Ridiculous price for repairs, what're my options?

Cythx

Cythx

Cythx

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15 Mar 2010
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967
My cherished UX31A recently broke for the second time, and it's out of warranty this time.

So I sent it off to the approved repair partner of ASUS, LetMeRepair UK.

They must have found a broken motherboard, because they're charging me £480 to repair it, £330 of which is the cost of a new motherboard. Does this seem like a bit out of the ordinary to anyone else?

http://imgur.com/r1xpdYv

I called them up, stating I don't even have £480 to for repairs, and that there are UX31As on ebay for almost as much. They said there's nothing they can do about it, since £330 is just the price that Asus is charging them for the keyboard.

I'm not even sure it's worth paying almost £500 to repair a laptop that I can get for £530 on eBay.

What do you all think, what're my options?

Thanks.
 
Thanks, I may just do that.

If there's a problem in addition to the motherboard, do you think it would be easy to troubleshoot?

I've built / repaired desktops before, but I'm always a bit hesitant with laptops.
 
find a motherboard and relplace it youself its a breeze to be honest.

The only issue is finding a cheap enough motherboard. If you think those prices are expensive you should see what sony where charging me for repair, lets say you would faint and die lol.

see if you can find the repair/parts documentation for the laptop that would make ordering parts easier. There are some american websites that will order parts and ship out to you and that might work out cheaper but they dont offer service for every laptop so you would have to find one that deals with ASUS.

Usually in the laptops you have motherboard and everything else plugs into it. If the LCD screen is not broken then you are left with power boards, inverter boards( for CCFL LCD screens LED do not have them) and also all other plug in boards into the motherboards for USB connectivity, LAN and so on. Its quite modular, so if you replace the motherboard and lets say a USB does not work then you know the USB board has to be changed and those modular boards for connectivity are quite cheap.

at that price for repair you might as well buy new laptop and sell the old one for whole for spares or repairs or slit the laptop, because the ram, HD, LCD and top covers, keyboard and so on should get you a fair chunk back if you can be bothered to split it all.

sorry I know its not best explanation but you get what i mean.
 
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Cythx said:
Thanks, I may just do that.

If there's a problem in addition to the motherboard, do you think it would be easy to troubleshoot?

I've built / repaired desktops before, but I'm always a bit hesitant with laptops.
Click to expand...

The issue is it's so fiddly and you have to remove 3465+ components to get to the one you want. If you're comfortable in and around desktops then laptops will be a breeze.

Do yourself a favour though and get some 'plastic pry tools' first (Google them). Absolutely essential for taking laptops apart.
 
Just did a search on a very familiar auction site and there's a motherboard on there for less than 100 quid. Just get a cheapy toolkit like the one you use to repair phones - they have all the right screw heads etc. I fixed the power jack on my mum's laptop about a year ago, absolute nightmare having to remove the mobo to get to it but used an instructional video as mentioned above and did it all perfect. Just take your time and be very methodical. They lose their rigidity as you disassemble so watch to not crack the plastic etc. Good luck!
 
Your laptop is dead anyway. Laptops are a pain that way. they become EOL, and everything is expensive.

Your other option is to sell it for spares. Apparently, spares could be very valuable :) The screens (IPS 1080p)? are very nice on the premium UX31A I've seen.
 
Repairing laptops is actually very easy, you just have to follow some steps to make sure you don't break anything, here are my tips:

Start with the keyboard and the front of the laptop, take a photo of the location of the screws you remove, and document the sizes if they differ. I like to take the photo's with my phone and then draw a key with a colour/size match.

Once the keyboard and screws have been removed, place the screws in a safe place and turn the laptop over. Once again begin removing the screws, but first take a photo and again document the sizes.

Once you have removed all of the screws from the chassis you will be able to pry it apart, like Ray suggested, use a plastic pry tool, or I like to use a guitar plectrum.

When the chassis has been split in two the mother board will be attached to one side with more screws, remove these and again take photos. At this point you will likely have to unplug some cables, again take photos of these attached so you know where they go when you are done.

Once the motherboard is out of the chassis you need to remove the components, such as RAM, Wireless, SSD's, CPU, GPU, etc.

Now that the motherboard is bare, you need to replace it with the new one, and go through all the above steps backwards.

Essentially laptops are exactly the same as desktops, so if you know how to build a PC you can build a laptop from scratch too - it's just the parts are more fiddly and alien.

Good luck and if you require any more help just ask!
 
The actual user manuals for laptops have detailed instructions on how to take them apart, my previous job I had to dissassemble the things daily and it's actually much easier to take apart then you think, it's just finding the right area's to poke to release the locks.

I do suggest keeping all the sets of screws seperate, if you're like me on the first go, you'll have some spare screws laying around without any idea where they go :)
 
Laptop repairs aren't actually that bad, just time consuming which is why repair shops charge so much.

Standard practise in computer repair shops is to charge £100 to open it up plus the cost of a motherboard, as they're too lazy to do proper diagnostics.

I've had people come to me saying a computer repair firm has quoted several hundred £s to repair a laptop and I've repaired it for the cost of a cable (£10 or so).
 
With regards to screws, a trick I tend to use with laptops is to place the screws on the desk so that they are placed in a manner that reflects where they go in the laptop. What I mean by that is, say there are 6 screws on the bottom plastic section of the laptop; if they are arranged three at top, three at bottom in a rectangular fashion, I will place them on the desk in that same way so I know exactly where they go.

Any screws securing wifi boards etc I place next to the device when I remove it so I know it belongs with that device.

It's actually harder to explain than I thought but hopefully you get the gist of it. It works for me every time.
 
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