time.
The worst part? Above the keyboard is a thin piece of sheet metal. It is “riveted” on by melting a fee dozen plastic standoff that affixed the metal piece by melting the tips of them. I spent an hour carefully popping them off with a screwdriver. The replacement keyboard fits (good news!), but I have to carefully use a soldering iron to melt the tops of these pieces back into “rivets.”
On the plus side, I have upgraded the RAM and added a hard drive. If it POSTs at the end of this, I will have 16gb of RAM and a 4 to add, which will let me ditch the external drive.
Yikes! That’s just about the worst case scenario. It’s maddening the shortcuts companies play to save literally pennies. Sounds like you’ve at least solved the problem so hopefully the replacement and all that work is fruitful!
I like how you felt the need to specify “with Arch”.
Because it participates in keeping an old laptop fast and up to date.