eMachines M5410

This must be the 16th blog I've ever started. Let's see if I can post more than three times before I forget about it and become distracted.

When will computer manufacturers learn that they need to support their customers? I was brought an eMachines M5410 laptop for repair and upgrade the other day. This is the first eMachines I've worked on so I headed over the the support site. Number of drivers available... (drum roll) ... were 1. 1 lousy driver available for the whole machine. No chipset drivers, no VGA drivers, and no NIC drivers.

Good thing I made a copy of all the installed drivers before wiping the machine. I'm looking for a place to post them. Then I will provide a link here. I think this link will work. Only for NIC, VGA, and AUDIO.

To make matters worse I had to open up the machine to replace the optical drive, and I couldn't find any schematics. I always like to have a look at the service manual before I disassemble a laptop but in this case there was none available. For anyone wanting to get at the optical drive, or anything else under the keyboard you need to remove the four screws along the back on the bottom. This will allow you to pry up the plastic piece in front of the keyboard.