Obtaining Replacement Parts for Your Laptop?

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Obtaining Replacement Parts for Your Laptop?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Monday January 12, 2004 @07:54AM from the more-difficult-than-you-might-think dept.

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?

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Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... by Aliencow · 2004-01-12 07:55 · Score: 5, Insightful

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..
1. Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... by General+Alcazar · 2004-01-12 08:50 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I never buy warranties. My thinking is this: Essentially it is a bet between me and the company giving out the warranty. They are betting that they won't have to shell out the bucks, and I am betting that they will. Since the vendor has way more data upon which to base their bet (it is their product), I am betting that it probably isn't a good deal for me to bet against them.
2. Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... by tomstdenis · 2004-01-12 08:56 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  For some companies yes, but mostly the scam works like this.
  
  You have 100 people shell out 400$ for a warranty on a 1600$ laptop. 10 people may have to use the warranty so you make
  
  100*2000 - 10*1600 = 184,000$ or 1840$ per laptop. If you sell the laptop at a profit for only 1600$ you definitely make more than you're share off the warranties.
  
  So far I've had my laptop since October [ok so only three months] and it's been churning along fine. I can you one thing though, if my laptop dies before October 10th, 2006 I'll definitely be on them about the warranty.
  
  Chances are my laptop will die October 12th, 2006 at which point I'll probably be able to afford a new laptop. So I'll donate my laptop to someone [who can then shell out less money to repair it then a new laptop costs] and go on my way.
  
  The trick is to have a family lawyer available and treat your equipment properly [e.g. hard shell case, leave it off when not in use, don't turn the LCD up all the way, etc...]
  
  Tom
  
  --
  Someday, I'll have a real sig.
3. Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... by Dogtanian · 2004-01-12 09:56 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Essentially it is a bet between me and the company giving out the warranty.
  
  The other reply to this post sort of indirectly said this, but to put it more simply:-
  
  In theory what you say is true, but relies on money having the same 'value' to everyone. Of course, if I'm penniless (and, say, need something to eat), $2 will be 'worth' more to me than it would be to a millionaire.
  
  Would you risk everything you owned on a double-or-nothing bet; even if the odds were 60:40 in your favour? Probably not.
  
  It has been shown (don't ask me for a reference for this) that the value of money is logarithmic compared to the amount you already have.
  
  So a big insurance company can make a profit with little risk, even if the odds are only *slightly* skewed in their favour, and the small guy who doesn't have tons of cash in the bank will accept this (otherwise) unfair bet as protection against him being destroyed by a single disaster.
  
  --
  "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
4. Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... by misterpies · 2004-01-12 11:39 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  >> If you're the worrying kind, it's not a lot of money.
  
  Actually, the problem is that extended warranties do cost a lot of money. They're mostly just cash cows for the manufacturers. Eg. for the cheapest $1000 iBook, AppleCare is $250 - that's 25% of the list price to extend the warranty from 1 to 3 years. By the end of the first year your $1000 laptop will only be worth around $500 anyway. So effectively you've spent $250 to insure something worth $500 at the time the insurance kicks in. And by the end of the third year the laptop will probably be worth less than $250.
  
  Yes, if it breaks down in that time and you have the warranty, you'll be ahead. But think, how many consumer electronics are you going to buy over your lifetime? What proportion of those will break in the extended warranty period? Under 10%, I'd hope. But you're paying around 50% of the value of the item at the time the warranty kicks in. That's what I call a rip-off, not peace of mind.
  
  Here's a suggestion. Every time you buy something new, instead of buying the extra warranty, put the same amount into savings. In a couple of years, you'll have saved enough to cover any repairs that might be needed. In 20 years you'll be able to retire.
  
  --
  The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
5. Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... by tep-sdsc · 2004-01-12 12:02 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Yeah, Sony Trinitons are pretty indestuctable, especially the mid-80s XBR (semi-pro) line.
  
  We have a 27" XBR that was purchased in December 1985, with all kinds of inputs, including digital RGB, and its still just fine.
  
  So, when I needed two new TVs this Xmas, guess what I bought? The 36" and 21" have joined their older sibling and all is well, and I know I'll never have to have them repaired.
  
  As for plasma/LCD, why? Just because they are available doesn't mean that your CRT TVs are obsolete. I love to buy at the back side of the tech curve. Home computers are ~1Ghz, CRT monitors, 80G drives, 32x CD-ROM instead of 52x, etc. I've got 1 and 2 year old Palm/Handsprings and they work just fine.
  
  I love to allow other people to pay the development and launch costs of new products.
To likely mis-quote Aldous Huxley by da3dAlus · 2004-01-12 08:00 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.
No good options on this by Ralph+Spoilsport · 2004-01-12 08:02 · Score: 3, Insightful

I've had similar problems, and never had a good solution. My present laptop, I bought the extortionate appleCare insurance, but it is worth it.
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.
Re:Do you know the way..... by robslimo · 2004-01-12 08:03 · Score: 3, Insightful

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.
Re:yep, I got the warranty. by Xzzy · 2004-01-12 08:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

> 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.