I post a lot about my computer adventures. If you are a friend of mine or a regular reader you will find this post pretty standard computer fare about Laptop Solipsism.
The tenants of Solipsism postulate that MY experiences are the ONLY provable experiences. When you speak about pain, such as, you cannot really speak accurately about someone else’s pain but only your own. It also implies that you cannot really ever describe your pain to another person since it is uniquely yours and anyone trying to interpret your description can only do so using analogs in their own mind from their own experiences. Deep shit right?
Well, I had a situation that was uniquely painful that I want to share with you. I have a nice laptop from a major computer maker that I am sure you are all familiar with. lets just say they had a catchy ad campaign a while back where a jerky teen went around pointing out that folks were “gettin’ a (insert manufacturer here)”. This laptop is small and portable like most laptops are and had been a fun, useful machine for me for a long while now. Suddenly the last few weeks it gradually has been harder and harder to power on. Some thorough testing and research revealed to me that the coin cell, sometimes called the button cell battery that powers the BIOS was failing and needed to be replaced. Much to my dismay, more research on the process of replacing the battery yielded a sobering answer. I will have to tear t his damned machine UTTERLY apart to do the job. I don’t just mean removing some parts and pieces I mean, the process involves taking the machine apart to the BARE METAL!
Not only is the battery positioned under 5 layers of other components but it is upside down on the bottom of the motherboard which must be removed to get to it. I sat shocked and quietly crying for an hour while I mulled around in my mind what options I have. The battery itself is a standard button type 2032 used in everything from hearing aids to remote controls. That’s easy to get. The process seemed very daunting. I even went as far as asking my buddy Jim, who is a much more detail oriented guy than I am how much he would charge me to do the job. He refused to quote me stating that’s what friends are for. What a guy my buddy Jim is.
I bought the battery but just could not bring myself to take the machine over to Jim’s shop. I felt half guilty at sticking him with such an inane job and one half stupefied at my reluctance to do it myself. A week went by and I cam home early today for the long weekend and decided I would not let this job scare me. So I started about 3:00 PM. It was not as hard as i thought it would be, just tedious. I had a collection of small quarter sized, plastic ice cream container lids to put all the sundry screws in. Thanks to my honey who saved them just for situations such as this. I grabbed some small post it notes and a set of jewelers screwdrivers and set to work.
About 4:45 the job was done. It was time to test the machine. Would it boot? I can happily say that this post was done entirely on that little laptop as a burn in test. HOWEVER…
I would not wish that experience on anyone. Sophists say, you can’t really understand unless you have done it anyway.