http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/ Engadget Comments for http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 11:59AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/The 20 year old indian and pakistani kids are going to be pissed off when they don't get these jobs.]]>Feb 3rd 2008 3:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/
and by the time we lose all these jobs we would have become a developed country btw ;)


- a 22 yr old kid who answers your calls from across the planet]]>Feb 3rd 2008 10:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 4th 2008 2:50AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 4th 2008 1:20PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 12:00PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/27/16-year-old-converts-gas-truck-to-electric-reminds-us-of-our-wa/]]>Feb 3rd 2008 2:36PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/
The most I can do with my HP is just change out the hard drives. Yep, I can totally mod out my laptop.]]>Feb 3rd 2008 12:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/
The companies are control freaks and always will be, until things like the OLPC start changing the world, in more ways than one.]]>Feb 3rd 2008 12:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/"...same 5 year old also wishes to 'deposit $10 billion USD into bank account of you case deceased Uncle died in crash of car'" ]]>Feb 3rd 2008 1:03PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 12:41PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/
Too bad I haven't seen my XO since it died 2 days after arrival. Apparently BrightStar's not as good at repair as these 5-year olds.]]>Feb 3rd 2008 12:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/
Then if someone who doesn't know what they are doing shorted out some wires and caused a fire then the manufacturer would find it hard to prove they weren't the cause. But if they have a policy of OEM seals, then they can prove that the device had been tampered with, and therefore claim that they are not at fault.

If you want you can change pretty much every component, but only if you are willing to void the warranty. So it is up to you.]]>Feb 3rd 2008 12:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 4th 2008 5:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 12:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/
Not only did it seem make me realize Americans ( and Westerners) were totally wasteful (throwing away working or slightly damaged items just to get something 'new'), but many of us just don't have the knowledge to survive is our best buys and tech support centers were taken away. Personally, I think we need to bring something like the OLPC to America. We need to get electronics, computers and practical science into the hands of our kids so that they can become interesting in and see the value of working with their own hands and brains.

Alright, I'm done with the soapbox.Wait, not yet: Go Giants! ]]>Feb 3rd 2008 12:25PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/
Major downside to living in a developed country.]]>Feb 3rd 2008 1:22PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 12:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/
Looking at that motherboard, I can tell you no one is going to be repairing it in the field. Replacing an 0402 resistor in a field of other ones is hard enough, lifting a QFP or BGA chip and replacing it takes specialized tools and it still hard to do right.

I'd like to seem some close up pictures of the connectors used, as those would be the key. A lot of the connectors used in laptops aren't meant to be unhooked and rehooked (and the flexes don't like it either), so perhaps they've done a great job on that here, but I can't really tell from the pic.

Why isn't this done with other devices? Because normally no two laptops have the same parts in them anyway. You couldn't swap displays or backlights. And these parts don't break very often anyway. Adding connectors where there aren't any otherwise likely decreases the reliability due to the possibility of the connector breaking or coming unhooked.

I mean, what usually goes wrong with your laptop that you could fix by swapping parts anyway? Besides the battery.]]>Feb 3rd 2008 12:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/
Untrue.

Every laptop on the market today uses the same form factor for the optical drive, regardless of what you may think. The plastics may be a little different for how the faceplate/bezel attaches, but the data connection to the motherboard is identical across the board. The only difference is the cable or caddy used, but the drive can easily be removed from that.

LCDs are almost universally made by Samsung and LG these days, and the LCD side of things - the data cable and the inverter cable - are standardized across the board. LCDs use either a normal wire-and-pin design, or a ZIF ribbon cable. Hard drives and RAM are, obviously, standard form factors, as are things like Express Card and PCMCIA, and MiniPCI and miniPCI-e.

The only components that are significantly different from each other can be the trackpad/trackstick assembly, keyboard, and motherboard (and the plastic/metal housing). But you'd be surprised how much of this stuff is actually pretty standard; the only differences lie in the cables and the connections on the motherboard - even then, some of that is becoming more standard these days.

When you drop a laptop like this one (with no hard drive) the one thing that is really likely to die is the LCD assembly - the display itself and/or the backlight. This article is very unlikely talking about a situation where a resistor dies and has to be replaced. We're talking about regular wear and tear here.]]>Feb 4th 2008 11:14AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/
]]>Feb 4th 2008 5:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 12:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/]]>Feb 3rd 2008 12:47PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 12:53PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 12:57PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/
I wonder what would be using cheaper parts.]]>Feb 3rd 2008 4:44PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 1:00PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/
Uh, in this case, smaller=more expensive. And larger=easier to design, implement, and repair.]]>Feb 3rd 2008 1:24PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/For some reason the reply system isn't working for me but, when I was 11 and my parents made me go into my room cause I was in trouble, I disabled my dad's computer from my room and planted a virus in anger. How smart we were back in the day.]]>Feb 3rd 2008 1:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/
kudos to you for that great reply to Alex's comment. i was about to break a tear and jubilate because i thought this would be the first engadget post/article relating to Nigeria that did not have any comment linking "us" to fraud/ebay activities until i got to alex's stupidity ]]>Feb 3rd 2008 1:46PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 2:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 2:36PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Actually - no - the much better way to go is not to think about repair, simply make each PCB as absolutely smallest as possible and then replace that PCB if repair is needed. Send the PCBs back to a central place for refurbishment by specialists ie not inexperienced people in the middle of no where!]]>Feb 3rd 2008 3:07PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/
There is next to nothing on the motherboard that can break. In fact, if you use multiple small PCBs instead of one large one, you significantly increase the breakability because of the ribbon cables or sockets connecting them. The XO was intentionally designed to minimize the number of connectors and PCBs used. Thus, you are wrong.]]>Feb 3rd 2008 3:23PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 3:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 4:31PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/
Bugs and spiders like vent holes.]]>Feb 3rd 2008 4:51PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 4:53PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 5:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 6:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 6:10PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 6:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 7:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/In fact, mine has several stuck pixels.
I won't be claiming a warranty fix for that. Indeed, my 30 days are up, but I will be taking advantage of the easy-to-service aspect of the XOPC to repair my screen.

I had a long-time policy on laptops due to their silly proprietary nature. Ever since the power inverter on my old Toshiba Satellite went out and required a $400 repair which didn't fix the problem, I have had an extreme distaste of computers I cannot fix by myself.

The XOPC is the laptop that I like. I can fix it myself. That is serious.
]]>Feb 3rd 2008 7:56PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 3rd 2008 9:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/
and by the time we lose all these jobs we would have become a developed country btw ;)


- a 22 yr old kid who answers your calls from across the planet]]>Feb 3rd 2008 10:36PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/

Alex
@ Feb 3rd 2008 1:03PM
The headline should have continued to read:
"...same 5 year old also wishes to 'deposit $10 billion USD into bank account of you case deceased Uncle died in crash of car'"
]]>Feb 3rd 2008 11:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 4th 2008 12:47AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/Feb 4th 2008 9:25AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/03/5-year-olds-repair-olpc-laptops-at-nigerian-hospital/
Heh. Too much of a good thing...]]>Feb 4th 2008 10:10AM