6
turbod
3y

My personal laptop suddenly broke.

Clearly, something in the motherboard got broken, because no LED is working, long press for hard reset is not working: only fans are on when I power on the button. To disconnect I should remove the battery.

It's an old (and very loved by me) laptop, but I explained it in the repair shop, and they told me they "will do all possible to repair it" by a reasonable price, so worth it.

After some days the call me to tell me that, after some tests like a display test or ram test, the problem is probably in the motherboard and they don't have the tools to fix that.
They can bring the laptop to another specialized shop for, of course, a much more expensive price.

How should I react? I'm very angry. When you told me you could "do all possible to repair it" after I told you where the problem probably is, it implies you have the tools, at least, to find out if the problem were there.

When we talk I said "yes, I accept I'll pay that price if you aren't able to fix it".
Being coherent, are you expecting to me to have the tools to pay you in that case?

I'm so tired of the impunity of companies for treating customers as if they had no idea about technology always even if in the most of cases is it. (My laptop was not apple)

What a waste of time and money.

Comments
  • 2
    i feel you mate, my baby brother threw something and broke my laptop screen about a month ago too
  • 3
    I'd react by telling them to get stuffed and take it elsewhere myself. At that point they're just a middle man.

    In future, I'd ask places like this specifically if they perform diagnosis & board-level repair at the component level. You should be able to gauge from their reaction if they actually know what they're on about, or they're trying to bluff but haven't got a clue.
  • 1
    Did you pull the hard drive before sending off the laptop? I go with that and put in a replacement (with os).

    Then as much as anything, if they dick you around, the worst they can do is keep some old hardware (as opposed to losing your data).
  • 2
    @AlmondSauce That's actually a good advise.
    If I learned something from this is that I have to inform about which kind of techniques are needed and explicitly ask if they do those.

    But it's a shame.
  • 1
    Good luck trying to find someone who does chip-level repair on cheap motherboards for the price you're willing to pay. Companies which do that usually charge hundreds of $, and they only repair motherboards for operation-critical hardware where replacement takes weeks to arrive, not for things where you can just swap the disk into some off-the-shelf device and continue your work in minutes.

    Also, lose that entitled attitude, they promised to do any standard, reasonably-priced repair, not some specialised device recovery shit, and they went out of their way to help you with something most people wouldn't even look at.
  • 1
    @hitko I don't rant about price. I rant about they saying they will do something and don't doing it.
  • 0
    I think you should've asked what they can actually test. For the company, you're just some random dude whose laptop broke, so they don't explain if you don't ask.

    @hitko I agree with you otherwise, but repairs are also done for normal consumer gear that has still value
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