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Cleaning contact corrosion inside my laptop
My Inspiron 600m has difficulty with powering up after it has recently been used. This problem is well documented by many forum members. I've applied many of the tricks that were suggested. I have also replaced my hard-disk with a new one that draws 0.5 amp instead of 1.0 amp(on the original equipment), replaced my 4-cell battery with a brand new 6-cell battery purchased from Dell.
However, I still have the problem if I want to power up my laptop more than once a day. Sometimes I manage to power-up by holding down on the power-up button for what feels like a minute or more. SOmetimes it help if I removed the battery (relying solely on the power adapter - also new from Dell) and the DVD writer. I have to do this even after the laptop has completely cooled off. It is as if the internals accumulated a charge that needs to be dissipated slowly. Someone on the forum mentioned this before.
Anyway, while working inside the laptop, I notices several metallic leaf-spring contacts that seems to be made with the same metal as the contact between the DVD writer and the case. I read before that Dell used Magnesium for the case (I assume it's the internal case, since the outside skin is made of plastic). Since these were not gold contacts, when I could remove some of the cases from the laptop, I sanded the contact with the my wife's Emery boards (the thing women use to file finger nails). I did that so I would remove corrosions in the contacts. Because the springs are fragile, I don't think I cleaned the internal contacts very well.
I don't remember if there were obvious corrosions on the leaf-springs (fingers) inside the laptop, but I can still see the corrosion on all four leaf-spring contacts on the DVD writer. Since corrosion happens over time and is helped along with heat, I take it the overheating problems in these Inspiron 600m no doubt will promote such corrosion over time.
Assuming a corroded contact makes a bad electrical connection, I would like to clean it off.
Has anyone else seen discoloring in the contacts on their CD or DVD players? Have you been able to clean it off? What works?
However, I still have the problem if I want to power up my laptop more than once a day. Sometimes I manage to power-up by holding down on the power-up button for what feels like a minute or more. SOmetimes it help if I removed the battery (relying solely on the power adapter - also new from Dell) and the DVD writer. I have to do this even after the laptop has completely cooled off. It is as if the internals accumulated a charge that needs to be dissipated slowly. Someone on the forum mentioned this before.
Anyway, while working inside the laptop, I notices several metallic leaf-spring contacts that seems to be made with the same metal as the contact between the DVD writer and the case. I read before that Dell used Magnesium for the case (I assume it's the internal case, since the outside skin is made of plastic). Since these were not gold contacts, when I could remove some of the cases from the laptop, I sanded the contact with the my wife's Emery boards (the thing women use to file finger nails). I did that so I would remove corrosions in the contacts. Because the springs are fragile, I don't think I cleaned the internal contacts very well.
I don't remember if there were obvious corrosions on the leaf-springs (fingers) inside the laptop, but I can still see the corrosion on all four leaf-spring contacts on the DVD writer. Since corrosion happens over time and is helped along with heat, I take it the overheating problems in these Inspiron 600m no doubt will promote such corrosion over time.
Assuming a corroded contact makes a bad electrical connection, I would like to clean it off.
Has anyone else seen discoloring in the contacts on their CD or DVD players? Have you been able to clean it off? What works?