(AI Prompt: Laptop Killer. To be fair, the picture’s not too far off.)

Late last year, I came into possession of an HP ZBook 17 Gen 1. It’s a 17″ beast of a laptop from 2014. I named it Chungus due to its immense size. In 2014, this was a state-of-the-art workstation complete with discrete graphics. It had an amazing HD screen, which was my favorite feature of the ZBook. I added some RAM and swapped out the hard drive for an SSD. I had it working pretty close to modern standards.

When I first got the unit, the keyboard didn’t function properly. More keys didn’t work than worked. I got on eBay and ordered a replacement. Once it got here, after cursing out some ribbon cables, I got the keyboard working perfectly. After a while, I noticed the keyboard didn’t fit properly. It was a third-party keyboard, after all.

So tonight, I decided it was time to reseat the keyboard. I dug into the guts of Chungus and disconnected the ribbon cables so I could reseat them. I seated both ribbon cables with no problem. The main cable powered the keyboard and the backlight, while the secondary cable was for the trackpoint. You know, like one of those red nubby things they have on ThinkPads.

(GIS for ‘ThinkPad nubby’.)

I power on the laptop, and the power light flashes once but doesn’t boot. I thought I broke the keyboard, so I seated the old keyboard. Power flashes but doesn’t boot again. Much cursing ensued. So, I just removed the keyboard, pressed the power button, and it booted right up.

Then, I just seated the main ribbon cable. It powers up. Seated the trackpoint cable, light flashes, no boot. No problem. I don’t really need to use the trackpoint anyway. I seat the main cable and close up the patient. Now the new keyboard works just as bad as the old keyboard.

I was tempted to throw Chungus down the basement steps but thought better of it.

This sucks because I really like this laptop, but I don’t know if it’s worth repairing at this point.

If Chungus is indeed deceased, that will be the fifth laptop I’ve killed since coming to Kansas.

I need to stop fucking with wires and ribbon cables.

(Chunguts)