Dell XPS m1530 wont boot after beer spillage on keyboard

John2009

Hi all, posting this here to get some advice on this problem,

a friend has the laptop above and on Xmas eve his niece spilt some Budweiser on the keyboard of the laptop, the laptop was powered off at the time but plugged in, he dried up as much of the spillage as he could and put the laptop into his hot press for around 48hrs,

he went to power it on yesterday and all he's getting is the initial fan and HDD spin up then it goes quiet, nothing comes up on the screen it stays blank on power up, he can press the media buttons on the top panel and they light up etc, he can also do a hard power off and press power on again and the same as above HDD and fan spin up then quietness,

does this mean that he needs a new motherboard etc and would the cpu and ram be shagged also?

Thanks

John2009

Anyone any advice, whats it even worth?

Sully

Likely there is liquid damage to the main board there John. Most likely most other parts work but it makes more sense to get a new laptop rather than repair!

John2009

I'm thinking that alright, the cost of a replacement mobo is at around the €200 mark from Ebay and even at that the bloody thing could go belly up after a few months from the Nvidia gpu,

what kind of figure would it be worth on parts alone or as is needing a new motherboard?

its genuinely in mint condition bar the mobo, got it from a fellow user here for the buddy and he left the warranty lapse in June this year,

would it be worth €150 as is?

Sully

Doubt a warranty covered water damage tbh. Is the mobo on ebay the exact same one? Plus are you or someone installing it free?

John2009

The mobo on Ebay is the same Dell part no. N028D, thats the mobo with the 256mb 8600gt from Nvidia,

i'd fit it for free no hassle, maybe charge him a pint or two the next time we're out ,

another problem aswell is that if he decided to grab a new replacement mobo prior to that i'd need to know if both the cpu and ram still works, if they are gone then it'll be scrapped as that pushes the price upto to around the €300 mark for both a mobo, cpu and 4gb of memory,

you would get a lovely laptop on Adverts for that kinda of money

Sully

Doubt a warranty covered water damage tbh. Is the mobo on ebay the exact same one? Plus are you or someone installing it free?

Sully

John2009 wrote: »

The mobo on Ebay is the same Dell part no. N028D, thats the mobo with the 256mb 8600gt from Nvidia,

i'd fit it for free no hassle, maybe charge him a pint or two the next time we're out ,

another problem aswell is that if he decided to grab a new replacement mobo prior to that i'd need to know if both the cpu and ram still works, if they are gone then it'll be scrapped as that pushes the price upto to around the €300 mark for both a mobo, cpu and 4gb of memory,

you would get a lovely laptop on Adverts for that kinda of money

Sorry for my double post, using internet on mobile for those replies. One thing I wouldn't be great at is pricing how much something is worth. You might be best splitting up the parts and selling them individually at a bit less than they cost new. I think with IT because it moves so fast, your not going to get a huge amount anyway.

As for replacing the mobo -- the replacement you get on eBay could be sound, the owner may have spares or just did an upgrade or something. You just gotta compare the cost of getting it to the price of a newer, better spec laptop. Is it worth upgrading a laptop that's heading towards dated?

In my experience, its not worth it. Scrap for parts, sell them or keep them for back up later. Get yourself a new machine. I haven't looked at the laptop itself but you will know yourself when looking at all the figures.

Orlock

the damage is probably covered by your house insurance, and if the mainboard and keybord are damaged you may get it replaced

Jarren

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