reful with this connection. When you have the hard drive removed, there will be a long row of connector pins on one end. Blow on the connector pins and carefully reattach the hard drive. As simple as this sounds, a hard drive not connected correctly or with dust on the connectors can prevent a laptop from booting.

This is a typical laptop hard drive with the connector pins at right.
Step 4
Do the same thing with the memory chips. RAM chips just clip in and out on most laptops. They are very thin circuit boards or chips that usually plug into the processor or have their own compartment. They usually are secured by spring-loaded clamps you can open with your fingers. Taking them out and blowing off dust can suddenly breathe new life into the computer. The same can be done with processors on some laptops.

This is a typical laptop RAM chip.
Step 5
Check the wiring, particularly to the power jack, but everywhere you can get to inside the laptop. While it is rare that the wiring goes bad, a loose connection at the power jack will prevent the laptop from working properly.

Step 6
Get free help. There are a variety of websites, including ifixit.com and mygadgetbag.com, that have step-by-step instructions to remove and replace most components in laptop computers. While you will still need to buy the parts, it will cost you nothing to do the actual repair yourself.

The Pismo is shown open with the RAM and hard drive removed.
Skill: Moderately Challenging

Ingredients:

Phillips screwdrivers

Flathead screwdrivers

Torx screwdrivers

Spudger