September 23, 2012
Number Your Parts!
Compy is back! Well, sort of. At this time, I don't have the keyboard or top assembly ressembled to the machine and I doubt I want to put a fan back in, although I will consider keeping track of my computers thermal stats. (I'll explain how to do that shortly and how to have tmux do real-time updates in a post in the near future.)
Today, I'm dedicating this post to getting the serial numbers of all the parts that make up your computer. This is ideal if you didn't assemble it yourself. So if you build your own computers from separate sources, this post might not exactly be fore you.
Since Compy is still "topless", this give me an opporitunity to evaluate what parts are working and what parts could use replacement. In this case, Part Number 537614-001, the chip with the single USB Port with the Audio Jack next to it needs to be replaced. This part does not work anymore. The fan's ineffectiveness likely caused this part to get fried from the CPUs heat. This problem has left me to only having two USB ports available which at this time are currently be occupied by an external keyboard and mouse that are used to type up todays post. I could use the powered USB hub, but I recently bound the wires on it for use with my HP Touchpad.
And if you think I'm going to buy this replacement part at SparePartsWarehouse.com (SPW), you are mistaked. SPW does provide a plethera of parts information that is relevant to learning more about what parts make up your computer, but their prices aren't the lowest. And since I just can't go down the MicroCenter to pick up these parts (which would be cool if that were possible for things like fans and screws, which they have plenty of for desktops), any part that I need for a laptop, netbook, or tablet will have to be mail-ordered, in most cases from China, Hong Kong, or somewhere else in Southeast Asia. Which means any part that I do order, reguardless if shipping is free, will take at least a week to get here. It kind of makes you wonder why the manufactures don't have a warehouse of spare parts already here in North America. (Oh yeah, It's cause those "great economic leaders" exported our manufacturing base to maximize their profits but have never needed to go to a Radio Shack or auto parts store in their life. There will come a day they will be in a position where they need some kind of part that they just can't buy a replacement. Until that day comes, this is how ordering parts works.)
So what am I do to until then? I still have my Touchpad, and this set up seems to be working fine thus far, though I might need to get another USB multiplexer for my netbook if I want to plug in an external storage device. I can get a list of parts that make up my computer and find out where on the internet would be the cheapest to find these parts. (It's a shame there isn't a website that does this already. The price comparison part, that is.) Most importantly, I can just wait.
