Oct 13 2010

How to fix a laptop with overheating issues, like this Dell Inspiron 1150

IT repair stuff.   Skip to next articles if you just want to read about my visits to bible locations.

One of my colleagues asked me to look at old (about 2004) Dell Inspiron laptop, it needs to have the files moved over to her new Win7 based HP Pavillion laptop.   The Dell is being retired as it has some problems freezing upon booting up.    I suspect this is an overheating issue, so I decided to pull it to bits and clean and repair it.

This particular laptop like a lot of Dells is one of the easiest laptops to take apart and work upon.   Rather in the common tradition of throw something away I wanted to see if I can make it usable.   To get this machine apart it just needed a plastic strip and keyboard removed.   To do my housemate’s Toshiba Satellite and my old Compaq to fix clogged fan/overheating issues required the whole machine to be completely dismantled, ie: remove screen hinges and separate both halves of the base, which is fiddly and needs about three dozen screws removed.

Overheating issues are a common issue with laptops, Toshibas often get dust stuck in the fans causing the bottom to get very hot, causing a fault or shortening the life of the motherboard and processor chip.  HP were also plagued with problems with their Pavillion line.   Here I will show you the techniques I used to fix this Dell:-

Brief legal spiel: Warning, do this at your own risk. Additional, before taking computer apart, disconnect all cables and remove battery.  Work somewhere clear and put the screws in such a way where they wont get lost or get put back in the wrong places.  But hey, if you computer is too expensive to get done by a shop and otherwise useless, and you have not fixed a laptop before, you might as well try this for the first time. 🙂

You need:  Small (flat and philips) screwdriver set, patience, spray canned air, small tube of Arctic silver thermal grease.

Almost all Dells can be dismantled by taking out the plastic strip above the keyboard.  Left: Gently use a screwdriver to prise the small slot to the right of the plastic strip, one you lift it up, you might need to also prise a small gap above F12 key, then just jiggle it a bit around the screen hinges and the panel will gently come off.   Right: remove the four screws with the rings I have shown.

Left: I have flipped the keyboard over, detach the keyboard cable, it just needs a gentle wiggle to detatch.  Then, remove the screw marked and this metal panel can be lifted out. Right: there are four screws that hold the heatsink and fan assembly on.   These screws have numbers on as they should be removed and refitted in that sequence, as to avoid any weight of the heatsink putting too much pressure on one corner of the CPU chip.

Left: I have cleaned off the old dried up grease with a some kitchen roll and a small bottle of alcohol (CD player cleaning fluid or nail varnish remover) from the surface of the processor chip and the copper surface of the heatsink, so its nice and shiny.  The heatsink is sitting upside down ontop of the battery. Once the grease dries up, it loses its ability to properly dissipate heat from the processor chip. 

Right: I have put a layer of new thermal grease on the processor, I use this stuff called Artic Silver 5, which is one of the best thermal grease on the market for its thermal conductivity.  You need to adequately cover the surface of the chip, not too much or too little.  The empty space where the heatsink and fan goes can be sprayed with canned air to remove dust and dirt.

This the fan.   Another four screws were removed to get the motor out.   Towards my fingers you can see lots of fluff has collected inside fouling the vents of the copper heatsink stopping air from escaping.   Zoom in and you can see where the yellow arrow is and spray some canned air to clean all of this out.   Spray more air to get all the dust from the fan blades.

Reassembly is the reverse of disassembly.   Make sure the CPU fan is mounted on nice and tight but evenly.  When refitting the plastic strip, align the left hand side first, and work your fingers in snapping back in place towards the right hand side a bit at a time.   One thing I have not done is clean and replace the grease under the other heatsink where the graphics processor chip is.   This is worth doing at the same time though, as they can give heat problems, especially on HP laptops.

Enjoy your cooler running computer!

(shakes jam jar)   I am looking for funds to raise money for flights and insurance for my return to Israel in January, if you find this useful, or would like some advice, please consider donating me something, so I can continue to service equipment and resources for a Christian charity in the middle east.  If you would like your computer professionally repaired in UK or Israel please get in touch, I can do screen replacments or something minor like missing keys and software problems, I would be happy to do work in exchange for donations.   Thankyou.

Oct 9 2010

Location based services online and your privacy

Privacy eh?  Its spoken about in the media how we should be careful what we share online, but it seems the general public, whether they are casual or regular dabblers in social media, including those who use IT at work, put their fingers in their ears and just say “La-la la la!”

Something that concerns me is Facebook now have this new feature where you can report where your current location.  This could be quite useful if you find a friend is actually only a few blocks away in a pub somewhere.

iPhone users have been doing this sometime now, with strange apps like Foursquare and Gowalla.  The rest of non-mobile web can see their Facebook/Twitter feeds filled up by spam posted with annoying things like “I just bcame mayor of XYZ pizzas & co.”  or “I am in my mansion”   The first one sounds like some kind of board game, with the user with portable device in the outside world, being a counter on a board like monopoly.  Putting links to a google maps of your house and when you are out of your house really isn’t very smart.

Teenagers make up a large proportion in Facebook of course and now I have seen a couple of young people do the same with posting maps of their homes.

Us IT people are quite likely to be targets given that the chances are we own a lot more technology in our homes, already there have been incidences of burglaries, where Facebook was used to scope out someone and when they were not in their house, we are talking not hackers, but any average thug who can use a browser who could have an anonymous Facebook profile, add you and make you his next target.

Long before social networking, about 7 years ago, a friend of mine with is own IT business he runs from home was the victim of a serious armed robbery in which was taken by two masked individuals in his own car, he had a sharp object put against his neck, maybe a knife but might of only been a screwdrivers, but had a lot of IT equipment taken from his house.   They drove him in his own car to a cashpoint and made him take money, and left him out in his own street, gone with car, IT stuff and cash.   I don’t know where they found out his address, but the chances of this kind of thing happening again I fear could be more frequent.

I use my Gmail profile to share pinpoints of locations both the UK and Israel.   You can have several sets of groups, the UK ones I used to share locations of the hospitals buildings I worked in Southampton, these were not available publicly only to some of rest of the team I worked with, this was not their IT dept’s official policy, its just something I used to make working easier especially as I was not familiar with Southampton and it meant finding and driving to sites easier.   The ones I have here in Israel I also keep private, just ocassionally share with friends when they want to come round and need to find my house.

I am all for sharing experiences of where I have been to and hearing from friends trips, but isn’t it time just to get sensible with how much we share?

Oct 8 2010

Worship event on the Haas Promenade

The Haas Promenade, close (1.5km uphill from my house) also known as the peace park had a special event on the sunday before last.

A worship event was on with several churches and Christian organisations jointly together.   There was a speech by the Mayor of Jerusalem, and one of the city’s chief Rabbis, and this was filmed on God TV.  There was speakers from different Christian charities here and also a few Arab believers too.

This was a really good event, although I had to leave part way through, as it overlapped with the normal service at my regular church at 6pm.

Oct 8 2010

Singleness amongst the church

There seems to be a worrying increase in the number of single Christians I know that simply disappear from church life.   There is a lot of pressures for singles to confirm to society’s patterns for relationships, to just live together, if it doesn’t work out, you just move onto someone else, and that marriage is an old fashioned institution.   I think this something that Christians are not immune to.

There is not a lot spoken about what’s ideal  for single Christians.  I  know dating a non-believer is a bad idea, but its not something spoken about much in church.   I think I can count on two hands good friends that have vanished from church life because of this.   But the scriptures only tends to brought up when someone has got into this situation.  Should churches invest more time and resources into these people?

Often issues for non attached Christians are not always about dating and looking, its about your identity.  You get tired of being asked things like “oh, you will meet someone someday..”  “You need to be more holy..”   or being in between teenagers/students and couples isn’t always much fun.   Granted I am friends with couples in churches as well though, but very few of my close friends are single now.

I think this must be much harder here in Israel for both local Jewish and Arab believers in Jesus who are single, as the numbers of other believers are not that many. Most of the social circles in churches in my city seems to be around kids and youthwork, or in college or university and I think nearly all Christians that I know that are recently married met this way.   I am not really into youth/kids ministry, feel the Lord has wanted me to be a first point of contact with new adults in the church, with people in the secular work place, etc.   My work here in Israel has meant this particular season of my life means that meeting someone isn’t likely to happen at the moment.

Doing volunteer work has been good for me in terms of  stretching out and being challenged in meeting new people.  Should churches provide teaching specifically for single Christians that are post-education with fear of any kind of stigma?   Should cell groups speak about issues that affect single people?   Do churches want to invest all that time in young people that are not attached only to find they disappear post-education adult life? How did single Christians meet people from other congregations before the internet?

Christian books for singles.   Some of these do make me want to cringe.   For instance this popular one.  I kissed dating goodbye. The title just seems to scream a nannying kind of attitude.  Ok I will be honest and say I haven’t read this, so maybe this is unfair, there is differing opinions on the Amazon reviews.

Please note I am not interested in being recommended Christian dating sites, nor am I asking for sympathy, I am just looking for a modern and relevant biblical perspectives for today’s Christian singles.

Oct 6 2010

In Sepia: Holyland pictures collection part 3

Part 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7

Cafe with hand operated orange squeezer with plenty of stocks of citrus fruits.

Tourist shops in the old city.

Street path in Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerualem.

Greek graffiti in the Church of the holy Sepulchre

Part 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7

Oct 4 2010

St Peter’s fish

This is a Tilapia, also known as St Peter’s fish.  Commonly found in the Sea of Galilee, there are several restaurants in Tiberias (the largest city in this area) and places around Galilee.

Known as St Peter’s fish as its largely thought to be the creature that had the coin in its mouth in the bible.  Matthew 17 : 24

I went down the market and bought one of these for dinner for friday.   The fishmonger gutted it for me and rinsed with a shower head thing that was hanging on shelf.   The market is a good place to get fresh fish, even if the man had a cigarette in his mouth whilst working.

This one is about 6-7 inches long and has dark grey scales and white flesh once cooked, it also has a row of tiny sharp teeth.

After Jesus’ resurrection, after his followers were in disbelief he had come back to see them, he asked Peter for a piece of the fish they were sharing, as way to prove a point he was not a ghost.  Luke 24 : 40 I would take a bet it was some of this type of fish.

25 minutes under the grill at 150 and its looking good.   I need a bit more skill at getting the bones in one go though.   Also meant I found a use for some limes sitting in the back of the fridge. 🙂

I should of taken a photo before I cut the head off. 🙂

Sep 30 2010

The rise and fall and rise of David Icke

Sports journalist David Icke, come self-proclaimed messiah, now more recently conspiracy enthusiast seems to have made a come back in recent times.

Where as Youtube has been the staple diet of the conspiracy nut’s content, its like Icke and co, combine all the most popular elements usual plots like 9/11 was an inside job and Zionists control everything, UFOs, secret AIDS and cancer cures are withheld from the general public, and thousands of other offensive stuff.   Its not like DI has really much new original material.   Maybe its a kind of conspiracy ‘greatest hits’ album.

Either way stuff of the Royal Family being alien lizards make even the Scientologists look tame.

His wiki article makes interesting reading.   Here’s his web site www.davidicke.com Please take with a huge pinch of massive truck load of salt .

His Facebook fan site has 58,000+ followers.

Are people unaware of his famous line of being the son of the God on the Wogan show in the 90s (Youtube) and other antics that show he is completely crackers?   Or do people read his stuff and buy his books for comedy value?

Sep 30 2010

“Dude you have no books to burn” – Ordinary folk tackling extremism

After the horrible book barbeque incident that was the pastor from Florida, who wanted to have a Koran burning party.   See previous post. There was something funny in the news about a church with a copycat type stunt.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/09/12/skateboarder-extremist-burning-quran/

On this occasion a young lad on a skateboard went past him and snatched the petrol soaked Islamic book from his hand and said ‘Dude! you have no Koran!”   News of this chap hit the blog/twitter community as a hero, that averted a PR disaster in the church and a possible revenge attack that would inevitably happen in Islamic countries towards smaller Christian communities.

I also give this young man (who is an atheist by the way)  a big thumbs up for his actions to avoid a conflict.

One thing I was wondering, when people here in the UK, say things about England, America, Israel, God (the Christian/Jewish one of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) and Jesus, would anyone be brave enough to challenge these people in the high street in a equally fun jovial sort of way?

Sep 29 2010

Jerusalem Parade

Jaffa Street is looking like a race track, there are loads of police and security, mainly trying to make sure people don’t walk across the road.

This parade is a big event that happens each year and is lots of fun.   Its not political although there are soldiers there, and the police, various Christian organisations.

Vintage buses and trucks, some are very old, probably date around 1948.

Left. Gasp!  The new electric lightrail train is here!  Apparently its not supposed to be running yet, just a brief glimpse of it was operating today only.   The electric overhead wires were powered on a couple of weeks ago, but some of the infrastructure is not finished, there are some computer screens on the bus stops are not installed yet. Right. Police dog handlers.  The canines seem to be an unusual indeterminate breed, they are shorter and stockier than typical German Shepherds normally use for police and military uses.

El-Al, Israel’s national airline, had their pilots and stewards out doing their own dance.

The International Chrisitan Embassy Jerusalem. (ICEJ)

Some Christians from the Philipines…

and Norway, Hong Kong, China…

Below from the Daily Planet…

Disabled Israelis also here.   There were loads more people attending, but I had to get back to work. 🙂

Sep 28 2010

Sukkot tents

At work we had a birthday lunch outside with a Sukkah tent.   These temporary structures are popular all over Israel as a place for Jews to eat and sleep in them for this festival.   Sometimes they are tents and some are shed like buildings, they are decorated with palm trees, plastic or real fruit and Christmas-style decorations, kind of all the fun of camping but just outside your house.

Just off the side of Jaffa Street, there is a huge Sukkah put on by Jerusalem Municipality.   There is local artwork being shown inside, and behind was a stage with a big free concert is on, there was some Ethiopian girls singing in their native Amharic language.   Of course there wasn’t any English commentary to this show, so I don’t know if this was a charity event.