I...uh...made a dice-rolling tower out of Lego?

Yeah, I'm not much of DIY guy. More of a Break It And Claim It was Like That Already kind.

My repairman skills are mostly IT-centric, so this is not going to be a spanner and bolts story, but rather similar to yours.

I've upgraded my laptop's processor (yeah, luckily I have one of the older PGA models) from an i3 2310M to an i7 2640M - both have a similar TDP of 35W max, and though the i7 does tend to run a bit hotter, using better thermal paste has cut back a few degrees, so I'm not seeing much difference in terms of fan throttling and peak temperatures.

I've done several upgrades on PCs in the past, but this is my first non-trivial laptop upgrade. I literally had the whole thing in pieces on my desk and had to put it all back together, so I know how that feels :).

I took the time to clean things up on the inside as well, though to be honest I found less dirt and dust than I expected. Laptops tend to themselves pretty well these days.

I once replaced the broken fan on my graphics card; just removed the shroud (I think the word was) and the broken fan and just tied a 120mm fan using cable ties on top of the metal. The power plug would not go into the graphics card (too big) so I plugged it into a cable from the power supply. It was a little louder when not gaming but much quieter when gaming and GPU-Z said it was really cool too.

The fan I ripped out of an old computer that I have since taken to destruction. Even decided to save all fans form that one as it died early, meaning there should be decent amount of life left in the fans.

Upgrading a laptop's processor is definitively not trivial and is not something I ever tried.

On my front I fixed my monitor issue: It turns on now. Unfortunately I seem to have exerted to much pressure on the LCD when I removed the back cover, it was not easy, checkout youtube for video on how to open up LG LCD monitors. The LCD is ruined: it turn mostly gray with a corner displaying what it should display but it's surrounded by colors right out of the Mandelbrot set.

Looks like I'll be using my small monitor for the near future. I think I have $70 to $90 left on a Best Buy gift card so I'll wait for a sale there.

I fixed a leek once, bastard bleed all over the place.

Except from GOGs policy on future drm free and galaxy.

I put leek in my soup and soup in my pot but it has a leak so could you please come over and fix it for me? ;-)

Why are you putting soup in your pot, that's never going to burn!

Anyways, next time use onion, it avoids the whole problem.

Many years ago when T&L on graphics cards was a huge advancement a friend gave me a new card which I could keep if I can get it working.

Apparently he was the cards 3rd owner, neither he nor his brothers could get it working.

Looking at the card I found one of the tiny resistors had been broken off.

I have neither the equipment or dexterity to resolder a new part, so a gaffer taped a tiny sliver of metal in place.

It worked, and kept going for nearly 2 years.

I once used WD40 on a pronounced dead SNES and it magically worked. That was probably my one and only DIY repair dude thing ever. SHAME!