A customer dropped off a laptop at the office.

It seemed ok at first. Just a noisy fan and a slow startup.

Well I take the fan out, clean it, but its obvious that it has shifted, and is constantly rubbing against the casing…

It only has 256Mb RAM, so it will be slow to start… but it seems to run like it only has 128Mb RAM… much slower than I would expect.

I then notice that some keyboard keys are not “springy”… they stick and feel like someone has spilt a sugary drink over the keyboard…

And the “trackpad” also doesn’t work well.

I’m also suspecting that the extra slowness might be due to other hardware faults, and / or a malware infection.

At this point, I decide its time to stop.

To fix all the problems, will take time to get replacement parts, a lot of time, and cost the customer more than getting a new “netbook”.

So I call the customer and arrange to get the laptop back to her.

Its funny, but I feel disappointed when I don’t fix a problem… I know I can fix it, but I still have to abandon the work just because of the cost.