DIY - a step too far

I have an Acer Aspire S7 and the DC power socket is goosed so I looked up t he part on ebay and it is only £4.50. However, the youtube video on fi tting it lasted 50 minutes so I took it to a repair man who said the job wo uld take HIM about 1.5 hours.

What a palaver for such a simple part - still he'll only charge me £20 .

Reply to
Simon Mason
Loading thread data ...

the part on ebay and it is only £4.50. However, the youtube video on fitting it lasted 50 minutes so I took it to a repair man who said the job would take HIM about 1.5 hours.

That'll be 40 minutes to undo all the screws and prise the case open, 10 mi nutes to change the part and 40 minutes to put the bugger back together aga in.

Reply to
Halmyre

You are indeed lucky. Normally its the whole motherboard which is knackered as the pcbtracks lift and crack. More substantial manufacture should be used on all plugs and sockets on portable equipment in my view.

Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

up the part on ebay and it is only £4.50. However, the youtube video o n fitting it lasted 50 minutes so I took it to a repair man who said the jo b would take HIM about 1.5 hours.

minutes to change the part and 40 minutes to put the bugger back together a gain.

He has to desolder the jack plug, clean all the joints and solder a new one in. He said that he has to be in the right frame of mind and to do it in t he cool of the evening as well.

Reply to
Simon Mason

I have done that job on multiple Lenovo laptops. Yes, can take up to an hour, although I'm getting faster!

(well, only two. But the same one three times, and the other one twice. Son is careless with them)

Reply to
Bob Eager

the last time I need to look for a PC repair man charges started at 75 quid, even for he simplest task

tim

Reply to
tim...

On my Lenovo the power socket is (was) partly held in place by a thin plast ic lug, part of the casing. Sudden jolt to the plug = broken lug = loos e socket; as a temporary (hah) bodge I've fed the socket outside the casing on its stub of cable (which keeps breaking off and needing resoldered). At some point I'll apply a large lump of Araldite to try and fix it in place and then replace the 50-odd screws that hold it together, trying to remembe r which of the dozen-odd different shapes and lengths of screw goes where.

Reply to
Halmyre

It came to £65, so I bunged him £70 cash.

Reply to
Simon Mason

Hang on, what happened to "What a palaver for such a simple part - still he'll only charge me £20." I thought £20 was far too cheap for a strip-down and solder job so the £65 is much more realistic tbh.

Reply to
John

Done this several times at repair events. The long part is the disassembly and reassembly. Often, you find other problems too, such as broken hinges, and that the laptop fan has been acting as the house vacuum cleaner for some years, and/or something sticky has been spilt in it in the past.

People usually buy the connector with the flying lead and plug (sometimes somes with a tiny daughter board), although I don't recall if I've seen the precise model you have there. There's not normally any soldering involved.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

on 20/09/2016, Andrew Gabriel supposed :

Lots of laptops have the DC jack soldered directly to the motherboard - I've done four repairs just this last week.

Reply to
John

He said that a ballpark figure for such a job was £20 in his initial o ffer, but it took him longer than usual as I expected it would.

He also cleaned the fans, replaced a couple of lost screws and the memory b utton cell.

Reply to
Simon Mason

I've just bought a refurbished IBM T400 for £79.99 - lovely machine.

Reply to
Bob Martin

About a year ago, I had my Aser laptop repaired. Involved removing one of the processors due to a dry joint, cleaning the PCB and replacing. Cost about 50 quid including postage. Not something I'd attempt myself - unlike changing a power connector.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Similar situation with a Dell XPS.

Only the guy has had it a month and hasn't opened it up yet.

How do I pick em?

Reply to
R D S

What is a

Reply to
Weatherlawyer

That sounds like you have been careless with him.

Reply to
Weatherlawyer

Reply to
Andy Burns

His problem. He paid for the part. And my labour.

Reply to
Bob Eager

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.