Death of a cable
Feb. 1st, 2011 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carlfoxmartenToo bad it's the video cable...
When I turned my laptop on this morning, the display was even worse than it had been a while ago.
A little fiddling around with it didn't improve anything, and even made it worse than that.
Right now I'm lucky I can use my 2-port KVM switch to view the laptop on my desktop screen, but this means I can't take my laptop anywhere else at all without trying to fix or replace this blasted cable.
I had found a company that is the official supplier of replacement parts, but they want $60USD plus shipping and handling (plus duty and taxes at the border) for a dinky little cable that could be made for less than $10.
Granted, it would be cheaper than buying a new laptop, but sometimes I'd rather just buy a new laptop, as the video cable would be prone to breaking again, due to it making at least three right-angle bends, a real no-no for any cable, small or otherwise.
If I did buy a new laptop, I'd probably want it to at least have a dual-core processor, and at least 500GB of hard disk space, to ensure that it'll be able to last for at least a few years.
I have thought about trying to repair the cable myself, but when I got some of the tape off and had a good look at the wires inside, they appeared to be mostly very fine wires.
Wires of ordinary diameter are fairly easy to obtain, but fine wires are typically more difficult, and I'm not sure where to look to find them.
When I turned my laptop on this morning, the display was even worse than it had been a while ago.
A little fiddling around with it didn't improve anything, and even made it worse than that.
Right now I'm lucky I can use my 2-port KVM switch to view the laptop on my desktop screen, but this means I can't take my laptop anywhere else at all without trying to fix or replace this blasted cable.
I had found a company that is the official supplier of replacement parts, but they want $60USD plus shipping and handling (plus duty and taxes at the border) for a dinky little cable that could be made for less than $10.
Granted, it would be cheaper than buying a new laptop, but sometimes I'd rather just buy a new laptop, as the video cable would be prone to breaking again, due to it making at least three right-angle bends, a real no-no for any cable, small or otherwise.
If I did buy a new laptop, I'd probably want it to at least have a dual-core processor, and at least 500GB of hard disk space, to ensure that it'll be able to last for at least a few years.
I have thought about trying to repair the cable myself, but when I got some of the tape off and had a good look at the wires inside, they appeared to be mostly very fine wires.
Wires of ordinary diameter are fairly easy to obtain, but fine wires are typically more difficult, and I'm not sure where to look to find them.
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no subject
Date: 2011-02-01 10:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 07:09 am (UTC)It has served me well the year or two I've had it, though it's never really felt very powerful.
(of course, almost any computer will feel sluggish if you regularly render images on fairly high quality settings)