NETWizz
Well-Known Member
- Reaction score
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Good Morning:
I still use my personal owned laptop a Dell Inspiron 15 1564 (Circa 2011 or 2010; I think), and it does everything I need having 8 GB of ram and an SSD that have been in it for ages! About 7 years ago, I replaced the keyboard (free under warranty), about 1.5 years ago I replaced the battery (with a Ray-O-Vac made in the USA clone for about $30), and about 6 months ago, I replaced the entire audio board to replace the headphone jack ~$5.
I fire it up every night, and it is attached to a TV in the bedroom. The power button has averaged at least two presses daily for my entire ownership!
Now, my laptop will intermittently will not power on, and it appears I have been successful by wiggling and giggling the power button all different directions to get it to boot each time. After it powers on, there has been on instability or any other issues that would lead me to think something more critical is wrong. The power-brick and battery appear fine. I hate intermittent problems, that said, usually it works fine. This issue, of course just started not much more than a fortnight ago.
Following my own rules for personal equipment, I have a three-strikes rule for intermittent or recoverable problems because I really get no enjoyment fixing stuff anymore. Heck, I put off replacing that headphone jack for probably a year to a year and a half out of laziness when years ago, I would have had it fixed as quickly as I could get the part! That said, this weekend was the third time, so I decided to fix this.
Yesterday, I removed and re-seated the power-button board ribbon cable shown below in the service document, but it still acted up (one time, which means... not fixed):
Yesterday I ordered the following Bezel /w Power button board & Ribbon Cable... It was $10 shipped!:
Sure, I could have bought just the power button board and saved $2 to $3, but $10 shipped for the entire assembly is less than I pay for lunch many days, and I am lazy. If I were doing this for a paying customer, I would order the same, full-assembly, too!
The source is eBay, which is clearly the gray market, but allegedly it is new. Either way, as long as it works, I honestly do not care, and I cannot imagine the average used laptop would have nearly as many power-cycles.
****
I suppose the battery could be failing under warranty or even the motherboard could be going bad, but I think either of those conclusions would be a leap not based on any sound troubleshooting; besides, those items are more or less solid-state and do not see real-life wear and tear. That said, I really cannot conclusively pin-point the problem to this switch.
Lastly, even though my own labor is free to me, it is the only reason I get to keep a laptop this long; since, it would be uneconomical for me to repair the exact same laptop if it were for a customer! My time still has value, and while I can get parts cheap, at this late stage in the game everything I buy is a grey-market part from eBay with unknown pedigree in that ordering new parts directly from Dell would break the budget when weighed against the value of the overall machine. "I want to keep this device for maybe a couple more years max," but then again I have been saying that for years - I never thought this thing would last this long or that I would keep it this long!
The only reason I have not replaced it is that it does everything I need, and I do not really want to drop $700 to replace it outright.
Just going to ask because I deal with networking now 99% of the time, so I do not deal with many of these problem types anymore... do you believe I am on the right track for repair by trying the simple, cheap power-button assembly fix first, or would you go a different route?
Thanks
I still use my personal owned laptop a Dell Inspiron 15 1564 (Circa 2011 or 2010; I think), and it does everything I need having 8 GB of ram and an SSD that have been in it for ages! About 7 years ago, I replaced the keyboard (free under warranty), about 1.5 years ago I replaced the battery (with a Ray-O-Vac made in the USA clone for about $30), and about 6 months ago, I replaced the entire audio board to replace the headphone jack ~$5.
I fire it up every night, and it is attached to a TV in the bedroom. The power button has averaged at least two presses daily for my entire ownership!
Now, my laptop will intermittently will not power on, and it appears I have been successful by wiggling and giggling the power button all different directions to get it to boot each time. After it powers on, there has been on instability or any other issues that would lead me to think something more critical is wrong. The power-brick and battery appear fine. I hate intermittent problems, that said, usually it works fine. This issue, of course just started not much more than a fortnight ago.
Following my own rules for personal equipment, I have a three-strikes rule for intermittent or recoverable problems because I really get no enjoyment fixing stuff anymore. Heck, I put off replacing that headphone jack for probably a year to a year and a half out of laziness when years ago, I would have had it fixed as quickly as I could get the part! That said, this weekend was the third time, so I decided to fix this.
Yesterday, I removed and re-seated the power-button board ribbon cable shown below in the service document, but it still acted up (one time, which means... not fixed):
Yesterday I ordered the following Bezel /w Power button board & Ribbon Cable... It was $10 shipped!:
Sure, I could have bought just the power button board and saved $2 to $3, but $10 shipped for the entire assembly is less than I pay for lunch many days, and I am lazy. If I were doing this for a paying customer, I would order the same, full-assembly, too!
The source is eBay, which is clearly the gray market, but allegedly it is new. Either way, as long as it works, I honestly do not care, and I cannot imagine the average used laptop would have nearly as many power-cycles.
****
I suppose the battery could be failing under warranty or even the motherboard could be going bad, but I think either of those conclusions would be a leap not based on any sound troubleshooting; besides, those items are more or less solid-state and do not see real-life wear and tear. That said, I really cannot conclusively pin-point the problem to this switch.
Lastly, even though my own labor is free to me, it is the only reason I get to keep a laptop this long; since, it would be uneconomical for me to repair the exact same laptop if it were for a customer! My time still has value, and while I can get parts cheap, at this late stage in the game everything I buy is a grey-market part from eBay with unknown pedigree in that ordering new parts directly from Dell would break the budget when weighed against the value of the overall machine. "I want to keep this device for maybe a couple more years max," but then again I have been saying that for years - I never thought this thing would last this long or that I would keep it this long!
The only reason I have not replaced it is that it does everything I need, and I do not really want to drop $700 to replace it outright.
Just going to ask because I deal with networking now 99% of the time, so I do not deal with many of these problem types anymore... do you believe I am on the right track for repair by trying the simple, cheap power-button assembly fix first, or would you go a different route?
Thanks
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