Some Good "Do It Yourself" Advice

Your working on your computer one day and the screen goes blank, or the computer crashes and shuts down, or perhaps you just can't get connected to the internet. Often times, the first thing many users will do, is open it up and poke around a bit looking for a cause for this to happen. Let's face it, a good technician is not cheap. Most knowledgeable techs cost upwards of $60.00 or more. But how do you know you are getting a qualified technician? See our section on choosing the right technician.

But $60.00 or more? I'll bet I can probably fix this myself! Our advice of course is, if you have never really worked on a computer or have an electronics background, leave it to the professionals. It may seem expensive at the time to hire a technician but the alternative can be even more costly.

Recently, a customer contacted us to troubleshoot and repair a laptop that he had purchased on Ebay. The seller had told him that the computer started up but would not boot. He believed the problem to be a bad harddrive. The laptop had a dead battery and no power supply so it was brought back to the shop where we could use our power supply. The customer was right, the computer would not boot. However, there was also nothing on the screen. Upon further inspection, we found that the harddrive had been removed. But this would not make the screen remain blank.

Smoked Laptop

Upon further inspection, we found pry marks on the upper keys of the keyboard. Uh Oh, an amature has been trying to work on this before! We removed the bezel exposing the screws that hold the keyboard in place, except the screws are missing! We lift the keyboard up and find that the ribbon cable is not plugged in. In fact, the socket that holds the ribbon cable to the mainboard has been broken off. It looks as though the previous owner attempted to fix it themselves, pried the bezel up in the wrong place and then jerked on the keyboard cable so hard that it broke the connector.

Upon further inspection, we also found evidence of arcing around the video portion of the board. Did someone try and work on this while it was plugged in? Perhaps they unplugged it but forgot that a laptop also has a battery and failed to remove it. At this point, we stopped looking for problems and did what any responsible tech would do.

We looked into a replacement board and found that a new laptop from the same manufacturer with a larger screen, faster processor, more memory and a modest harddrive would cost less then $200.00 more than just the replacement mainboard. Add our labor to the repair and you get a working used laptop for a few dollars less than a new and better one.

We put the laptop back together and advised the customer of our findings. He agreed that it was better to just replace it. We didn't make anything off of that repair as our policy is, if we don't fix it, we don't charge. We did however create a customer that will come back to us in the future.

Let's not forget the moral of this story. If you aren't familiar with what you are working on, it is probably best to leave it to the professionals. If you are going to work on it anyway, please for safety sake, remove all sources of power both to prevent electrocution as well as preventing further damage. It is also a good idea to where a wrist strap that is connected to what you are working on so that your body is at the same potential as what you are working on to prevent static discharge. Next, research the project you are undertaking so that you don't cause further damage trying to open things up or disconnecting devices.

All Is Not Lost

If things are not working, before you call a tech, you can try these simple tips: If you're still having problems, feel free to contact us at (775) 200-6171 or email your questions to us.