Laptop repairs

territt · 26 Aug 2011 at 13:11

Hi Guys,

anyone know anywhere good to get a laptop repaired in Kent or London? i have a Dell m6400 that just keeps restarting in when the bios screen shows :mad:

Disco Boy · 26 Aug 2011 at 13:38

Mentioning competitors is against the rules so we can't really recommend you a computer shop I'm afraid.

Have you looked into how much DELL would want? You can often extende the warranty.

Scrutinize · 26 Aug 2011 at 14:08

unless it is the memory, hard drive or cpu just needs reseating then you are probably looking at 150 to 300 for the motherboard if they still make it. dell know how to charge for parts even if you dont get them to fix it. could cost you loads just trying different fixes. have you tried a reinstall?

Django x2 · 27 Aug 2011 at 17:58

might be best looking for spares on ebay and having a go yourself

deusexlumina · 28 Aug 2011 at 13:54

trust me, it'd be better and cheaper for you to do it yourself. Repair are not cheap because of the labour hours needed to diagnose a fault and correct it.

First try a hard reset: take out the battery and power lead, and press the power button for at least 15 seconds. Replace battery and lead and see if it turns on.

Pull out the HDD and run hdd tune health test on another computer. Try with one RAM stick/switch slots and try different RAM all together.

Remove the back cover, and remove the CMOS battery to reset the CMOS.

If this doesnt work, open her up and look for loose screws or things that may be shorting it. Check for dust around the HSF.

If this fails, take out the mobo, reseat the HSF and check the GFX chipset to see if anything has burnt out. To be honest the problem doesnt sound too serious though, if its showing the BIOS screen then at least you know a lot of the key parts are functional.

territt · 29 Aug 2011 at 16:03

I fancy boys said:
trust me, it'd be better and cheaper for you to do it yourself. Repair are not cheap because of the labour hours needed to diagnose a fault and correct it.

First try a hard reset: take out the battery and power lead, and press the power button for at least 15 seconds. Replace battery and lead and see if it turns on.

Pull out the HDD and run hdd tune health test on another computer. Try with one RAM stick/switch slots and try different RAM all together.

Remove the back cover, and remove the CMOS battery to reset the CMOS.

If this doesnt work, open her up and look for loose screws or things that may be shorting it. Check for dust around the HSF.

If this fails, take out the mobo, reseat the HSF and check the GFX chipset to see if anything has burnt out. To be honest the problem doesnt sound too serious though, if its showing the BIOS screen then at least you know a lot of the key parts are functional.

Thanks for the advice, ive trired all the steps apart from reseating the HSF, not sure i would want to open it all up :-(

the bios shows but i cant press f12 to get into the bios setup, it just runs to the end of the bar and then the computer restarts...

territt · 31 Aug 2011 at 13:39

Anyone know how hard it would be to replace the motherboard on this laptop?

deusexlumina · 4 Sep 2011 at 20:44

replacing the motherboard will involve complete disassembly i'm afraid. If it shows the BIOS screen then its likely the gfx and cpu are ok. There may be a dead capacitor on the motherboard that causes it to power down. Try and mentally time how long it takes between reboots. If the time is constant, it may be a capacitor. You definitely sure the RAM and HDD are ok?

territt · 4 Sep 2011 at 21:09

Yeah, i have tested the Ram and HDD is a diffrent laptop and they work fine. It does seem to be about the same time before it reboots each time.

area512003 · 4 Sep 2011 at 22:14

territt said:
the bios shows but i cant press f12 to get into the bios setup, it just runs to the end of the bar and then the computer restarts...

My father in law had a Dell Vostro (18 mths old only :eek:

) with the same problem as above and it turned out to be a faulty motherboard. Probably best to buy another laptop if out of warranty as repairs can cost more than the laptop cost itself! :mad:

territt · 4 Sep 2011 at 22:23

area512003 said:
My father in law had a Dell Vostro (18 mths old only ) with the same problem as above and it turned out to be a faulty motherboard. Probably best to buy another laptop if out of warranty as repairs can cost more than the laptop cost itself!

The laptop was very expensive to start with, not sure how much a similer spec laptop would cost now, QX9300 processor, 12gb ram, Quadro FX 3700M video card?

territt · 5 Sep 2011 at 16:22