Laptop repair

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RichardW
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Laptop repair

Post by RichardW »

Nothing to do with French cars - except I couldn't post here from home! We have an HP laptop - with the rubbish motherboard that melts the graphics chip off :roll: so I wasn't all that surprised when it refused to turn on the other day. Was going to buy a new one, but then figured as it was already knackered there wasn't anything to lose by trying to fix it. There are many posts on the net about doing this, with ovens, gas torches or hot air blowers, and quite a few videos on youtube. So stripped out the motherboard (never done that on a laptop before - they are a marvel of packaging and expand massively when dismantled!), covered it in foil, and cooked the chip with my hot air paint stripper for about 5 minutes. Et Voila - it's working again :mrgreen: =D> . I am quite staggered that this works - and also that I managed to get it back together OK. It seems to be working better, which suggests that it was on its way out for some time before we got to no start stage.

Best repair I have ever done I think - free, but saved the cost of a new laptop. No idea how long it will last - but there are folk advertising on e-bay to do a proper re-ball on the chip for £30, so will probably go for that if it goes down again.
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Re: Laptop repair

Post by red_dwarfers »

Silly internal design those cheaper HP laptops :twisted: all built to a price I suppose. Not done the fix myself (colleague has) as I think it only gets customers hopes up thinking it will last them another year or 4 (even if they are warned) then coming back after a few months and getting all funny.
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Re: Laptop repair

Post by evilally »

Yep, the guys at work frequently repair HP printers by baking the control boards for 8 minutes at 180 degrees. Reflows the solder and away you go!
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Re: Laptop repair

Post by Northern_Mike »

I've got a 2510p that the power socket is knackered on. A local chap will replace it for £40, so I think i'm going to go down that route rather than bother soldering it myself, as he guarantees it for a year..
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Re: Laptop repair

Post by Hell Razor5543 »

Not dis-similar to the problem on the early XBox 360, in that the GPU got so hot it detached from the board. I had this happen on mine, but fortunately Microsoft had extended the warranty for the 'Red Ring of Death' from the standard 1 year to 3 years, so it was covered. They replaced the motherboard and the DVD drive, and it didn't cost me a penny.
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Re: Laptop repair

Post by spider »

Laptops are a right fiddle to take apart and put back again especially with their 'easy snap' fixtures. Superglue is wonderful :oops:
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Re: Laptop repair

Post by Steve T »

evilally wrote:Yep, the guys at work frequently repair HP printers by baking the control boards for 8 minutes at 180 degrees. Reflows the solder and away you go!

Is that in a normal oven or a fan oven? :-D

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Re: Laptop repair

Post by myglaren »

Steve T wrote:
evilally wrote:Yep, the guys at work frequently repair HP printers by baking the control boards for 8 minutes at 180 degrees. Reflows the solder and away you go!

Is that in a normal oven or a fan oven? :-D

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Re: Laptop repair

Post by Timmo »

You guys are bloody Brilliant! Mother in law has just had her hp laptop die and her computer man has said that it is the graphics card and it'll need to be sent to london to be fixed, costing £100+
sadly, she's gone and bought another hp laptop! Will tell her to keep it so we can have a play!
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Re: Laptop repair

Post by RichardW »

It's still working...

Like here, you've got nothing to lose so you might as well give it a punt. You can download a service manual off the net (free, don't buy one off the bay!) that tells you how to strip it, or search youtube - there's no doubt a video!
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Re: Laptop repair

Post by red_dwarfers »

A bit of info I've found particularly on HP laptops. If you're wireless stops working for no known reason, the graphics card will likely fail soon then everything else. Then you could do the heaty uppy fix.
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