Support
Support and Maintenance
Each location is encouraged to establish a tech support center for hardware repairs and replacement. We encourage the students to be involved in the repair as much as possible. Some ideas on this have been written up in the Laptop Service Programm Ideas.
Getting Started Using the Laptop
Currently there is no official XO laptop manual. There are a number of people working on manual projects and we should add the links to those here.
The demo notes pages have been build by people at OLPC and can serve as a basic starting point. Other links of interest have been added as well:
- File:071020 insert english lores-1.pdf - English version of 2 page 'getting started' distributed in the shipping box with every XO (G1G1)
Trouble-shooting
- XO Returns Test - Basic laptop, battery, power adapter problem isolation testing
- Powerup Boot Sequence - Standard power up sequence that should appear on any activated or pre-activated laptops
- Powerup Non-Secure Boot Sequence - Standard power up sequence on a non-secure laptop.
Hardware
Tool Box Suggestion
The following tools are recommended for an XO repair shop:
- Long magnetized screwdriver, Cross-shaped or Phillips head tip
- Mini screwdriver set, Cross-shaped or Phillips head tips
- Extra screws (add the 6 different types used on the XO)
- Super Glue
- Masking tape or Labelling materials, markers
- Duct tape
- USB Memory sticks for backups or transferring files
- Nylok screws of all 7 sizes used in the laptop
- Spare parts including: antennas, keyboards, display screens, speaker, direction button, game keys, touchpad, power adapters, XO power supplies
For School Server, also include:
- RJ45 crimp tool and connectors
- Cat 5e ethernet cable
- Cable ties
- USB ethernet adaptors
- Known good Ethernet cable, and cross-over ethernet cable - for debug
- Ethernet hub (to connect multiple ethernet devices) - for debug
Here is a picture of the toolbox created by Carla Gomez in Nigeria. She also included a soldering iron for repairs of the antenna cables. After the B4 builds the antenna connection will change and there should be no need for a soldering iron in the XO repair kit.
Replaceable components
Images of the inside of the Laptop, images provided by Ari.
Directional Pad
Display
Keyboard
Antenna Ears
In the B4 and earlier builds, you need to first remove the screen bevel, the display, the top cover, and then the antennas themselves. In the C build and the MP builds, you will need to remove only the screen bevel (details will be filled in when they are known).
Case
The individual parts that constitute the case are all replaceable with just the use of a screw driver. There are extra screws in the laptop (interior to the handle) in case any are lost during the repair process.
Firmware
- The firmware sources are located in the Openfirmware page
- Firmware faq
Software
Upgrades
- Please read the Autoreinstallation page carefully and follow all the steps for a successful upgrade or downgrade.
- For differential updates SoftwareBinaryDifferentialUpdate
Custom Builds
- Here is a Spanish language build equivalent to 542, except TamTam is removed since sound doesn't work on the Spanish laptop. When TamTam is working with languages, that activity can be installed separately.
Build 542.4 - This is the full boot directory for auto-install. Unzip it and copy the entire boot directory to a USB stick; boot the laptop with this stick inserted.
- The new way to custom language is Olpc-utils
- Also see Customizing NAND images
Other Sources of support
- IRC channels
- Mailing lists