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Obtaining Replacement Parts for Your Laptop?
halosfan asks: "I recently broke the LCD bezel (the plastic thing that holds the LCD and related wires together) on a laptop that I bought half a year ago. I checked eBay as well as a few online stores specializing in laptop replacement parts, but still couldn't find the replacement. I contacted the manufacturer, but they were absolutely useless. Local laptop repair shop said they wouldn't replace the bezel without replacing the LCD, which isn't acceptable. It is an extremely frustrating situation, as the bezel is a minor part that I otherwise couldn't care less about, but it is necessary to carry the laptop around. I am wondering what other ways are there to obtain a laptop replacement part? Also, any recommendations for manufacturers that are good about making obscure replacement parts for their laptops available to the general public?" Does your laptop manufacturer make it easy or hard to get the necessary replacement parts?
Last time my Discman broke, they wanted to charge me over 100$ to replace the lil' spinny thingie inside of it because they'd replace the whole bottom part of it.. which includes the lens and pretty much all the electronics.. Laptops are the same, your best bet with a laptop is to take a good extended warranty and pray you don't need to use it..
to make it hard.
Even batteries, that ought to be a commidity, are still expensive. $147 for a 760e ThinkPad battery? The laptop isn't worth that much.
Was this accidental damage, or a manufacturing defect? Given that it's only half a year old, it should still be under warranty (assuming it's not accidental damage, such as you dropping it on the floor). You should be able to just send it in to the manufacturer and have them either repair it for you or ship you a refurb or new one.
Reminds me of the little diddy they said in Brave New World, and piped into the heads of children at an early age: "better to spend than to mend". It seems our society is geared more towards the "just buy a new one" mentality nowadays. *cough*iPod*cough* Personally I'd find a way to MacGuyver a new part or fix it so that the device was still (safely) usable until the day I either do find a new part, or break it beyond repair.
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Or, what you do, is you buy from Costco and return the machine every 5 months... that ruse was cooler a while ago when you could have it for a year and then return it...
My neighbour bought appleCare and boy did THAT pay for itself. His screen just up and DIED. First it turned weird colours and then it just died. Luckily he had appleCare, because at the time it was a $1200 repair!
So, extended warranties (the more extended the better) are WORTH every penny on laptops. You hope and pray you never need it, but when you do need it, and you don't have it, yer fucked big time.
good luck,
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Ebay is a great place to trade notebook parts around and around... unfortunately the prices go up for the small parts as they become seperated from their original computer (buy a used, broken notebook for $50, sell HDD for $40, sell LCD for $60, sell CD-ROM drive for $20, etc).
No, the answer is JB-Weld (www.jbweld.net) or a similar epoxy. It's the modern nerd answer to tape on your glasses.
I've had to replace two major parts on my pismo in the last year:
1. the hinges on the LCD
2. the sound IO-power board
both of these two operations could have set me back at least $1000 USD combined if I sent the machine into apple for repairs.
I went looking on ebay and around the net and fixed my laptop for $200 (in the form of parts and torx wrenches) for both repairs combined. Even then I paid too much--but those manuals are still a godsend.
> Best money I ever spent.
Considering the two repairs to your laptop have been produced by dropping it, my humble submission would be that a padded bag would have been the best money you could spend.
I had the same hinges wear out, actually the screws sheared off on my Dell. After I managed to figure out who to call, then sent me the parts for about $40 no fuss. And I got a direct number if ever something else wears out. My monitor now stands and a nice 90degree vertical instead of the droopy 45degrees of old age :)
But they also told me that the bezel of the monitor itself, because I also broke the clips that hold the thing shut, were unreplaceable. and to my eyes it does seem glued together.
I was also stunned a while ago when I had 2 of the same PDAs. 1 had bad memory so I got a new one from ebay. later my some broke the screen on that one so I thought I could combine the two. Nada. Its glued together. and so flimsy that opening the case just ripped it apart...
Thus I bought treo, i suppose i gave in.
This site offers a pretty good kit. A mid to late 80's Volvo 240 wagon with a V8 is the ultimate sleeper car. No one expects it to be able to move that fast.
Also, I have a personal theory that old station wagons appear to be moving 5-10 MPH slower than they actually are. This comes from years of driving one and having people pass me and then slow back down in front of me.
what part of "well-regulated militia" do you not understand?
Hobby stores (and hobby store owners) are your friend.
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!