Mr E

If you have to ask these questions then I doubt you are good enough at soldering. Take it to your local repair shop.

Mr Euro, I'm no expert on the innerds of laptops, but the big danger with soldering youself is whether the heat will damage any of the nearby components! Just a thought.

I agree with Optimist & S C. Do not solder this yourself! You can/will do a lot more damage. The secret of soldering is a VERY hot iron and speed of hand plus heat sinks. If this is your first time this is not the item to practice on.

Edit : I also used 'Zap' straps (in my earlier days as a circuit board repairer for BT) to earth myself in case I touched sensative component parts and caused 'tracking'. I wonder if that's still the case nowadays with you young whipper-snappers?

I will take your good advice and not touch it myself.

However, during the interim period (i.e. this morning!) I decided to try and super glue it to the board (as the base is just plastic) and have it try and conduct through the two (should be three) bits of solder that are there. Doesn't seem to be working. Now I need to take it apart again and hope can get the component off the motherboard!

Doh!

Mr E

If the plug is glued and/or half soldered you could damage it more. Take it to your local repair shop.

Quickly!

;-0

All's well that ends well :-)

Took it to my local electrical shop (a tiny place in a village with no more than 5 shops including one bar) but being Monday all the shops are closed in France. You have to remember shops are only open from 10-12, 3-5 here, closed sunday/Monday and shop asssitances do not view it as their position to serve you!

Was driving back home, saw my neighbour collecting eggs from his chickens. Told him the story and he told me he has a soldering iron. Went inside his house, as it was approaching lunch we had to have a pastice before starting. I then proceeded to take things to bits whilst he went for his soldering iron.

I started to become a bit nervous, now a nicer man I have yet to meet, but he's a bit of, well I wouldn't use the word cowboy, but, let's say not as professional as some (one day my swimming pool heating system had a leak in some rubber components, he helped me fix the leak with a blow tourch (I was trying to stuff something in the hole to stop the watering coming out until he came along!) but he then proceeded to make about 10 other leaks as he burnt other parts of the rubber by mistake!).

So anyway, he worked his magic with the iron, the silver stuff (this must be the solder?!) and some copper to link things. All worked fantastically well. By this time we had another pastice and were starting ont he beer.

He started to assemble the computer only to find the plastic casing wouldn't fit around the computer. Afer finishing the beer, he decided to cut a hole in the casing so the connector would fit into the case!

I fired it up, and sure enough it worked! So we had a beer in celebration! I'm half cut now but but at least i'm ready for trading todays US session! Not to mention i'm going into hospital tomorrow for an operation!

This is typical of life in southern france!

sounds more like a sketch from Only Fools & Horses to me :-)glad you got it fixed!!!

My wife once glued back a little plastic bit which had fallen off her autofocus camera. Strangely the camera stopped working. When she married me and showed it to me I was able to advise her that the part in question, although dark rather than clear, was the little window through which the infrared rays of the autofocus mechanism were emitted, and that they were obviously having trouble getting past the heavy layer of glue. Just a tale on the dangers of DIY repairs :-)

You couldn't make it up could you?

Reminds me that I once took a neighbour's electric cooker to bits to find out why it wouldn't work. After 2 or 3 hours probing around all the bits on the kitchen floor with my multi-range meter I discovered it was in 'Auto' mode and not due to come on until the programmed time!

Help:
Im getting a second computer system for my children.
What do I need so we can share the same Broadband Connection and do I need to buy a Printer or is there a way we can share the printer on my Main system

Iain

The cheapest way is to put a network card in each computer and share your existing broadband connection. You will also need network cables and a network hub. All of which should cost you 40 - 50.

A better way would be to buy a broadband router (this may include the hub) that plugs into the network. This will give you internet access regardless of whether or not your main computer is turned on. Get a router with a reasonable firewall (expect to pay 80+).

Once you have a network you will be able to share the printer with the other computer.

You could also go for a wireless hub and router. This will save on network wiring but is slightly harder to set up and run, also it is more difficult to make secure.

Re a "broadband router" How much wiring is involved.Its just i dont fancy wires running everywhere.
Ps Many thanks for rapid reply

Iain, set up a wireless connection, then you can tell me what to do :-)

Iain

A broadband router is basically an ADSL modem that connects to your network by wire, wireless or both.

The most recent one that I set up was a Netgear DG834G - you can look it up on Google if your interested - this is a wirless ADSL router that has a reasonable firewall and also a 4 port ethernet hub. If you plug a wireless network adapter into each computer they can all talk to each other and the internet.

Linksys are said to make another good router but I have not used that.

The downside of a wireless network is that it is not as fast as a hard wired network (although far faster than broadband), the range is nowhere near what the adverts say and security is difficult to set up and not foolproof. If you want to connect a PDA or a laptop you may have to compromise security further.

Don't let security put you off wireless networking but asses the risk. If your house is surrounded by fields then you have no problem. If you live next to a sixth form college, go for hard wiring.

I live next to A Catholic Girls school!;-))))
Ill look at the Hard wire option.I Dont want to lose any speed.
Cheers

Iain

The speed advantage of a hard wired network over wirless is only noticable when you are printing large documents or transfering files over your network. You will not notice the difference otherwise. The other minor problem with a wireless network is that it sometimes takes a few seconds to connect but again most times you would not notice it.

Update to my XP SP2 installation problems:

I have had no further response from MSoft. I last contacted them on Friday. Looking at my case number it appears that the case has been closed. Anyone had support from MS? How long do they normally take to respond? Am I being impatient?

I have the feeling that I'm going to have to re-install XP from my disc. Any comments folks? I have saved and stored on the web all important info and files as much as I can.

What settings will it affect?

Thanks in anticipation.

7thFloor

If you haven't already done so download Belarc Advisor from http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html this will give you a list of most things about your system.

When you install XP from the CD you are initially offered the option to repair using the recovery console. Unless you understand this, forget it. Later on in the install proccess XP setup will look for your existing windows installation and offer you the option of trying to repair it.

If you do this then all of your original Windows files will be re-installed but your programs will remain installed you may lose some user settings but that should be all. You will need the original XP license key.

I have known this process to fail, after which I reformatted the hard disk.

Depending on how old your computer is, it may be worth buying a new hard drive and doing a fresh installation on that. If your computer is more than a couple of years old a modern drive will be far larger and faster. You could then keep your old disk as a secondary from which you could copy your data to the new system. But you will still have to reinstall all of your programs.