I’m sure there’s a deep metaphorical lesson in all this, I’m just not sure what it is:
I love my laptop; it was a big compromise when it was purchased. I had spent three years in Macbook Pro bliss. But, going to work for myself meant I needed to compromise. $2400 to replace the work macbookpro wasn’t going to be forthcoming. So, I ended up with a Lenovo laptop that for the last year and a half has been mostly great.
I say mostly great because about 9 months ago, right before the warranty ran out, the speakers started to go fuzzy. Lenovo offered to let me ship it to them so they could take a look. They estimated a four week turn around, and were adamant that if there was any exterior damage (and there is… it survived a pretty decent drop once, with a dinged edge to show for it), they’d only fix it at my cost. I figured, meh… it’s plugged into either my external monitor or earphones most of the time, so I never shipped it.
Which I came to regret four months later, when the fan started to click. At first, I thought it was my hard drive. That was stressful. Clicking hard drive = bad day. But, it was just the fan. It was already not the quietest machine, but a clicking fan was… well, annoying.
I ordered a replacement. I bought the right thermal grease. And then I sat on it, because, frankly, I didn’t want to tackle the enormous task of taking this laptop, which clocks in at .9 inches thick, apart and digging in the guts.
But I did it. I would go through the steps for you, but honestly, here’s what you need to know:
Lots of little screws.
Lots of little cables
I have giant hands
Somehow, I made it all the way through, and when I came out the other side and powered on the computer, everything worked.
Praise God! There was much prayer in the process, and much fretting, but at the end, everything works. And the fan is blissfully quiet. I’m a pretty happy man.
I guess the aesop-ish lesson is, even if you have sausage fingers, you can disconnect miniaturized io cables… if you’re careful.