WARNING: While this article may be encouraging in terms of what you might accomplish with patience and effort, you should also be aware that faith and skill are not one and the same thing, and that the complexity of electronic circuits makes them far easier to damage than they are to repair. Testing equipment which generates a voltage (such as an ohmmeter) can damage sensitive circuits, and one damaged component or circuit can render useless millions of transistors due to the complexity and interdependence of the electronics in this kind of system. Of course, you are completely free to poke around inside your computer's innards to whatever degree you wish and to whatever detrimental extent you desire, although we do not recommend it. |
Originally a sizable investment of only $2700 US, in the summer of 1993 the Acer Travelpro E (model V486S) was one of the first computers to have a PCMCIA slot. With a 486 DX/2-50 processor and 12 Mb of RAM, here was a fairly impressive performer for its time. In the fall of 1996, an overheat problem which had been allayed by the application of ice containers to cool the 486 DX/2-50 turned into something much worse. Water had condensed on the surface of an overly large ice containment module and had run down into the inside of the computer through the open processor access panel. The result was immediate; a dead computer. Subsequent attempts to prematurely boot up the laptop after the mishap had failed, as did attempts to boot after allowing adequate drying time. |
Nearly two years later, with renewed hope and after much forethought, the pieces were dusted, examined, and any crust which had been deposited during electrical discharges was carefully scraped away from in between adjacent circuit board contacts. Further disassembly had revealed a whitish residue concealed beneath what was likely the regulator/charging circuit. Low-voltage resistance testing also revealed a short between two circuit contacts which otherwise appeared disconnected. After a break, it was decided to seek professional repair help when it was realized that more harm may already have been done. This prompted a reassembly for `one last try', which resulted in the discovery that an Acer Travelpro had been resurrected!!! Later, one of the batteries even performed as it had in the past. Good to have you back, buddy.
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