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Aotearoa Daily Kōrero 5/7/2023
(lemmy.nz)
Welcome to today’s daily kōrero!
It doesn’t have to be me making the thread, first in first served. If you are here on a day and there’s no daily thread, feel free to create it!
Anyway, it’s just a chance to talk about your day, what you have planned, what you have done, etc.
So how’s it going?
Four keys on my laptop have decided to just stop working (G, H, single quote and up arrow). Internet searches show others with the same problem, even the same keys, but no solution.
Tried cleaning individual keys, rebooting multiple times, even a different OS as a live CD. Even a bios test has them failing. External keyboard works fully, but lugging one of those around defeats the purpose of having a laptop at all.
Warranty expired too. Considering buying a replacement, aftermarket, keyboard as I can't afford to buy a new laptop and the rest of it appears to be working fine.
A frustrating problem.
Surely you can work around it. How often do you really use those keys?
I'm a programmer, they're all quite useful
Just need to come up with some creative key mappings
What kind of laptop and how old is it?
The warranty has virtuality no impact on whether you can get it repaired for free. We have the Consumer Guarantees Act which far surpasses most warranties.
Thinkpad, just under 3 years old. The keyboard replacement is around $50 from Amazon.
I think this one is going to depend on your circumstances. Most likely you could argue enough to get it fixed, they will probably send it away and you'll be without a laptop for a couple or three weeks. If you paid $500 for it then you might struggle to get them to do it. If it was a $3000 model then I'd say you have a very good argument for getting it covered under the CGA, but it will depend on the store. There's also the risk they will claim you dropped it and not cover it.
But normally for me the conversation goes "I bought this from you a couple of years back, now it's not working". They say "Sorry it's out of warranty", I say "you're still required to fix it under the Consumer Guarantees Act". Then they get a manager and you repeat the conversation. They will normally agree at this point. If they say they can't do it without a receipt, tell them they have the record because the IRD requires them to keep the records for 7 years, and the GST Act requires they provide a copy receipt within 28 days of someone requesting it so please can I have a copy of my receipt?
Now, depending on how much $50 is worth to you and how much you like arguing with staff, it might just be easier to do it yourself.
Personally I have got a refund on a 2.5 year old laptop that died and a 2 year old phone that died, but I know some places are better about it than others.
Bought it direct from Lenovo, on sale for $1000 - I think it was half price. I believe international purchases are still covered by the CGA, might get in touch with consumer.org first.
Honestly I think your chances are good. I was worried you might have got it from PBTech who have a bad CGA history, but if you got it from Lenovo you can probably just tell them it's broken and you're from NZ and they will probably just sort it for you.
I bought a laptop direct from Microsoft, shipped from Australia, and after a couple of years it died. They sent me a return label and gave me my money back once they checked to see if it was faulty.
You a fan of Louis Rossman too?
To be honest I'd never heard of him, but checking his Wikipedia page I think I would have been a fan if I had heard of him.
I have done the odd laptop repair but these days I have a Framework laptop. Super easy to fix or upgrade, just difficult to get to NZ because they don't ship here yet.
Modular laptop... 🤤 🤤
Dam I want to get one of those!
I've had it for a while now, definitely has some quirks but I really like it. I love that you can hot swap your ports. Need an HDMI port? Slide one in. Display port? Remove the HDMI and slide in and Display port. Need 4 USB-A ports? You got it!
There are only 4 port slots but you can just swap in what you need.
It charges with USB-C, and you can move the ports, so you can put the power cord on the left or the right depending on what you need.
I had it shipped through Youshop, was not cheap but it probably wasn't that different from buying that level of laptop in NZ.
They have announced a 15 inch one now. It looks really cool, maybe you'll find a 13 inch Framework on trademe later this year 😆
you're not tempted to take the old mobo and chuck it in a 3d printed case for a thin desktop / lab PC?
I am very tempted, probably to use as a server to replace my Raspberry Pi, but then what do I do with the rest of it? No one wants to buy a laptop with no guts.
Do Framework have a used spares program marketplace or anything like that? I'd have thought there'd be folks keen if they had failing parts and wanted cheaper replacements. Though because you're on early possibly everybody else would be doing the same thing - taking the mobo and being left with spare display/keyboard etc.
Nah not that you can sell your stuff on. And anyway, Framework don't officially support NZ. If they did there might be more demand for the parts.
But if I took out the mainboard and sold the rest, someone could buy a mainboard/RAM, and have a laptop. But it's hard work getting one here, so I might as well just give them mine. Easier to find a buyer, easier for the buyer who can just start using it.
I might just have to wait until I'm upgrading the mainboard in the 15 inch one before I get my nice server.
Keyboards on laptops ~~are~~ can be easy to replace