Shop fixed laptop last week, now broken again!

Lum

Ok if they got all your important data off then £70 isn't actually too bad. It sounds like this laptop was dying anyway and at least you have your pictures etc.

They didn't lose your Microsoft programs (I'm guessing you mean Word, Excel etc.) Legitimate computer shops will not reinstall these for you unless you provide them with the licence key. Many many people are running pirate versions of these, if you do not have the key and the install CDs then chances are you were sold a laptop with pirate copies installed. This is incredibly common, especially if bought second hand.

If you want to have another place repair it, ask the shop to burn your backed up data to a DVD and then you can put it back on yourself. However laptop hardware repair does get expensive quickly as they are fiddly and awkward to work on, it most likely would be approaching the cost of a new, better, laptop.

closed

getting data off whether it boots or not is a matter of putting the disk in a £3 caddy, and copying off somewhere else, (you can do that yourself), minimal effort as is a factory restore, however if the fault was it wasn't powering on, and they didn't fix it, then they really they should be charging a diagnostic fee, £35 is reasonable for some sort of hardware diagnosis (which doesn't appear to have happened), not charging for wasting their own time doing a reinstall.

like going to garage with a flat battery, and them changing a tyre and giving you the keys back with an invoice. If the fault was present at the time you dropped it off, it would be obvious to any competent person whether it was software or hardware within 60 seconds of turning it on.

The point about not losing programs is, it is a good idea for any user to backup their own machine, when it is working, with disk image software, if you had this, then they or you wouldn't have lost word. They should have advised you about the loss of programs before doing anything.

runaroundpauper

norangeduck wrote: »

yep the lights come on - no ones home - you can hear the laptop working, but then nothing on the screen - I can sit there and turn it on and off for about 40 mins- then it will eventually work like nothing was wrong.

it was an acer, dont know the model, its in the shop now!!

They say its overheated and appears to have cause permanent damage

5 years old good going for a laptop ,70 pound got your backed up data back I got quoted 400 Pound to have my laptop motherboard changed did not bother ,if it was a tower PC then might be worth cleaning vanes on heat sink and replace thermal paste on CPU as can be got to quickly ,could be ram have you run diagnostics from boot ,if you could do this yourself , good thermal paste from maplins for a tube is about 8 pounds there's all these options and time and expense you get it working then find out capacitors swollen and solder bearings on GPu working loose


Buy another laptop and a external disk + laptop cooler:beer:

Splott

norangeduck wrote: »

The state I left it in was that it would take ages to turn the computer on, which needed to be turned off and on several times before it would work - once it was on it was fine -

And now apparently its really had it - though they are still telling me they can transfer my stuff on to the new laptop (should I buy it) so, surely it can still turn on for them to be able to do that.

No. They'll remove the hard drive, put it in a caddy and copy the files from the hard drive to another machine.

Backing customers files up and ensuring you get the lot can be a real pain in the bum which can take an absolute age if the owners aren't organised. I charge £30/hr for repairs.

Personally I would get a torch, shine it through the fan intake on the base and look through the vent on the back/side and see if you can see any light. If you can't, the heatsink is blocked and needs cleaning out. On an Acer this is fairly easy to do - pop the bottom cover off, lift off the tape between the fan and the heatsink and pull out the big wad of fluff. If the overheating hasn't killed it, it'll work just fine.

Failing that the laptop needs the main chipset reballing which involves removing the mainboard, removing the chip, replacing all the solder balls and resoldering it which needs specialist equipment and makes it uneconomical.

macman

norangeduck wrote: »

I mean I lost word - they told me they couldn't back that up - only documents and files. and it would be restored to factory settings.

The state I left it in was that it would take ages to turn the computer on, which needed to be turned off and on several times before it would work - once it was on it was fine -

And now apparently its really had it - though they are still telling me they can transfer my stuff on to the new laptop (should I buy it) so, surely it can still turn on for them to be able to do that.

You can't 'back up' Word. If it wasn't on the laptop out of the factory, then a Factory Restore will remove it. You simply reinstall it from the disk you would have had when you bought it, and using the licence key provided. Word is a separate program, not part of the Windows OS. As long as you have the licence key, there's no need to repurchase it. If you don't have the disk, ask the shop to reinstall from your licence key, they must have an Office CD. or borrow one.
Sounds to me more like imminent drive failure than overheating.