Yesterday, our stalwart laptop stopped booting. No images–nothing. Just a series of beeps when we tried to start it up. Turns out the beeps mean that the graphics card is bad–which, on a laptop, means that the whole freaking motherboard needs to be replaced.
So, after researching motherboards and the cost for parts (I’m confident enough to switch it myself), I decided that I’d rather buy a new computer. I was searching around about my computer model and found that the graphics “card” in it was defective, but that I’m too late to get in on the class action.
In my search, I found videos of people fixing the problem themselves with heat guns, so I went to the local hardware store to look for a heat gun. I asked a store clerk if they had any “hiito gan” and she gave me a blank stare. I explained what it was used for, and she told me that the must not have any, likely assuming that I had no idea what I was talking about. So, as she was presenting me glue guns and soldering irons, I saw a heat gun–with the exact words “hiito gan” in katakana right on the box–but it was 8000 yen. No thank you–a new motherboard wouldn’t cost much more than that.
Up above the heat gun was a little blow torch about twice the size of a cigarette lighter for about ten bucks. I bought it, dismantled my computer, and used a blow torch to “reflow” the GPU, whatever the heck that means.
I cleaned everything up, pieced it all back together, and somehow, I have a working laptop again. Don’t ask me how long this fix will last–it could be a day, 3 months, 5 years. But dern am I proud of myself for fixing a busted laptop with nothing more than a ten dollar torch.
