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Obtaining Replacement Parts for Your Laptop?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on 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?

5 of 688 comments (clear)

  1. Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... by Aliencow · · 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 · · 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 Dogtanian · · 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).
    3. Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... by tep-sdsc · · 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.

  2. Re:yep, I got the warranty. by Xzzy · · 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.