EeeP, my EeePC is b0rken.
Jan. 29th, 2008 10:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baratronMy mother & I have made it safely to New York. The laptop, however, did not. We are currently not sure what the problem with it is, except that it doesn't work. You can switch it on, and it displays the initial screen, but won't boot or accept input from any buttons. This would be A Disaster and truly distressing, except that it's Richard's 200 UKP EeePC rather than my real laptop. So it's annoying and mildly upsetting, and causing me to have to pay silly amounts of money for internet access in the hotel lobby instead of $10 for 24 hours.
Current beliefs of Richard + the EeePC forum are that the problem is either:
a) The X-ray machine and/or a metal detector at the airport wiped the flash, so it won't boot because it contains no operating system or programs. (EeePCs are ridiculously cheap at least in part because they contain absolutely no drives - they don't even have a hard drive.) This is unlikely, because X-rays aren't supposed to affect flash memory, and if it did, our cameras and my phone/PDA would have been upset too.
b) When my bag fell on the floor during the train journey to Gatwick, the shock of the fall dislodged some internal connection to the flash or the RAM, so it won't boot because it can't see that. This seems rather more likely, and if I was the sort of geek to carry a micro cross-head screwdriver everywhere I went, it'd be easy to open up the case to find out. Except I'm not that kind of geek, and especially not when flying and having to conform with annoying "security" regulations.
With this being New York and The City That Never Sleeps, my lack of screwdriver could be easily remedied by a trip to the 24 hour hardware store that exists not terribly far from here according to the Yellow Pages. Except my body thinks it's 4 in the morning, and I only had 3 hours sleep last night and 4 hours the night before. Much as going to a 24 hour hardware store in the middle of the night sounds like A Thing That Really Should Be Experienced at least once in a lifetime, I'm not sure that now is the time to do so. I think that a hot shower and bed would be a much better idea.
Current beliefs of Richard + the EeePC forum are that the problem is either:
a) The X-ray machine and/or a metal detector at the airport wiped the flash, so it won't boot because it contains no operating system or programs. (EeePCs are ridiculously cheap at least in part because they contain absolutely no drives - they don't even have a hard drive.) This is unlikely, because X-rays aren't supposed to affect flash memory, and if it did, our cameras and my phone/PDA would have been upset too.
b) When my bag fell on the floor during the train journey to Gatwick, the shock of the fall dislodged some internal connection to the flash or the RAM, so it won't boot because it can't see that. This seems rather more likely, and if I was the sort of geek to carry a micro cross-head screwdriver everywhere I went, it'd be easy to open up the case to find out. Except I'm not that kind of geek, and especially not when flying and having to conform with annoying "security" regulations.
With this being New York and The City That Never Sleeps, my lack of screwdriver could be easily remedied by a trip to the 24 hour hardware store that exists not terribly far from here according to the Yellow Pages. Except my body thinks it's 4 in the morning, and I only had 3 hours sleep last night and 4 hours the night before. Much as going to a 24 hour hardware store in the middle of the night sounds like A Thing That Really Should Be Experienced at least once in a lifetime, I'm not sure that now is the time to do so. I think that a hot shower and bed would be a much better idea.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-30 06:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-30 10:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-30 11:31 am (UTC)- can you get into the bios? (I think it's either holding del or F1 on power on)
- if you can, then try plugging in a usb CD or DVD drive and booting from a XP or linux live CD (or indeed, the recovery DVD that came with it)
- the eee-ps users site (http://www.eeeuser.com/) has lots of info as to how to get into them, they look pretty easy to open
- you're right that it's probably a dislodged SODIMM or corrupted SSD. I don't think the SDD can get dislodged as it's soldered in on most models. If it's anything else though I'd return it as faulty :)
Good luck!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-30 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-30 07:44 pm (UTC)