[GTALUG] laptop repair in GTA/Markham?

[Giles Orr]

Hi Tim.

On Wed, 9 Jan 2019 at 10:20, Tim Tisdall via talk <talk at gtalug.org> wrote:

> So, my laptop won't turn on today and it's likely due to a coffee spill
> that happened yesterday.  I suspect a trace on the board may have become
> corroded.  I took it to the ASUS repair centre on Markham and the absolute
> minimum cost to repair it would probably be $400 and if I want to keep
> everything on my SSD I would need to remove it first (but I don't have the
> necessary torx bits to do that).  I think they only swap parts out and
> don't attempt to actually repair.
>
> Does anyone know of a good and reputable repair place that would be able
> to fix a corroded trace on the board if that's all it is?  It's an Asus
> Zenbook UX305C.
>

I worked for Repair Cafe for a long time (up until mid-2017), doing repairs
on desktops and laptops.  It was ... educational.  If you know how to use
the soldering iron you own, you're already just as qualified as most of the
people who run those small laptop repair shops.  Most of them will do what
I did at Repair Cafe: watch a YouTube video, take the thing apart, look for
obvious disconnections, clean things, reassemble it and hope it works.
Those that are actually "qualified" to work on specific computers (ie. have
been trained by the computer manufacturers and deeply understand the inner
workings of specific parts) are A) rare, and B) so expensive it's cheaper
to replace your computer rather than repair it.

You'll notice I didn't actually suggest using the soldering iron: that's
very unlikely to come up.  As others have mentioned,  current circuit
boards have traces so small they're exceedingly difficult to work with.
You replace the whole board (or the whole laptop!) by preference.

So get that torx kit (they're cheap, and if you bust a tip you won't mind
having two sets), take the computer apart, clean it, and reassemble it.
This is what the repair shop you could afford would do, but you'll do it
with more care because it's your computer.  If you don't have the time for
that, then perhaps you have money: pull the hard drive and move the data to
a new machine.

I'm guessing this isn't what you wanted to hear.  Since it's the approach I
take, you can probably guess I don't know of any repair shops because I
don't use them.  I apologize for both these things ... it's the best I've
got.

I own the exact same laptop and I love it - it's worth investing at least
some effort in.  Good luck.

-- 
Giles
https://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr at gmail.com
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