Laptop Liquid Damage

Appletax

Appletax

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I got a laptop that will not power on (Dell Inspiron 3541).

Things I did:
  • Tried universal AC adapter
  • Tested DC jack's pins - everything is good
There's a sticky liquid splattered around inside. I am quite confident that a new motherboard is in order, but just want a 2nd opinion.

What if I replace the motherboard (purchased from eBay) and that does not resolve the issue?

Pictures of board:



Edit:

The motherboard is obviously shot and other components may be as well. The customer is not going to have it repaired. I charged him a diagnostic fee since I could potentially fix it. I also transferred data from his HDD to his flash drive, so I will be making some decent moolah :)
 
Last edited:
I hate dealing with that mess. Is it at all possible to test the other components on another working machine? I would think unlikely, but that is the only way of knowing without replacing the MB and firing it up.

It could have fried the LCD inverter, optical drive, card reader, the WLAN card, graphics if installed, all kinds of things I hate to even think about when seeing something like this.

Having seen this before you might want to cut your losses and try and get them a new computer or tell them it's toast.

Or, as you said, get a cheap used MB and explain to them that if this doesn't fix it they are still liable for the cost of the MB.
 
MichaelEC said:
I hate dealing with that mess. Is it at all possible to test the other components on another working machine? I would think unlikely, but that is the only way of knowing without replacing the MB and firing it up.

It could have fried the LCD inverter, optical drive, card reader, the WLAN card, graphics if installed, all kinds of things I hate to even think about when seeing something like this.

Having seen this before you might want to cut your losses and try and get them a new computer or tell them it's toast.

Or, as you said, get a cheap used MB and explain to them that if this doesn't fix it they are still liable for the cost of the MB.
Click to expand...

Definitely not possible to test the other components. I am also concerned that the liquid damage may extend to other components as well. The only thing that I could do is replace the motherboard, see what happens, and go from there.

A new motherboard with the correct processor (see here) is $148.25 + labor. That's not worth it. The used boards are sold as-is and most likely do not work.

The customer has another laptop that is new so he is not computer-less. He says that if the laptop is too expensive to fix that he wants to transfer the data from the hard drive onto the flash drive he supplied. And he wants to use the 8GB RAM module (DDR3) if it's compatible with the new laptop.
 
I keep a range of Laptops in stock, so my first action would be to tell them it's dead and "I have a new HP here that would be prefect for your needs....."
 
Had a guy bring me a laptop once telling me he had no idea what was wrong with it. He said it just quit working. The thing smelled so strongly of beer I thought he was drunk (he wasn't). Refused the job and just gave it back to him.
 
Appletax said:
What if I replace the motherboard (purchased from eBay) and that does not resolve the issue?
Click to expand...
If you replace the motherboard, you will probably get it to power on.

- Then you'll realize the lcd doesn't display because the cable got damaged (high voltage backlight circuits are not fans of liquid damage). So then you'll replace that.
-Then you'll realize the keyboard doesn't work, and you'll replace that.

And now everything works great! You charge the customer the same price as the cost of a replacement laptop, and notice the disappointed look in the customer's face as you slide the card.


And then 3 weeks later the customer will come back with a "no display" issue, and you'll realize that the "Brand new, removed from new laptop by certified A+ technicians!!!11" motherboard you bought on eBay was actually a malfunctioned board that had its chipset "reflowed" by some high school kid wielding a glorified hair dryer and an expired bottle of liquid knock-off chinese flux.

And then you realize that the ebay seller offers a 14 day warranty. Funny how it lasted 21 days. Then you tell the customer you'll refund the labor costs, but the parts are unreturnable so can't be refunded. He'll start screaming at you, so you want to make him leave and not write a bad review, so you decide to eat those costs as well. Now YOU are out the price of a replacement laptop.

Then you realize that as soon as the customer left the store with all his money back, he went on his new computer he bought for the same price you "tried to charge him to not fix his laptop" and wrote a bad review on Yelp, Google, Yellow Pages, and called you out on your facebook page.

And then you realize you lost that customer forever, that YOU paid the cost of a replacement laptop for the privilege of losing that customer, and that you also lost many future customers thanks to your decision to attempt this repair.


What I'm saying is... listen to the others in this thread :)
 
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Laptop + spill onto motherboard = New laptop.
Laptop + "minor" spill such as keyboard could possibly be fixed.
I hate "spilled" laptops.
So many things could have been damaged.
 
HFultzjr said:
Laptop + spill onto motherboard = New laptop.
Laptop + "minor" spill such as keyboard could possibly be fixed.
I hate "spilled" laptops.
So many things could have been damaged.
Click to expand...

Laptop + spill on motherboard = new laptop if the laptop is cheap. It would be worth fixing if the computer were an expensive one, I think.

:)
 
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Barcelona said:
I keep a range of Laptops in stock, so my first action would be to tell them it's dead and "I have a new HP here that would be prefect for your needs....."
Click to expand...

Yup. That's what I would do too. Business class Dell or HP. Then you can flip the water damaged notebook for probably $100 or so on eBay. I don't know who the heck buys stuff like this, but they do. I make around $3,000/month from selling laptops with severe issues like this on eBay. The key is to describe the issue FULLY and IN DETAIL so the buyer can make an informed decision. Sell it "for parts or not working" and make it VERY clear in your description that the laptop does NOT work. Just sold an i5 Gateway for $165 on eBay that wouldn't even turn on. It had 8GB of ram and a 750GB hard drive. Nice looking computer. But it wasn't something I wanted to repair.
 
Larry Sabo said:
Do you securely erase the user data first?
Click to expand...

Of course. We keep their original hard drives on hand for 30 days before we destruct the data on them. When we sell a non functioning system like this, we simply grab a good working tested drive (of the same size as what came out of the system) that we got in 30+ days ago, destruct the data, and install it in the system.
 
sapphirescales said:
Yup. That's what I would do too. Business class Dell or HP. Then you can flip the water damaged notebook for probably $100 or so on eBay. I don't know who the heck buys stuff like this, but they do. I make around $3,000/month from selling laptops with severe issues like this on eBay. The key is to describe the issue FULLY and IN DETAIL so the buyer can make an informed decision. Sell it "for parts or not working" and make it VERY clear in your description that the laptop does NOT work. Just sold an i5 Gateway for $165 on eBay that wouldn't even turn on. It had 8GB of ram and a 750GB hard drive. Nice looking computer. But it wasn't something I wanted to repair.
Click to expand...
I sell a bit of stuff on "Gumtree" (owned by eBay) and you’re right! People will by anything!:rolleyes:
 
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