Getting the dirt .... er, out

[unixronin]

Or, "Yay!  The washer works again!"

Capsule summary: On Sunday, our salvaged hand-me-down washing machine stopped working.  It wouldn't drain, and smelled of hot metal.  When switched to a drain cycle, it just clicked and did nothing.  I totally spaced on doing anything about it yesterday.

Today, I went and hauled all the clothes out of it, intending to troubleshoot it some more, looked at the soapy water in the bottom, turned it to drain just to see exactly what it did ... and it drained.

"Huh," I thought.  "Cool."  So I loaded all the clothes back in, switched it to a rinse cycle, temporarily defeated the lid interlock so that I could observe, and watched as it rinsed, drained and spun.  It wasn't a full rinse, because I'd set the load size to Small while I was testing it, but it worked fine.  So I set it back to regular load and restarted the wash cycle without adding additional soap, and it appears to be working perfectly.

Speculation:  Some small solid particle jammed the outlet solenoid valve, and the hot metal smell was the solenoid running continuously trying to open the valve.  When I went to re-test it today, whatever was blocking the valve washed free.

Anyway, the good news is it's working now, with basically little more than a laying on of hands, so we don't, after all, have to go out looking for a replacement washer that we really don't have the money for.

Comments

You're a healer!

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

I wish you'd heal our other laptop!

Re: You're a healer!

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

What kind is it, and do you know what's wrong with it? I've built laptops out of cannibalized parts before.

It's a Dell Latitude

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

The screen's gone all nasty and smeary and is getting less and less legible. We haven't taken it to the shop yet, but it either has a loose wire or sometime nasty in the screen or the connection between the graphics card and the screen.

Re: It's a Dell Latitude

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Hm, screen problems can be expensive ... if the LCD's gone bad it's often more cost-effective to just replace the laptop.

Can you post a high-resolution screenshot? That might give some clues. I can't think of any simple wiring fault that could make an LCD go "smeary".

The only reason I suspect wiring

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

and it's only a WAG, mind is that while we were carrying it around a lot, shunting it from car to library table back to car, before we got this notebook, it briefly had a remission. That sort of hinted a loose wire.

Re: The only reason I suspect wiring

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that is suggestive of some kind of intermittent-connection problem....

Things like that aren't difficult to check for. You can pretty easily disassemble the screen section on most laptops. Just be careful, gentle, methodical, and make sure you take careful note of everything you did and what screws came from where. The problem is that if the fault is a broken wire, it may not be visible through the insulation.

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

go you!