Talk:Disassembly

Cautions

There seems to be some disagreement as to how prominent the cautions should be. I tend to agree with bernie.

If there are no comments on this for two weeks I will make some changes that encourage risk-aware disassembly.

MartinDengler 09:09, 29 March 2008 (EDT)

I think that it is great if kids are taking them apart, but, to be realistic, if every kid takes their own computer apart, some of them will break which wouldn't have other. Therefore, I think the wisest policy would be to say something like "if it breaks, take it apart and fix it. If you want to take one apart, find a friend with one they've already opened (because it broke) and have them show you how, or do it by yourself if you're careful and your friend trusts you." Homunq 11:47, 29 March 2008 (EDT)

Kimquirk 23:01, 29 March 2008 (EDT)
I agree that we need to encourage people to experiment since it provides a good learning experience, but the problem is that we also need to provide solutions for when the experimentation goes badly and they can't make their laptop work. What can they do? How can they get help? How can they get a part they broke in order to fix their laptop? Is it possible for them to buy a new laptop? Buy or acquire spare parts? Find a local repair facility? Download a pristine image to reload? If these questions haven't been answered, kids will be left with broken laptops, and OLPC will take (should take?) the blame for lack of planning.

As of today, we have sent out a couple dozen laptops to repair center hopefuls (mostly college age and above). They have agreed to help document repairs and train themselves and others to make repairs. A quarter of those laptops have ended in a more 'bricked' condition then when they started. We don't want to help people brick their laptops, right?

With any brand new product, before it has been handled by thousands of children, and with every new codebase that has not been tested for corner cases, error conditions, or stress conditions -- there will be problems. Once we get the feedback on items most likely to fail, and we have addressed items most likely to break during repair, then the XO will be much more robust to the screwdriver of the average kid. Today it is not. That's my opinion.

So Kim would you agree with Homunq's suggested wording? MartinDengler 07:26, 25 April 2008 (EDT)

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Things to change

Update this page to be more consistent with the repair guides linked from Repair.

• make this page more relevant to newer guides
• add warnings on things not to break
  • add guides on how to do things with breaking
  • don't take out third screw under faceplate when removing it!
  • disconnecting cables - include how to do it without breaking it