PC Repair - Motherboard?

Terrysdelight

Hello - laptop has died. Took it to shop and they said it has over heated and burnt out needs new motherboard £220! Laptop originally cost £500 - Dell XPS 1530.

Is it worth repairing I should I just buy a new cheapie for about £300? My son needs it for school as he needs to use voice recognition software for his English work. I know the school should be paying for this but its worse than trying to get blood from a stone.

Was wondering whether motherboards can be bought a lot cheaper than the price I've been quoted.... Any ideas?

Many thanks
Terri

fwor

Assuming they have diagnosed it right and it really does need a replacement, I'd say don't repair. You'll be lucky to get even a secondhand mobo (e.g. from a laptop with a broken screen) fitted for less than £150.

I'd get a replacement laptop - don't go too cheap or you'll just get more trouble - and stick the dead one on Ebay as "spares or repair". If you're lucky it will fetch around £80-100.

amcluesent

>Took it to shop<

PC World by any chance? They diagnose quite a few faulty mobos...

Terrysdelight

RussJK wrote: »

Shame about the motherboard. The above poster (fwor) is entirely correct that it'll be expensive no matter which way you go in replacing the motherboard.The best thing probably will be to buy a new one.

The Dell XPS 1530 was a very nice laptop - good graphics for when it was bought, and still better than the graphics cards in many of the laptops going for £500 today.

One thing to add: make sure you remove your hard disk from the laptop if you don't plan on keeping it, otherwise anyone who finds it can read your data. Unless something really terrible has happened, all your data should be intact. You can buy a 2.5" casing and use it as a portable hard drive. It'll come in handy as a backup. Probably.

You could also remove useful parts such as the memory. Is the graphics card removable? If so, you could just get a cheaper computer with a decent CPU (SAMSUNG R519) and get someone to put the graphics card from your Dell in.

Hi - thanks for that - it is actually an M1330 - i got the numbers wrong. Have found a motherboard on ebay for £135 - is it a case of just buying it, undoing a few screws and replacing it? Or something that must be done in the shop. £135 is a lot better than buying a new laptop.

Other than that - I did read up on the Samsung R519 - saw good reviews. Would my son still be able to play games on it? not the end of the world if he can't?

Thanks
Terri

Terrysdelight

amcluesent wrote: »

>Took it to shop<

PC World by any chance? They diagnose quite a few faulty mobos...

No - just a local shop. Can motherboards be repaired?

fwor

Terrysdelight wrote: »

is it a case of just buying it, undoing a few screws and replacing it?

Generally, no. There will be many tiny screws (some hidden) plastic clips which you often can't figure out how they come apart until ~after~ you have broken them, etc. I doubt you'll find a shop that will want to do the job for less than £50 (which is why I mentioned the £150 above, assuming you could get a mobo for £100).

I'd also back up what others have said above - the shop may well have told you that the motherboard had failed because they don't want the aggravation of finding out what's ~really~ wrong with it!

Can a motherboard be repaired? Some things - such as broken charger connectors - can, but "burnt out"? No, almost certainly not.

fiddiwebb

Terrysdelight wrote: »

Hi - thanks for that - it is actually an M1330 - i got the numbers wrong. Have found a motherboard on ebay for £135 - is it a case of just buying it, undoing a few screws and replacing it? Or something that must be done in the shop. £135 is a lot better than buying a new laptop.

Other than that - I did read up on the Samsung R519 - saw good reviews. Would my son still be able to play games on it? not the end of the world if he can't?

Thanks
Terri

There is also a new? Dell XPS M1330 Motherboard for £90 bid or £120 BIN on eBay.

RussJK

fwor wrote: »

I'd also back up what others have said above - the shop may well have told you that the motherboard had failed because they don't want the aggravation of finding out what's ~really~ wrong with it!

That's true, so there's no real guarantee that it'll work even with a new motherboard.

fiddiwebb

I thought it was normally the graphics chip that was causing problems on these boards?

closed

When did you buy it, there is an enhanced warranty for overheating nvidia graphics chips, and you also have rights under the sale of goods act

http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/b/direct2dell/archive/2008/08/18/nvidia-gpu-update-dell-to-offer-warranty-enhancement-to-all-affected-customers-worldwide.aspx

Terrysdelight

closed wrote: »

When did you buy it, there is an enhanced warranty for overheating nvidia graphics chips, and you also have rights under the sale of goods act

http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/b/direct2dell/archive/2008/08/18/nvidia-gpu-update-dell-to-offer-warranty-enhancement-to-all-affected-customers-worldwide.aspx

3 September 2008. It actually broke in September 2009 but my son has been using mine in the meantime and I've only just got round to getting it fixed. Thought it might be an expensive job so just kept putting it off. But now he needs to take it into school!