Laptop repair companies : warning

Take two laptop repair companies, A and B.

Send dead lappy to company A.

Get repair estimate back "mainboard replacement, £500 inc VAT"

Get unrepaired lappy back and send to company B, who are rumoured to be
able to do component level repair.

Get repair estimate back "mainboard replacement, £550 + VAT"

Think "oh fucktards" and ask whats wrong with it.

"After extensive diagnostics it looks like the EPROME (sic) chip has
been removed and either put back or replaced"

Yes? And? If I take a spark plug out of an engine and put it back it
doesn't kill the whole fucking engine unless I'm a total retard.


So, one of the companies has fucked up the simple task of unsoldering
the BIOS chip, which is completely unnecessary anyway, as they were
just supposed to be inspecting the damn thing.


Or has one of the companies switched the mobo for a fucked one and
tried to have me over?


Thinking about it I suspect the latter. But I don't know which company
has tried to pull a fast one, I suspect the first.

Do motherboards have serial numbers on them? I know the network
interface will have a MAC code which obviously should be the same, but
I don't know if I've got that written down anywhere.

One of these companies deserves to be shut down. Bastards.

 

I would expect there to be a serial number relating to the manufacturer
of the board (ie not the laptop manufacturer). Whichever company
assembles the components into a laptop should be able to tie the laptop
serial to a MLB serial. Whether they'll give you that info, is a
totally different matter.

Even if they do - you're going to be hard pushed to prove that either
company did the deed.

As an aside, did someone actually **** the chip, or are you having your
plonker pulled?

 

DoetNietComputeren banged the rocks together and they said :

I know :-(

I've asked for a lot more specific details, as the first email was
dumbed down to "I'm talking to a 10 year old" level. If they say there
is damage to the PCB I'll ask them to take a picture and send it to me.

I did dismantle the laptop to remove the HDD prior to shipping it to
the first lot, and examined it carefully (looking for signs of escaped
"crucial smoke" and where the hell the main fuse was) and there was no
sign of anything having been removed and replaced when I sent it off.

 

that's how they repair computers you know.. the service manual says
'fault x = replace y" and then the board/component is sent off to be
repaird/ scrapped at some other factory.. maybe you can find another on
ebay for spares ? Is the eprom in a socket ? maybe they tried a new
eprom and it did not fix the problem ?

 

It is possible that what they are actually trying to say is that the bios
EPROM chip appears to be blank i.e. a fault has developed and the chip is
unreadable.

 

Even if the "eprom" has been replaced/repaired at some stage this might
have been done as part of the original manufacture. Maybe replaced as part
of an upgrade path or simply reflowed with solder due to a manufacturing
defect such as insufficient solder paste.