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Battled my laptop... and won! (aka The Last Screw rule)

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout' started by NewRoxFan, Aug 20, 2016.

  1. NewRoxFan

    NewRoxFan Contributing Member

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    I have a four year old Lenovo x220. At the time it was pretty good... solid/light/good performance business class laptop. But, its four years old, and newer laptops are faster, lighter, better screens etc. But to get a new one is outside the budget.

    An example of how old it really is... I was having slow internet speeds, so I complained to my ISP and they sent a tech out to check my cable modem and router. I pay for 1 GB speeds, and hardwired into the modem I get it and even into the router I get 700-800 MB/s. But wireless... well, my laptop was getting less than 100MB/s and sometime as low as 20MB/s.

    Turns out the wireless card was single band (1.4GHz) which was really slow. So, I researched and a dual-band card appeared to be a cheap and easy fix. Ordered one for $7.50 off ebay. So far so good. Researched the steps to replace the card... even though you need to disassemble the laptop for the most part it was pretty straightforword.

    In my house their is a general rule called "The Last Screw". And the rule hammered me this time.

    The entire disassembly was going great. Until, The Last Screw. This one held down the wireless card. Natch. Tighter than a frogs a$$ (and you know how tight that is... water tight). Natch its also a soft and really small screw phillips head in a tight spot. After stripping the head really good, and trying all sorts of "tricks" (rubber band, superglue, needle nose pliers, carving a slot for a flat head screw driver). I ended up resorting to drilling the head off. Unfortunately, I didn't leave enough of the screw shaft to try removing the rest of the screw.

    Superglue. Used previously to try to glue an old screwdriver to the screw. Superglued the new wireless card in place. Reassembled. Took a second for the laptop to recognize the new wireless card, and it them saw the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz networks. Cracked open a beer to celebrate. :grin:

    Of course, if I ever have to swap out that card again I will need to use pliers and likely snap it out. But by that time I will really need to replace the laptop anyway.

    So whats the moral of the story? Technology sucks. The Rule of The Last Screw will always need to be overcome. Superglue is your friend. Beer always makes everything better.
     
  2. heypartner

    heypartner Contributing Member

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    Dude...you left me on the edge of my seat here...I just has to know...How fast is your wireless now?
     
  3. The Boz

    The Boz Member

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    Wow. Decided to test my 7 year old Dell speeds. 14mbps on the wifi and 87 mbps plugged into the modem. Maybe time for new laptop.
     
  4. NewRoxFan

    NewRoxFan Contributing Member

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    LOL, well, good question. Middle of the day when speeds were slower (much slower than the fastest 100mb/s), I am now getting between 120mb/s to the fastest was just under 200mb/s before slowing to 178mb/s. I am wondering if the bus the wireless card sits might be a gating factor or some other link in the chain. But its noticeably faster, and well worth the $7.50 and time wrestling with it.

    Odd was that my cell phone consistently gets the best speeds connected to wifi (usually between 300-400mb/s).
     
  5. jbasket

    jbasket Member

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    My laptop's running 8 years old and haven't had these internet problems. Interesting.
     
  6. Dei

    Dei Member

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    That's why you buy Apple :^)
     
  7. NewRoxFan

    NewRoxFan Contributing Member

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    LOL... well, if Apples weren't so overpriced. Oh, and if I didn't get the Lenovo for a contract job I was doing for Microsoft at the time... :grin:
     
  8. aeroman10

    aeroman10 Contributing Member

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    You could have just gotten a USB dual band wifi adapter and disabled the internal one :)
     
  9. NewRoxFan

    NewRoxFan Contributing Member

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    True... would the USB have been a gating factor on speed? The x220 only has two USB 2.0 (one's filled with a wireless mouse plug).

    Saw where in the past New Egg sells refurbed i7 X-1 Carbons with a larger solid state drive (mine only has a 128GB SSD). That would be tempting. But may treat myself to either a new Lenovo or ASUS around the time the Black Friday sales start up.
     
  10. aeroman10

    aeroman10 Contributing Member

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    I am using an Edimax AC USB adapter in a USB 2.0 port on my laptop and getting great speeds (ATT UVerse 45 Mbps plan)

    <a href="http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/5568993767"><img src="http://www.speedtest.net/result/5568993767.png" /></a>
     
  11. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Contributing Member

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    Last Screw Rule is for crazy ex-girlfriends or dated laptops?

    Sometimes unscrewing the toughest second to last makes it a little bit easier to mess with because all the tension is resting on the last screw and balancing that tension helps.

    Some companies screw the last sucker on tight, so like you noticed, no trick or tip will make it budge.
     

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