Anyone here ever drop their Laptop? Did it survive?

[Dream]

I just dropped laptop yesterday. I was going to the library and was holding a pile of books in my hands, the strap on the bag that was around my arms that held my laptop detached and the entire bag hit the hard cement. I was scared as hell and when I went back home I quickly saw that the corner (it's at the far back right when the laptop is opened) of the laptop damaged, the power button was permanently pushed in.

Luckily the screen was undamaged along with the keyboard. I nervously turned it on and breathed a sigh of relief when it came on, the power button still works as long as I make sure to put a bit more pressure pushing it to turn it on. I think the ONLY reason my laptop survived with minimum damage was that it was in the laptop bag, which had a little padding. This must have been dumb luck.

The lesson I learned today? NEVER carry a laptop bag around your arms with strap, always carry it in your hands.

Anyone else also drop their expensive laptop/computer/electronic device or somehow damage it on accident? Was it able to survive?

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Does it have an SSD? A standard hard drive will suffer most from dropping.

 

[thestrangequark]

I dropped my work computer (the big and massively expensive macbook pro) on a city sidewalk when the strap of my bag broke. That was last winter and it's doing fine. I dropped my own macbook pro (the smaller and slightly less massively expensive) off my bed, which is pretty high up, when I tripped on the speaker cord. It survived too!

 

[Third Nacelle]

I have a nine-year-old ThinkPad that's survived drops, coffee spills, puppy pee, being left on a dashboard on a hot summer day, being violently crammed in the overhead compartment, more power surges than I can count, and the rupture of its own battery. It's still chugging along nicely, and it's only on its second XP install.

My Dell laptop that I've had two years? Dying as I type this, takes numerous tries before it will power up, freezes about every half hour. Never been dropped.

 

[Dream]

Does it have an SSD? A standard hard drive will suffer most from dropping.

Thankfully, the label on my laptop says HDD drive.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

Yes, and yes.

I slipped on ice and sprained my ankle. My laptop flew about 10 feet before landing. I remember someone being horrified when I said I didn't care about my ankle; all that mattered was that the computer was okay. But, hey, this was the winter of 1991-92, laptops were expensive, and I knew the sprain would heal.

 

[RandyS]

Yes I did, and no, it didn't.

Lousy lack of balance.

 

[Amaris]

I have a nine-year-old ThinkPad that's survived drops, coffee spills, puppy pee, being left on a dashboard on a hot summer day, being violently crammed in the overhead compartment, more power surges than I can count, and the rupture of its own battery. It's still chugging along nicely, and it's only on its second XP install.

My Dell laptop that I've had two years? Dying as I type this, takes numerous tries before it will power up, freezes about every half hour. Never been dropped.

Yes. IBM Thinkpads are nearly indestructible. I had one a number of years ago, and it took a tumble down two flights of steps. Picked it up, popped the battery back in, started up without a hitch.

 

[Marten]

I've dropped mine a few times. Most computers can take a punch or two. Milk through the keyboard though, not so much.

 

[lurok]

Drop? No. But various ones have suffered odd mishaps and survived. The bummer is when things like the hard drives die for no good reason.

A few years back the UK's Gadget Show roadtested an allegedly indestructible laptop. Drove over it with a truck and blew it up with explosives. Fun.

 

[RandyS]

I have a nine-year-old ThinkPad that's survived drops, coffee spills, puppy pee, being left on a dashboard on a hot summer day, being violently crammed in the overhead compartment, more power surges than I can count, and the rupture of its own battery. It's still chugging along nicely, and it's only on its second XP install.

My Dell laptop that I've had two years? Dying as I type this, takes numerous tries before it will power up, freezes about every half hour. Never been dropped.

Yes. IBM Thinkpads are nearly indestructible. I had one a number of years ago, and it took a tumble down two flights of steps. Picked it up, popped the battery back in, started up without a hitch.

Sounds like you got lucky. Mine was dropped down one flight of stairs and was ruined. I might have saved it, but at the time I was more concerned with making sure I didn't break my own neck in the fall.

 

[Amaris]

I have a nine-year-old ThinkPad that's survived drops, coffee spills, puppy pee, being left on a dashboard on a hot summer day, being violently crammed in the overhead compartment, more power surges than I can count, and the rupture of its own battery. It's still chugging along nicely, and it's only on its second XP install.

My Dell laptop that I've had two years? Dying as I type this, takes numerous tries before it will power up, freezes about every half hour. Never been dropped.

Yes. IBM Thinkpads are nearly indestructible. I had one a number of years ago, and it took a tumble down two flights of steps. Picked it up, popped the battery back in, started up without a hitch.

Sounds like you got lucky. Mine was dropped down one flight of stairs and was ruined. I might have saved it, but at the time I was more concerned with making sure I didn't break my own neck in the fall.

A week later, I dropped it off a 5 foot high porch onto concrete, got a hairline crack in the lid. Popped the battery back in, worked like a charm.

This was an IBM Thinkpad T21.
800 Mhz Pentium III, 20GB HDD, 128MB RAM, CD-ROM.

That sucker is still around, too, though I don't own it anymore. I sold it, and have kept in touch with the new owner, who still has it, and says it still runs.

Also, glad you were okay!

 

[auntiehill]

Have I dropped MY laptop? No. I have, however, dropped hubby's laptop---twice. Which is why I now have my own.

Luckily for me, the laptop never got more than cosmetic damage--messed up the hinges a tad, scuffed the edges a bit, etc. The hard drive survived, so that was all that mattered. Plus, hubby being Super I.T. Man, anything broken can be fixed and/or replaced with spares.

 

[Retu]

Does it have an SSD? A standard hard drive will suffer most from dropping.

Modern hard drives have accelerometers which, if sensing a free-fall, will signal the drive to park its read/write heads. That way heads won't crash on the disk surface, which would lead to data loss.

 

[Ain Jalut]

Once or twice but only within my own home.

 

[stoneroses]

A colleague at work had his new mac book pro trashed by his cat who knocked it off a table causing irevicuble damage. However he got a new one from his house insurance.

 

[Halmirdax]

Dropped by a friend onto concrete, (lesson: carry your own laptop.) Laptop has quite a dent but it all still seems to work, the friend didn't do so well.

 

[Velocity]

Dropped my Toshiba laptop when i carried it into the kitchen to show my husband something and the cord caught on a cabinet knob and jerked it out of my hands and it hit the floor. Yeah, stupid, but the laptop is fine. My heart almost popped though.

 

[Awesome Possum]

Not a laptop, but my cat knocked my Mac Mini off my desk the first day I had it. Some cables were unplugged, but other than that it was working perfectly the whole time.