With electronics, I find that a big sledge hammer makes all those noises go away!
Hmmmm.
"I dunno how that huge flattening got there huney! Did you drop it? Or worse, did the baby get hold of it? You know how he is ALWAYS wanting to 'pway komputer'"
To be honest, I'll be glad to see this 4 year old POS go away. It's slow. The CD/DVD drive failed about 2 year ago. It's never seen a lap. Adn it's a PITA to upgrade.
A couple year ago I wanted to max out the SDRAM (DDRAM?) only to find out I would have to surgically remove the keyboard to install the second gig of memory. WTF?
Then, when the internal writer failed I was "informed" that the only compatible replacement would come from HP for a mere $400. Yeah. I went for the outboard Sony Universal instead and, honestly, I have never used it.
Bought the external USB HD for home video backups of the baby. Then I got a Sony DVD player burner that I could hook teh camera to directly so, I have never used this laptop for home vids either.
Mebe I can follow a lead here. Get a decent desktop to replace this POC. Buy another cheap external HD, and replace the internal drive and dedicate this one to brewing.
Sounds like a plan to me.