Technical Difficulties

[athelind]

I just yanked the wireless card out of my trusty old IBM Transnote, and forgot to use the eject button in the process.

To nobody's surprise, I seem to have damaged the PC Card slot on my little buddy, probably bending at least one pin, and now, of course, I can't get the card back in.

Is there any slim CHANCE of being able to get this repaired without spending more than I would on a shiny new laptop?

EDIT: Thanks to the patience of margaras and jdarkwulf, everything is happy. It was not, in fact, a bent PIN, but a warp in the corner of the case -- fixed with a pair of pliers. Card slides neatly in now, the lights light up, and everyting is happy.

I even managed to finally get the connection 'twixt card and shiny new router working. Hooray!

Icon changed from "Facepalm" to "YAY".

Comments

[jdarkwulf.livejournal.com]

http://www.transnote.info/ has a bunch of downloads, and parts, and stuff, and they list some compatible Compact Flash wireless cards that you might consider as an alternative.

[margaras.livejournal.com]

Pulling it out shouldn't have bent anything... First check the wireless card, see if something is stuck inside the pin holes. If you find somethnig metal in there, you did a Bad Thing and probably snapped off a pin. Not much you can easily do in that case.

Next, I'd turn off the laptop, turn it on its side, get some good light to shine in there, and look at the pc card slot itself, see what's bent or jammed. If you've somehow bent a pin, use long needle nose pliers or a screwdriver to carefully straighten it out. Try not to snap the pin off while unbending it.

[wy.livejournal.com]

Disassembly should be pretty easy. Check http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-4TCMCT.html

[bfdragon.livejournal.com]

Are you sure it's not the eject mechanism itself? I think it's on rails in there and you should not be able to bend pins if you wanted to.