Today I installed Vanilla OS on an old laptop. Vanilla OS is the debian immutable and I am looking forward to giving it a go.
Unfortunately this laptop is a Razer Blade Stealth 13" (2017) with a couple of issues. Firstly, it no longer charges the battery from mains power supply and so has to be permanently plugged in. Secondly, it has stopped responding to depressing the C key.
I had changed the battery in the past but it soon went flat. I thought about pulling out the keyboard but the iFixit howto notes at Step 11 that there are 55 x 1.6 mm screws securing the keyboard. Even if I get that far there seems no guarantee that the C key fix will be easy or even possible.
I am writing this in the spirit of @jdowney’s venting about computers. It’s a pity that such a nice, although now aging, laptop with a great looking touch screen is reduced to that of a desktop.
I’m not much of a hardware guy and wonder whether it’s worth risking bricking the machine if only to give it laptop functionality on mains power.
I’m not familiar with the Razer line of PCs at all (other than being aware of the brand), but have repaired countless laptops in a past job and also privately for friends and family. Here’s some general advice to ponder when doing this sort of repair. Replace the below references to keyboard with any non-battery part (e.g., LCD panels, motherboards).
When researching the repair, consider that the item may be beyond economic repair, that is, it’s going to cost you far more money to repair it than it’s worth. The definitions of “cost” and “worth” are going to be flexible in a homelab context (e.g., you may also consider that the “cost” of your labour is $0 and that it’s a fun project, and the “worth” may include the joy of getting it working and not sending something to e-waste), but it’s still something that needs to be objectively considered. Something that might not be BER at the start of the repair can quickly spiral (e.g., new keyboard is good, but you broke the flex cable, then broke the hinge or palm rest putting it back together).
If you can get into the device relatively easily, there may be stickers on the bottom of the keyboard itself that identify the specific model of keyboard you’re looking for. Rather than looking for keyboards for a Razer Blade Stealth 13" 2017, you may find that putting that keyboard part number into a major distributor such as EMPR, eBay (searching descriptions as well as titles), AliExpress, etc. might show up something compatible and/or shared with another model. I’ve owned several computers, whitegoods, and cars that are like that - the part for Brand A+Model X is unobtainable or prohibitively expensive, whereas the identical part number for Brand B+Model Y is readily available and cheap.
When hunting down parts, some manufacturers give a part one part number when it’s in the original device and give field replacements or minor revisions a separate part number. If you can find a service manual then that will help. EMPR (linked above) and other distributors might have this information listed on their sites (e.g., the same part with multiple part numbers), and some of this information is made public by manufacturers themselves (e.g., HP PartSurfer). Functionally these parts will be the same in almost all cases, barring extreme edge cases such as safety recalls or firmware changes.
An extension of the above two points - don’t be afraid to hunt down a really cheap broken identical/compatible model of machine from eBay, etc. as they can be a good source of parts. Laptops with broken screens, hinges, or plastic housings pop up commonly on eBay and are a tremendous source of odds and ends such as plastic housings, keyboards, hinges, bluetooth/wifi modules, etc. Likewise, a keyboard with another layout’s keys (e.g. UK, Japanese) on it might be readily available and you may be able to swap the caps over or just live with it. It’ll be electrically the same - just double check that it’s compatible - and add some key cap stickers later (or live with it). I’ve done a few freebies for family over the years that have been handed back with a ₹ symbol on the keyboard because those keyboards were far easier to get on the second hand market, and they’ve worked just fine for years afterwards!
Some laptops are dead easy to swap the keyboard out, some are a nightmare as the keyboard is considered part of the broader palmrest/touchpad assembly. I’ve seen plenty of both. The latter are a gigantic pain in the bum unless you buy the whole assembly (lots of peeling away tapes and glues and trying to get everything back together just right).
The existing keyboard may be repairable. I’m not familiar with these devices/keyboards, but it could just need a clean or a single replacement key/spring/etc. I can’t find anything in a quick search, but a hunt might show some similar keyboards or assemblies that could work.
My intent is not to put you off at all - it can be a fun project and some of these repairs can be incredibly cheap and easy. On the other hand, an ex-lease Dell Latitude or similar will run $400-500 and will be newer, have better performance and so on, so by the time you’ve sunk a bit of money and time into the repair, it may not have been worth your while. Consider also that you could potentially could potentially partially fund the upgrade by parting the Razer out or selling it as is on eBay with a scrubbed drive. Using it as a desktop machine and/or picking up a second hand laptop for laptop use might be a better avenue, unless you find some readily available and easily replaceable parts.
Time and money and value — Before I retired my time had a higher value; now it’s my money. This alone explains why I have pulled that old laptop out of the cupboard.
When starting out the economic consequences of going down the paid or self repair route are either unknowable or expensive or both. My “value” decision is therefore to hack around the limitations. This laptop will be permanently plugged in and I have a spare bluetooth keyboard and mouse handy.
The Razer is a kewl machine with touch screen, glowing keyboard and fast. Unfortunately it is fairly niche and Razer is not in EMPR’s top 5 laptop brands.
For me it will probably best to go with one of the better known brands or stick with framework.
Thanks JD, I’ll file that away for future reference.
