dropped it!!

so here it goes. yesterday i accidentally droped my laptop and it fell quite hard on the floor. when i opened it up everythng seems fine. i cheked the hard drive and gpu plus the screen seems fine. should i stop stressing. secondly can problems occur down the road that seem not to appear now but are related??

 

I take it you've started it up? Or is that what you meant by 'opened it up', (if so then I apologise).....

 

With a dell? You might as well start with the funeral arrangements....naw, just kidding. If it is still working now, you might as well stop worrying as what can you do about it? For the record, given the general appearance now, there are a few things that could happen later as a result of a drop that are not apparant now--

You could have had a minor head crash with the harddrive, where the head bounced off the surface of the platter, scratching or gouging it. It might have been on a blank spot or on a file(s) you haven't tried to access yet. Run chkdsk /r from a command prompt and see if it spies any bad sectors.

You could have started a hairline crack in the case -- aesthetic problems will occur later on as the crack expands

You could have started a hairline crack in the lcd -- the screen will malfunction later on, but generally speaking, lcds either crack or don't

You could have started a hairline crack in a circuit board -- the laptop will malfunction later on

You could have partially dislodged a component (ram, videoadapter, heatsink) resulting in the laptop not working later on requiring a reseating of componant or a hardware failure if for example the heatsink is not seated properly and the CPU melts down

That's the alarmist point of view, though. Stop worrying now as long as it works. FWIW, my laptop was sitting on my front seat of my car once while I was doing 70 mph on the freeway and I slammed on my brakes to avoid a deer, causing my laptop to fly into the dashboard and bounce to the floor...that was four years ago.

You probably lucked out since all is working now.

 

If it was running when you dropped it then the head on the HDD might have damaged the surface. If the notebook was off and closed then there should be no risk of HDD damage since the head is parked clear of the disc.

So, if you see no damage and the computer runs fine then it is probably OK.

John

 

thanks guys. that takes a lot of weight of my shoulders

 

Check ur HDD:
Right-click on the partition and choose Properties
In the Tools tab, select Check Now
Check the two box and click on Start

Do it for all partitions !

 

4-6, 7-9. See you then.

 

Hey guys

Been looking at some of the forums and accidental damage done to your laptops.

I have phone my Home insurance company and they will cover the Laptop inside and outside the home, no matter what I do

Say I was playing with the laptop out of a 4th story window and opps I dropped it, they would cover.

Dont bother with dell's cover as its only covered by a normal insurance company which anyone can get for a fraction of the price.

Scratch, they will cover, break they will cover.

I am in the UK though so dont know how american or canadian or any other insurance campanies will deal with something like this.

I got 40,000 contents, + a/d and this covers me for any single item up to 1500.00 pounds = 3000.00 US

And got it for 90.00. But if you only want to cover the laptop (only) it might not be worth it.

But add A/D onto your insurance trust me its only a few bucks more.

 

If you claim excessively through your home insurance they will drop your coverage sooner or later. The insurance is there for a major loss so don't abuse it. If the laptop works fine and the hard-drive is okay after throughly testing it then I wouldn't worry. The hard-drive head usually parks itself securely. Make sure you test your DVD drive too. I don't like statements with "could've" and "ifs" because you tend to worry unnecessarily. If the laptop keels over then you definitely know something is wrong.