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TIL a trick for stubborn ribbon cables from a 3 year old laptop repair in Omaha
Last week, I finally got a client's ancient laptop to boot by gently cleaning the ZIF connector pins with a pink eraser, after three tries with isopropyl alcohol just smeared the corrosion around.
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ruby_lane3mo ago
Sometimes the simple fix is the right one.
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linda_clark1mo ago
Just last week I was working on an old Dell Latitude from 2007, and the trackpad stopped working completely. I was about to order a whole new keyboard deck assembly, but then I remembered a tip from a guy on a vintage computer group. He said to try a clean pencil eraser on the ribbon contacts. I rubbed each contact gently for about 10 seconds, reseated it, and the trackpad worked perfectly. @ruby_lane is absolutely right, the simple fix is often the best one.
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sagea883mo ago
Is that kind of corrosion even a common problem on those connectors? I've opened a lot of old laptops and usually the ribbon cable itself fails or the plastic latch breaks. Using an eraser seems like a last ditch thing for a machine that's probably not worth the time anyway.
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