What should I do???

The Filth

Very very annoyed.

A while back my laptop screen suddenly just went black. I figured that the backlight was gone. Looked up some stuff on the internet and saw that it was most likely either the inverter or the bulb. Decided I'd rather get it repaired than order both parts. I plugged into an external monitor and everything was working grand, I could even see the display very dimly on the screen.

Left the laptop in to a repair place which I will not name at the end of May. I turned the laptop on and showed the girl who took it. I was told I'd have a quote by the end of the week. After more than 2/3 weeks and many annoyed calls from me they finally got back to me with a quote of 115 to replace the inverter. So I said yeah go ahead.

Another 3 weeks after giving them the go ahead and some more frustrated calls from me I decided to pop in. I went in and the guy rang the place and then informed me that they tried and could not fix the laptop and they would not proceed any longer as "it was a mainboard issue!!." Obviously very surprised at this I quized him about it and he said if I pop in the next day (today) I could pick it up and see for myself.

So I went in and I asked whether I could check it out on a monitor and a charger before I took it and left. He immediately took a defensive stance and said if theres any problem with it come back to us saying that "We're the oldest repair shop in Ireland. We don't break laptops."

Got home now and plugged it into my charger. The LED which indicates the laptop charging didn't light up and the laptop will not turn on. It's dead.

My suspicion is that someone in the repair place short circuited it with static.
What do I do? Do I have a leg to stand on with this? I did not pay any money or anything but I feel they've effectively damaged my laptop beyond repair.

I need feedback spill....

ricman

What model laptop is it, maybe the charger they gave you is dead.Change the fuse in the charger plug, use a 13amp fuse from an iron,radio if you have no spare fuse.

The Filth

Hi ricman cheers,
Would the light on the power conversion unit of a charger come on if the fuse was gone? The light is on on the charger and haven't had it plugged in since I had the laptop on the go.

Its an Acer 2920

ricman

OK,CHARGER is working ,if the light comes on.Take out the , laptop,battery, then plug in charger, press power on button on laptop.

The Filth

no luck

ricman

you could email dermot jewel here,
http://www.q102.ie/on-air/shows-feature.aspx?show_guid=362da95b-5825-4704-a81a-86989430e08e&arti_guid=c215d1b1-ae3d-4d3f-bf41-35b81fb509ee
they deal with consumer complaints,shops,gaurantees ,bad customer service.

x in the city

you should just give it to someone on boards, I could fix that laptop myself and get my own part ordered.

computer repair shops, i don't know how they are in business

Alanstrainor

Tbh, i'd be thinking about the small claims court, perhaps it's a bit early for that, but it's always there. they'd probably give in before it got there.

wmpdd3

After replacing an inverter and screen myself, your story does make sense, I had to take apart and put everything together at least 20 times before it worked, I also gave myself a few weak shocks! even with the battery out.

Looks like the small claims court would be your only option, but the question is what is the value of a laptop without a functioning screen? They could have charged you for labour and the inverter, but didn't. If you were to go to the small claims court maybe they would bill you for this.

When you droped it in did they take note of the details on a duplicate sheet such as items left in, problem, work required?

The Filth

Yeah I probably would have been able to replace an inverter myself to be honest, didn't want to order the part though and have it turn out to be the bulb....
I wrongly assumed that the repair shop was the safe choice.

Wmpdd3 your probably right about the labour and part. However since the mainboard of the laptop is basically dead now it probably did work but we'll never know.

I went back into them and basically told them what the story is. They took the laptop back off me and said we are going to have to evaluate it ourselves before anything happens. Which seems strange to me as it implies that they didn't know what state they gave the laptop back to me in. I await a call....

but the question is what is the value of a laptop without a functioning screen?

The laptop probably would have replaced my aging desktop as a still functioning computer. Not to mention the valuable data I still have on it, which I'm probably going to have to extract from the hard drive now....

ShooterSF

The Filth wrote: »

The laptop probably would have replaced my aging desktop as a still functioning computer. Not to mention the valuable data I still have on it, which I'm probably going to have to extract from the hard drive now....

As a side point, always ALWAYS do this FIRST. I do some repairs for people and the first thing I do is explain to them that they need to back up critical data first before I touch it. Very likely any repair company has similar warnings that it's your responsibility to have data backed up before you drop it in as the risk of expensive lawsuits would be crazy.

It might be highly unlikely your data would be lost when changing an inverter but never take the risk of your machine in a strangers hands.

Cuddlesworth

The Filth wrote: »

My suspicion is that someone in the repair place short circuited it with static.
What do I do? Do I have a leg to stand on with this? I did not pay any money or anything but I feel they've effectively damaged my laptop beyond repair.

Static breaking modern circuit boards/chips is a myth. Odds are they stole the motherboard to fix another system or slipped with a screwdriver and took out contacts on the board. Are you sure its even the same laptop? Did you check the serial number on return? Not to freak you out here but there are one or two places in Dublin that I would never ever give a machine to.