Laptop repairs

[RobF (Rob)]

Any suggestions on where I could send my 2.5yr old Acer 5620G Extensa laptop for repairs? It was plugged in during a monster thunderstorm here lately and I suspect motherboard or memory problems. Memory testing utilities show a myriad of errors, and will only boot successfully about 1/10 times (with eventual BSOD anyway).

I imagine it would cost $100 for someone to pull it apart and tell me it will cost $250 to put in a new board (and laptop is probably only worth $300 at max anyway)

I should add I've already ghosted the hard drive to a previously working state and still have problems.

Any service suggestions appreciated.

[snowyskiesau]

The obvious answer would be Acer themselves but as you said, they're probably going to charge you more than you want to tell you something you don't want to hear

Does your household insurance policy cover items like this? Might be worth checking. I was able to claim a damaged computer on my insurance a while back. Power surge caused by faulty household wiring or so the claim read.

[RobF (Rob)]

Thanks Geoff. I'll have to check my policy about the insurance - it certainly crossed my mind to look at that side of things.

Anyone else have any experience with laptop repairs?

[kustard (Simon)]

Try these guys, they seem to have good reviews from the simple search I did, hopefully they are close to you.

http://www.fixmylaptop.com.au/

[Tandum (Robin)]

Rob, boot to bios and turn everything off. Just enable hard drives and see if it boots. I'll ask around to see who can do laptop mobos in brisbane, I don;t

[RobF (Rob)]

Originally Posted by Tandum

Rob, boot to bios and turn everything off. Just enable hard drives and see if it boots. I'll ask around to see who can do laptop mobos in brisbane, I don;t

Thanks Robin. I should have thought to send you a PM.Alas, the Phoenix TrustedCore BIOS in it appears to be locked in someway - almost no worthwhile options in there, and certainly nothing for turning off hardware I tried disabling the video card in windows (device/hardware manager) when it occasionally got that far without success

[stefan (Stefan)]

Hi,

I've moved up from Canberra recently and one of my many jobs down there was repairing lappys and data recovery. If you like I can have a look and see if your suspicions are correct and get your data off your old lappy for you

[RobF (Rob)]

Thanks for the offer Stefan, but I'm ok with getting the data off via an external drive caddy and will probably talk to a friend as next step. Was keen to hear what advice people hear might offer though.

[RobF (Rob)]

I was able to try some replacement RAM and seems I might be in luck just replacing my old 2Gb stick. Going to buy some tomorrow. Only $50 to give it a go....

[RobF (Rob)]

Whew. I hadn't expected to be lucky, but new RAM seems to have me back in business. Yay.