This week, I 'ave been mainly on the scrounge.

So I spied a rather swish looking Tosh Satellite Pro 6100 in the junk pile the other day at work.

Asked what was wrong with it

"it won't boot up at all"

So I dismantled it and then reassembled it, making sure all the bits clicked into place properly....and the pressed the power button.

Hey hey...'bad rtc'.....

So i fiddled a bit, but looks like a new CMOS battery required. In the process though, I broke the keyboard connector and scratched the keyboard ribbons (my bad, i tried to bodge an existing bit of damage with superglue...bad idea)

On the plus side, i did liberate the wifi antenna's and snaffle an intel wifi minipc card (from a Vaio that was totally goosed) that i installed successfully (as the 6100's had all the switches and lights but no card...go figure). Then, for the hell of it, I stuffed in the old 512mb ram from my own old upgraded laptop.

had a heart attack when I enquired of the price of a replacement graphics board (as that holds the mouse, the keyboard, everything....)

Joe,

Got he number of the place handy?

I need a new shift key for the keyboard on my savrow laptop...never know might get lucky with the spares bin.

01925 260800

Service Source Europe.

Unfortunately though Col, they seem to only do bits for mainstream laptop makers (Acers, Sony, Tosh)

And even then, usually complete parts, like the whole keyboard i think, not individual keys......

Might get lucky though - as I bet the Sav Row keyboard is actually made by a mainstream company....

Nowt more satisfying, Gwilo, than achieving the seemingly impossible single handedly on a budget

I've been wondering what happens to them all. Can they recycle them these days, or they just ditch them in the sea and blame global warming for the rise in sea level? There must be enough to go round the world at least twice. No wonder we get sci fi movies about them repairing themselves and taking over the world. Der da der da...

So, well done for doing your ecological duty - take a bow *round of applause*

Mo