First post, by carangil
Hi. I'm rebuilding an old Toshiba p3 laptop I've had in the closet for a few years. The screen intermittently blanks out when you type on the keyboard; it turns out the support for the keyboard is a little worn and flexes much more than it should; as a result the 'daughterboard' right under the keyboard (which contains the keyboard/mouse connectoers, as well as video, flexes, resulting in a temporary blackout, system crash, or frozen mouse.
I've remedied this problem by shimming some plastic in between the two boards, keeping the top board from flexing. Seems fine now. (The original design had one corner of the board completely unsupported; just relying on the 'tripod' made by the other corners.)
How common of a problem is this? I'm also planning on maybe reinforcing the metal plate below the keyboard, just to take some flex off the keyboard.
This simple fix seems almost too good to be true. I hope the solder joints on the flexed card aren't wrecked; the fact that a flex makes the system crash tells me maybe one of the tiny surface mount joints is cracked and when the board is flat it just barely touches. I hope the flex was just misaligning the connection between the two cards, and not one of the little SMB parts.
Anyone have thoughts on this? I'm a little afraid of reflowing the board with a heat gun; the machine does appear to work at the moment.