need to straighten pccard-slot PINS - how?

[Ogg]

Anyone have any tips on how to straighten out the pins in a pccard slot? A foreign object made its way into an open slot, and then when a card was inserted, the object (a spring actually) wedged itself right across several pins. Meanwhile, I managed to get the spring out, but now 4 or 6 of the pins are bent a little off the vertical. Even a long narrow straight-edge screwdriver is a tad too large for this task. Maybe I can find a finer tool.. but meanwhile I thought I'd post my dilema here for ideas!

[Vindicated]

That's a good question. I know for CPU pins you can get a mechanical pencil, but I haven't done that on a PCMCIA slot. Have you tried fitting a thin pair of needle nose pliers or using tweezers?

[Ground Loop]

You probably have to disassemble the notebook enough to get clear access to the pins.

Then, you would probably get a card and bring it close, and move each pin, one by one to line up with the hole on the card. If you can find a card that has "cone" shaped pinholes, that might make it easier.

But you will probably still have slightly-tweaked pins that then jam and get bent again. It sucks. Cameras with CompactFlash run into this as well, and there's no easy fix.

Unless it's really important to you, I'd just write off the PCMCIA slot altogether. You might do more harm than good trying to fix it, like shorting pins or breaking them off.

[dvorak]

Unless it's really important to you, I'd just write off the PCMCIA slot altogether. You might do more harm than good trying to fix it, like shorting pins or breaking them off.

If the machine is off and the pins don't touch each other afterwards, and you yourself are not filled with an excessive amount of free electrons, you won't short them.
Rendering the slot useless by breaking has little difference if you can't use it anyways. If you're thinking of getting it repaired, I doubt someone will try to straighten the pins instead of changing the part, so not much to lose :)

[tselling]

You could just replace the slots. I did this for a damaged T41p recently. The part for the T41p was 91P8391 and was $8.30 plus shipping from IBM Parts (unfortunately shipping was $13... so you might want to buy any other parts you think you might need later with the same order

[Ogg]

THANKS for all the great ideas. First I'll try to access the pins to straighten them.. then I will consider disassemblying the laptop to get closer to the pins.. But a replacement part may be impossible.. the laptop is about 10 years old. I've had modest success with a long thin straight-edge screwdriver.. but I need a narrower one to access all sides of the pins. The pccard that I would currently use has conical hole guides. And once I can get that card in that slot, it can use that slot permanently. It's a modem card that would work better in the other slot that I am trying fix. The modem card has a flip-up phone connector that rises into the open space of the other unused slot "above" it. I'd rather have the card in the "lower" slot that the connected phone cord can stay recessed inside a bit instead of sticking out and potentially break easier.

[Rick Aguinaldo]

The slot is more likely to be kaput. The pins are flat and are sheared when bent or straightened. I might just have the right part for a 10-year old Thinnkpad in my junk box. Tell me your machine type and I will send you one gratis if I find one that match.

Cheers.

[Ogg]

...Tell me your machine type and I will send you one gratis if I find one that match.

I appreciate the offer... but the laptop is actually a non-TP. I only ventured into this forum to tap into people's brains. The bent pins really bug me though! But if a thin screwdriver, or long specialty tweezers won't help, then I guess we'll just avoid the broken slot.

The laptop is really old.. the screen is only 256 colours, and 800x600 max, and just Pentium 100mHz, 1gig hdd... so its use is even quite unsuitable for extended internet use. Meanwhile, certain characters on the keyboard have started to fail (A D S L K 7 3), so we need to use an external keyboard. If I had to invest in anything over $100 to fix this laptop, I'd settle for an old TP 770X.

This laptop (now with external keyboard) is primarily intended for online text chatting and email to help a mom stay in touch with a son across the country.

It would just be nice to position the modem pccard in the lower slot so that the RJ adapter doesn't have to stick out the side of the laptop and potentially get broken.

[whizkid]

An old laptop like that should be easy to fix. Go to eBay and find one that's broken: Bad screen, cracked case, no hard disk, etc. Swap all the parts you'd like and have more to spare.

It should cost you no more than $25 with shipping.