I received my gateway laptop back today after two weeks. The
complaint was a backlight that would sporadically not work.
It was under extended warranty, and this is what they said they did.
( I didnt send them the hard drive by the way. )
"adjusted video cables and reapplied thermal paste. Replaced optical
drive. Unit tests functional."
So I can see why I had the sporadic problem with the back light,
but they couldnt answer what was done to prevent this from reoccuring, since
this is the second time it has happened.
Also, the optical drive(cd, dvd combo), was barely used, and never
had a problem.
I wonder what they saw to feel they had to replace this.
Also, is thermal paste something that would get reapplied if done
correctly from the beginning?
> I received my gateway laptop back today after two weeks. The
> complaint was a backlight that would sporadically not work.
> It was under extended warranty, and this is what they said they did.
> ( I didnt send them the hard drive by the way. )
>
> "adjusted video cables and reapplied thermal paste. Replaced optical
> drive. Unit tests functional."
>
> So I can see why I had the sporadic problem with the back light,
> but they couldnt answer what was done to prevent this from reoccuring,
> since this is the second time it has happened.
> Also, the optical drive(cd, dvd combo), was barely used, and never
> had a problem.
> I wonder what they saw to feel they had to replace this.
> Also, is thermal paste something that would get reapplied if done
> correctly from the beginning?
>
> Thanks for any info or comments.
>
> Jerry
* * *
Jerry,
Inverter is many time the reason a backlight does not function, maybe
applying some paste to keep the cables from moving about and working lose
from the inverter was the solution...
If they replaced the Optical drive maybe it did not pass a test or two they
tossed at the unit...
In my opinion there is no guarantee, and inverters have always been very
finicky bunch...
The inverters are far worse than a group of wives at the company picnic
checking out all the new office staff hires...
THERMAL paste? Between the CPU and the heat sink? Why?
Replace the optical drive? Why?
Fix the reported problem? Hah!
See my earlier comments about Geek Squad. On the average, they are worse than
the company wives mentioned in another posting, and far worse than inverters in
terms of flakiness... Ben Myers
On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:39:19 GMT, "J.Lef" <j.lef@verizon.net> wrote:
> I received my gateway laptop back today after two weeks. The
>complaint was a backlight that would sporadically not work.
> It was under extended warranty, and this is what they said they did.
> ( I didnt send them the hard drive by the way. )
>
> "adjusted video cables and reapplied thermal paste. Replaced optical
>drive. Unit tests functional."
>
> So I can see why I had the sporadic problem with the back light,
>but they couldnt answer what was done to prevent this from reoccuring, since
>this is the second time it has happened.
> Also, the optical drive(cd, dvd combo), was barely used, and never
>had a problem.
> I wonder what they saw to feel they had to replace this.
> Also, is thermal paste something that would get reapplied if done
>correctly from the beginning?
>
> Thanks for any info or comments.
>
> Jerry
>
>
>
> ( I didnt send them the hard drive by the way. )
Good idea. :-)
> So I can see why I had the sporadic problem with the back light, but they
> couldnt answer what was done to prevent this from reoccuring,
> since this is the second time it has happened.
It may happen again. There may be an issue with the design of the laptop,
especially if the cause was in fact a loose cable. There may simply not be
anything that the repair staff feels that they can do about it.
> Also, the optical drive(cd, dvd combo), was barely used, and never had a
> problem.
I've seen this replaced on laptops under warranty even when the drive was
working fine. I'm not sure why it happens, but Compaq used to do it to me
almost all the time. If my laptop went in for any repair, it just about
always came back with a new optical drive.
> Also, is thermal paste something that would get reapplied if done
> correctly from the beginning?
Yes, it can be. If you take a laptop apart to any significant degree (see http://12.206.251.215/d800fanrepair/ for my adventures) then you will end up
disturbing surfaces that mate with one another for the purpose of heat
transfer. To ensure that the heat leaves the system as intended, heatsink
compound (or thermal paste) is typically applied at each mating point that
is used for heat transfer in the system.
If you take a laptop apart that far, and if you are careful, there may be no
need to re-apply the paste/compound. For someone doing repairs on many
laptops, they may not have the time to be that careful, and since they don't
want to see your computer back for overheating damage caused by lack of
thermal compound, they will probably replace it as a matter of course.
On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:50:53 -0400, Ben Myers wrote:
> THERMAL paste? Between the CPU and the heat sink? Why?
>
> Replace the optical drive? Why?
>
> Fix the reported problem? Hah!
>
> See my earlier comments about Geek Squad. On the average, they are
> worse than the company wives mentioned in another posting, and far worse
> than inverters in terms of flakiness... Ben Myers
>
Ben,
followup on geek squad repair 
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