Lightening fried USB and Sound card

December 21, 2008 1:45 PM

Lightening fried the USB and Soundcard on my laptop, is there any kind of cheap fix or workaround?

I'm no expert on hardware, but heard that USB and sound card on a laptop is actually part of the motherboard. In a quick scan on the net I came across general info that it is possible to deal with this by some sort of hardware hacks (for the USB at least).

It is a perfectly good and quite new computer with a DVD burner and all so I would like to salvage it somehow if at all possible, or at least have some sort of workaround hack. Any suggestions greatly appreciated!

posted by figTree to computers & internet (3 comments total)

Most likely the motherboard will have to be replaced. How new is it? Is it still under warranty? If so you should get warranty service, especially before you start opening it and voiding the warranty.

In a quick scan on the net I came across general info that it is possible to deal with this by some sort of hardware hacks

If the board is damaged then I think the "hacks" will be limited to buying a pcmcia card with USB on it.
posted by damn dirty ape at 2:16 PM on December 21, 2008

buying a pcmcia card with USB on it.

And then either buying a USB sound card or a set of USB headphones/speakers (which don't need a soundcard to work).
posted by helios at 4:05 PM on December 21, 2008

On the up-side, any USB sound card you buy is likely to be better than the one that was built-in to your motherboard. Look at it as an upgrade. (And check http://headphone.com for the Total Bithead.)
posted by paulg at 6:39 PM on December 21, 2008