In news:47cbfeea$0$1104$4c368faf@roadrunner.com,
wtrplnet typed on Mon, 3 Mar 2008 05:35:56 -0800:
> HP Pavilion dv9220
>
> After a full year of intensive use as a replacement for a desktop I
> decide to give the poor thing a break. I get a new PC.
>
> I visit my nephew who has a disc with pics I need. I insert the disc
> in the HP, open Win Explore and attempt to read the disc. Suddenly
> the screen goes black, no blue screen, no sounds, no nothing. The
> start button does nothing. Blue glow at the power connection as
> normal. Try using the mostly charged battery. Nothing. No sound,
> no boot, no blue color behind the shortcut keys at the top of the
> keyboard as normal. I admire my shiny new doorstop.
>
> Take it home, plug it in, fiddle around with no better results. Decide
> to let it sit there with the battery in, plugged in, and maybe
> charge. It sits there, silently, doing nothing, as expected.
>
> Suddenly (what else?) I hear a 'snapping' sound from the direction of
> the laptop. I look at it and notice blue sparks (!) coming from
> under the middle of the keyboard. Using my years of experience in
> this kind of thing the first thing that flashes through my mind is
> "this isn't good." I unplug the unit. I continue to admire my shiny
> (and now dangerous) new doorstop.
> With nothing to lose (expired warranty) I decide to locate that HP
> manual shortcut I archived long ago. Surprisingly, I actually find
> it! I do have some experience with electronic equipment, mostly in
> coin operated arcade equipment, and in my many years of experience I
> learned that sparking was usually a sign of something bad happening
> with electronic circuitry. So, I decide to remove the keyboard and
> see just how many crispy resistors, transistors, board traces, etc. I
> can find. Don't know exactly what I will do when I find the burned
> parts, but I'm sure they're there.
> I remove the keyboard and the first thing I do is turn it over and
> inspect the bottom. Sure enough, on the clear plastic barrier sheet
> there is some 'smoky' looking residue right in the middle, as
> expected. I look at the now exposed chassis of the laptop and notice
> there are only a few small openings in it exposing the assorted parts
> inside. There IS a board under the small rectangular opening in the
> chassis. I inspect, expecting to find *something* burned. What I
> find is -nothing unusual. No burns, no crispy critter smell,
> nothing. Well, SOMETHING burned! Sparks don't appear out of nowhere.
>
> So, I do the only things I can do. I reseat anything that can be
> reseated, I use compressed air (hot breath, attempting not to spit on
> it) to clear any microscopic debris, and then brush any accessible
> surfaces with a soft brush. I notice nothing loose, no debris, no
> bit of errant solder, no dust bunnies, no rodent droppings, no
> spiders, not even any Cheeto crumbs or cat hairs. (Now the last IS
> surprising, my apartment has cat hair EVERYWHERE, despite my best
> efforts to keep it under control.)
> So, to make a long story even more boring than you imagined possible,
> I buttoned the thing up, plugged it in (while shielding my eyes) and
> waited for the expected small explosion, or at least an interesting
> light show.
> Nothing.
>
> I push the power button, it starts as if nothing had ever happened.
> It's worked perfectly for three months now.
>
> All I can imagine is that some kind of conductive debris shorted
> *something* and when I fiddled around inside I dislodged it. What is
> surprising about the incident is that the short was bad enough to
> cause sparking, and yet nothing got cooked.
>
> Anyone else have this kind of experience with a laptop?
>
> Alan

Yes you did get very lucky! And yes, something could have fallen inside
the laptop and had caused a short until you removed it. And yes, sparks
can leave no trace they were never there.

--
Bill