Re: Did I get lucky? (long)

In news:47cbfeea$0$1104$4c368faf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
wtrplnet typed on Mon, 3 Mar 2008 05:35:56 -0800:
HP Pavilion dv9220

After a full year of intensive use as a replacement for a desktop I
decide to give the poor thing a break. I get a new PC.

I visit my nephew who has a disc with pics I need. I insert the disc
in the HP, open Win Explore and attempt to read the disc. Suddenly
the screen goes black, no blue screen, no sounds, no nothing. The
start button does nothing. Blue glow at the power connection as
normal. Try using the mostly charged battery. Nothing. No sound,
no boot, no blue color behind the shortcut keys at the top of the
keyboard as normal. I admire my shiny new doorstop.

Take it home, plug it in, fiddle around with no better results. Decide to let it sit there with the battery in, plugged in, and maybe
charge. It sits there, silently, doing nothing, as expected.

Suddenly (what else?) I hear a 'snapping' sound from the direction of
the laptop. I look at it and notice blue sparks (!) coming from
under the middle of the keyboard. Using my years of experience in
this kind of thing the first thing that flashes through my mind is
"this isn't good." I unplug the unit. I continue to admire my shiny
(and now dangerous) new doorstop.
With nothing to lose (expired warranty) I decide to locate that HP
manual shortcut I archived long ago. Surprisingly, I actually find
it! I do have some experience with electronic equipment, mostly in
coin operated arcade equipment, and in my many years of experience I
learned that sparking was usually a sign of something bad happening
with electronic circuitry. So, I decide to remove the keyboard and
see just how many crispy resistors, transistors, board traces, etc. I
can find. Don't know exactly what I will do when I find the burned
parts, but I'm sure they're there.
I remove the keyboard and the first thing I do is turn it over and
inspect the bottom. Sure enough, on the clear plastic barrier ***
there is some 'smoky' looking residue right in the middle, as
expected. I look at the now exposed chassis of the laptop and notice
there are only a few small openings in it exposing the assorted parts
inside. There IS a board under the small rectangular opening in the
chassis. I inspect, expecting to find *something* burned. What I
find is -nothing unusual. No burns, no crispy critter smell,
nothing. Well, SOMETHING burned! Sparks don't appear out of nowhere.

So, I do the only things I can do. I reseat anything that can be
reseated, I use compressed air (hot breath, attempting not to spit on
it) to clear any microscopic debris, and then brush any accessible
surfaces with a soft brush. I notice nothing loose, no debris, no
bit of errant solder, no dust bunnies, no rodent droppings, no
spiders, not even any Cheeto crumbs or cat hairs. (Now the last IS
surprising, my apartment has cat hair EVERYWHERE, despite my best
efforts to keep it under control.)
So, to make a long story even more boring than you imagined possible,
I buttoned the thing up, plugged it in (while shielding my eyes) and
waited for the expected small explosion, or at least an interesting
light show.
Nothing.

I push the power button, it starts as if nothing had ever happened. It's worked perfectly for three months now.

All I can imagine is that some kind of conductive debris shorted
*something* and when I fiddled around inside I dislodged it. What is
surprising about the incident is that the short was bad enough to
cause sparking, and yet nothing got cooked.

Anyone else have this kind of experience with a laptop?

Alan

Yes you did get very lucky! And yes, something could have fallen inside the laptop and had caused a short until you removed it. And yes, sparks can leave no trace they were never there.

--
Bill

.