Something New.. (and short)

A very quick post today. Most of the stuff I talk about on here is retro i.e. about 20 years old or older. This short post is about something a bit more modern and (urgh) it's related to a laptop PC.

Several years ago, we bought Crashed Jr a laptop to get him through college and university. It has had a a bit of a hard life to say the least. Eventually, it had reached the point where it would not boot into Windows and would display a sad blue screen of death.

Added to that, the laptop would not generate any sound through its internal speakers. And the headphone socket was broken too. The only way to get any sound out of it was to connect USB speakers or headphones/headset to a USB port. Slightly annoying to say the least.

So, it finally landed on my bench. First things first, I tried booting it and it failed. Then I tried booting from a USB stick and that failed too. What to do? Then I remembered I had a SATA 2.5inch external drive enclosure that I had used to recover data from another old laptop. It was a two minute job to remove the hard disk from the poorly laptop, pop it in the enclosure and then plug it into my own, working laptop via USB. This allowed me to access all the files Crashed Jr needed to retain and get them onto my hard disk before transferring them to a memory stick. This was not a fast process and there were lots of files..

(Next time don't put it on a confidential email..)

Once I had all the files copied onto a USB stick, it was time to re-install windows on the poorly unit. I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, it took bloody ages too and it was really annoying. It required completely removing all partition information via the simple method of installing Linux Mint and then starting a boot from a Win10 DVD - which was irritatingly awkward to get running. Several hours later it was done and I could take a look at the sound issue - but not before I spent three hours trying to work out why the bluetooth module was reported as 'Unknown Device'. So much for Plug & Play.

Are you sure you don't want to keep Linux?
Please?

My first thoughts were that the sound issue could be just a windows problem and that the re-install would solve it. Sadly this was not the case and the sound resolutely refused to work on the fresh Windows install. Then I started to think about the headphone socket. It was broken, without a doubt, and I was starting to wonder if the damaged socket could be confusing windows by making it think that headphones were permanently plugged in.

Time to get the screwdriver out.

This laptop was fairly easy to get apart - I'd already got it apart once to remove the hard disk - and in no time I was looking a the small daughter-board that contains the headphone socket. Or should I say 'contained'. It was smashed to pieces and basically fell apart when I touched it. I could have tried to get a new socket to install but it looked particularly 'low profile' and, despite my best efforts, I could not find an exact match. 

I'm in pieces, bits and pieces.

I'd say that's broken..

Thinking about headphone sockets work, they can act like a switch in that without a headphone jack inserted, a switch remains closed. Once headphones are plugged in then the switch is broken and this can be used by a computer/PC to determine where to route the sound.

So, in theory, if I could work out the correct pins, shorting two contacts would trick the laptop into thinking that no headphones were inserted and the speaker would work again. 

I booted the laptop up and opened YouTube in a browser and set it playing some random music. Then I tilted the laptop forward and with the bottom panel still removed, started prodding across the headphone contacts with a handy piece of wire. On my second prod I discovered two things:

1) I was correct

2) The volume was set to maximum

After a quick change of underwear I checked that what I'd done was repeatable (it was) and then removed the daughter-board so I could solder a small wire between the contacts to make the 'repair' permanent. 

Waitaminute.
That's not a headphone socket.

And, voila! Sound now emanates from Crashed Jrs old and battered laptop. There is no headphone socket so any headsets need to be Bluetooth or connected via USB, but at least there is sound. And it correctly switches to any other source that is plugged in via USB etc.

Not retro related in the slightest but still a neat, simple repair that got something old up and running again. :)