who fixes laptops?

DanW_3

headintheclouds wrote:

Sorry that's not more positive, but I hope you have some luck with this soon.

might not be positive but it'll save her from a bigger head ache.

headintheclouds

That makes me feel better! Felt like a right doom-monger!

holstar

headintheclouds wrote:

I wouldn't bother with PC World. ... £120 to cover courier and their assessment charge, and that's before they bill you for any parts and extra labour. They couldn't even guarantee that they could get the parts.

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Thanks for that! Won't be taking it there then!

And no doom-mongering....At the moment I don't think anyone will be mongering any more doom than I am in right now...it can only get better (sing-a-long time everyone!)

Thanks
Hol x

DanW_3

holstar wrote:

At the moment I don't think anyone will be mongering any more doom than I am in right now...it can only get better (sing-a-long time everyone!)

Thanks
Hol x

how do you monger Doom? :rotfl: :rotfl:

albertross_2

try taking the battery out, leave mains in and switch on.

if you have any, remove any pcmcia cards, for all these tests..

If that doesn't work, reseat the ram chips, and try again with power and no battery.

if that doesn't work, take the hard disk out, battery out, power on.

if that doesn't work, ram out, battery out, disk out, mains lead in, power on.

if that doesn't work (and by work I mean nothing on screen still), the motherboard is bust, so it is time to get a new one..

All the above, assume that your screen is working (try an external screen if you have access to one (usually you have to press a couple of keys on the keyboard to switch the display to the external monitor)) and that the power supply is working.. it sounds like it is if a light comes on when the battery is out.

one final thing you could try is to put some pressure all over the keyboard with the palm of your hand, to reseat any loose chips, or get a screwdriver out, and check that everything is seated correctly.

DanW_3

albertross: (Holstar I hope you don't mind me posting) It looks like it's got power you can hear a noise when you press the on button (which I'm thinking is the CD-RW drive). The computer place said it was either the mobo or the CPU, possibly both.

It was overheating quite a lot before it eventually gave up the ghost. It would randomly turn off after fan on full speed for 5mins or so. Sounded like it was taking off at points. I'm guessing there's quite a lot of dust in there but we didn't want to take it apart and clean it and invalidate the warranty in the process (but that's obviously not an issue now).

I think the computer place was saying the new mobo would be looking to cost around £100, possibly more.

HTH,
Dan

holstar

albertross wrote:

try taking the battery out, leave mains in and switch on.

Tried that...nothing different happened

albertross wrote:

if you have any, remove any pcmcia cards, for all these tests..
If that doesn't work, reseat the ram chips, and try again with power and no battery.

...and the pcmcia cards are what? what/where are ram chips? bear in mind I have the all the computer-wizard knowledge of a small otter...

albertross wrote:

if that doesn't work, take the hard disk out, battery out, power on.
if that doesn't work, ram out, battery out, disk out, mains lead in, power on.

so basically try taking loads of bits out and trying with battery and mains?

albertross wrote:

All the above, assume that your screen is working (try an external screen if you have access to one (usually you have to press a couple of keys on the keyboard to switch the display to the external monitor)) and that the power supply is working.. it sounds like it is if a light comes on when the battery is out.

Am pretty sure the screen is working...the first time I tried starting it up after it conked out..there was very little noise(almost like it tried to boot but then gave up after 5 seconds), but there seemed to be, not sure how to describe it best, a change in the colour black on the screen? Was black originally and remained black...but a change in the texture of the blackness?
That only happened the one time though, since then there has been no boot-up noise at all and no screen-colour change

albertross wrote:

if that doesn't work ...the motherboard is bust, so it is time to get a new one..

what about if the CPU is bust? will all this taking bits out/mains/battery stuff work if its CPU thats bust? (sorry for my ignorance here)

I don't know whether the fan gave up the ghost or not...it's usually a very noisy fan (aircraft taking off styleeee) and could often be heard through 2 fire doors :eek: But, am not sure whether it stopped fanning before the whole thing conked out...I wasn't really paying attention to it.


Thanks for all your help
Hol x

Fenris

OK, I'll add my two-penneth worth and hope I can help.

I've had 2 laptops and both have had HDD failures, so I know the route this takes. It'll start giving the blue-screen-of-death for a few weeks then it'll just not work at all. If you try and access a certain sector, it'll whirr and grind like nobody's business!

You should still be able to enter the bios, however. Usualy when you boot a computer you'll get the manufacturers screen, in your case Tiny. If you're not getting anything here, it's probably safe to assume that it's the mobo. If you do get that screen, but it doesn't go any further, it's probably the HDD.

Do you have, or can you get hold of a boot disc? It's a usually a floppy disc. You need to see if you can boot from this. If you can't then I'd say give it up as a loss, because if you can't boot it'll cost a fortune to repair.

As for the warrenty, I have every sympathy for you. My first laptop I bought from Tempo before they went bust and I bought a 3 year warrenty as they told me it covered everything, even cosmetic damage. I had a dog then and he pulled if off a table by the power lead and the drive failed. I took it back to Tempo and they refused to repair it. Dozens of letters later I got nothing done and no refund for the loss. Those were the days when a 4.3gig HDD cost nearly £60! :eek: I've never bought an extended warrenty since.

I don't really know what else to suggest. I don't know of anywhere you can get it repaired, other than the internet sites another user posted. Have you thought of seeking out a Tiny forum? I'm on the Sony Vaio forum and find it invaluble when things go wrong with that!

If you DO have to buy a new laptop, I highly recommend Samsung; I've had my Q10 for over 4 years now and have had no problems what-so-ever. I had to replace the HDD last year as it was wearing out, but that's to be expected. If you can, get one from John Lewis as they give you a 2 year warrenty on computers!

holstar

Fenris wrote:

You should still be able to enter the bios, however. Usualy when you boot a computer you'll get the manufacturers screen, in your case Tiny. If you're not getting anything here, it's probably safe to assume that it's the mobo.

If you DO have to buy a new laptop, I highly recommend Samsung;

umm, i cant see any bios...theres no boot-up at all....so, unless theres some magic way to access bios by thought-waves alone, i dont *think* this will work.

Will go hunt out some Tiny forums though, thanks for that.

If it turns out I need a new computer, i'll be going for desktop rather than laptop, I dont really need the portability and desktops seem to go wrong a lot less, and a damn sight cheaper to fix if they do go wrong

Thanks
Hol x

Kilty_2

Have a look on ebay for a mini PCI diagnostic card (usually shipped from HK), when plugged in and the machine is turned on it gives error codes showing any faults within the system (assuming the machine has a mini PCI slot)

Could be worth a try....