LAPTOP REPAIR PROGRAM at Free Geek

The Program

Steps

The laptop program requires a great deal of PC hardware experience, so it is expected that all students have gone through the build program before moving into laptops.

An instructor must be present to work on laptops, as laptops are kept on a rolling 'bread rack'-style cart which is wheeled back into the Laptop Holding Tank when an instructor's workshop class session ends.

From here, we have some familiar steps:

Laptop Evaluation1 - determine if the incoming pizza boxes are full of tasty, fresh goodness or dried and rotting crap.
Laptop Keeper Chart - some info for Eval on the specs and what needs to be removed or included in each spec as systems move through Eval.
Laptop QC Checklist - double-check the builder's work, time the battery life, keep things clean and standardized.
Laptop Build Checklist - Now that you're familiar with things, get your hands dirty with questionably functional laptops.

Recycling

Recycling instructions have changed! Ian 22:24, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

These are the recycle instructions we use in Eval before we take a system to the recycle area: Laptop Recycle.

We now have two categories of reycled system and instructions to go with each. Those instructions are on the Eval flow chart (above) and in the Recycle area in Laptops.

As per the Laptop Recycle flowchart there are some things that are worth pulling out of Oreon E-Cycles machines to make them normal Free Geek recyclers and they are here: Mining Parts from Oregon E-Cycles Machines.

Supervisors keep track of the number or recyeld FG-PDX systems and enter them into FGDB.

Other tasks

In addition, there are some tasks that can be done throughout your time in laptops:

Hard drive testing
OS installation - A workstation dedicated to loading 2.5" hard drives is available in the laptop classroom area. Drives which have been successfully erased are loaded, one at a time, on that station.
RAM sorting
Shelf organizing
Prep for recycling, by disassembling failed laptops into recyclable components.
CBM box: For recycling AC adapters minus their cables, and optical drives.
Recycled cables (minus AC adapters) have their own boxes.

Classes

Tuesday 11:00-3:00: Gateway Team

Thursday 11:00-3:00: Dell Team

Thursday 3:30-7:00: IBM Thinkpad Team

What to Bring

Laptop Tools - if you don't want to use ours, label yours. There are some Tool Sources around town.

ToDo:

syllabus, repair howto(s) & triage charts, website to FG's store, wiki

Info

Here's the howtos and information we need to accomplish our tasks.

Links

These are mostly pages full of links to other places:

Battery charts

OS

Ubuntu_links

Laptop