Obtaining Replacement Parts for Your Laptop? 688
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?
Computer Junkyards (Score:5, Informative)
When I took a job in the IT field and began repairing computers, I applied this same logic. If I had a laptop with a cracked case, but the internals were still fine, then I would try and scavenge a laptop with a dead motherboard that still had a good case and was discarded because it just didn't work. You can easily swap out things like that. I've done it on several Dell Inspirons and IBM ThinkPads, you can have a couple "parts" machines going at once and just get replacements from those. Sometimes on eBay you get lucky and find an auction for something like "Pallet of 100 Broken ThinkPads" for $50 and you can get some serious finds. If you want to take a bit of a risk you can even try "dumpster diving" outside of office buildings, schools and libraries. Often times when something breaks or is very obsolete these places will just toss it out. My favorite find so far was an IBM ThinkPad 486, complete, with two working batteries and all the cables in a case, that was just sitting in a dumpster because it was too old to run modern software.
Find out the case manufacturer (Score:5, Informative)
You're Probably Out Of Luck (Score:5, Informative)
I recently broke a wiring harness on my girlfriend's Pontiac Aztec. I could replace it in about five minutes if I could get Pontiac to sell me the part. But they won't, not without purchasing the entire headlight module, for 300 dollars.
Your best bet is to do what I'm doing for that part - namely, hitting junkyards(in your case, eBay). Another possibility is to find a user's group/forum for these laptops - I know when I had a Sparcbook, there was always a guy or two with broken ones who would send you some weird random part.
Same here (Score:2, Informative)
He tried eBay... (Score:3, Informative)
...idiots. RTFP.
Suits up fireproof jacket...
For Apple Laptops (Score:5, Informative)
feh (Score:5, Informative)
The manufacturer should have replacement parts as long as the thing is under warranty and possibly a while after.
I've probably replaced about 4,000 LCD bezels by now and I know exactly what you mean.
The place that was trying to replace the ENTIRE assembly on you was doing nothing more than trying to rip you off BIG TIME. LCDs can cost more than the laptop their in, and that piece of plastic probably costs $.50 to make. (Even though IBM charges ~$50 for one)
I recommend just trying harder to contact the original manufacturer.
Making do with what you have (Score:3, Informative)
When it comes to plastic parts, like bezels, I usually resort to delicate use of epoxy and super thin reinforcements.
My experience with plastic repair parts is that they are usually not sold separately, and are hard to find unless you can cannabalize.
Laptopsforless.com (Score:5, Informative)
You could always buy a sacrificial laptop on eBay and use it for parts. If it's old enough, it won't cost you too much.
Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... (Score:5, Informative)
Toshiba laptop with broken hinge and extended warranty...
$75 for the hinge,
$56 for four screws.
Extended warranty invalid as the broken hinge was due to "misuse"
BP
similar problem, dell helped (Score:5, Informative)
I had snapped off the metal hinge that attaches the LCD panel to the base. (And my laptop is out of warantee) I looked up part numbers in dells online manuals, called a Dell representative, and $40 later, they sent me the part, no fuss whatsoever.
I was actually really surprised that the process went so smoothly.
No User Serviceable Parts Inside (Score:3, Informative)
If you buy through authorized dealers, you get this thing called a warranty and a service contract. They're pretty good for getting your laptop fixed. I broke the LCD on my Sony Vaio, and they fixed it and the noisy fan which I didn't even ask about. Same with a co-worker and his Dell, he broke the hinge and Dell fixed it.
My best solution for you is to find another dead one on Ebay and scavenge the corpse. The other solution is to make friends with someone at a repair depot so they can backdoor you a piece here and there.
Partsearch.com (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... (Score:5, Informative)
Ebay is not the answer, extended warranty is no the answer.
The answer is JB-Weld (www.jbweld.net) or a similar epoxy. It's the modern nerd answer to tape on your glasses. My old Toshi ain't much to look at, but it still works.
IBM is great with Thinkpads (Score:5, Informative)
A few years ago a friend of mine dropped her T20 Thinkpad onto asphalt from about 4 feet. It made quite a mess. I thought that it was going to be a total write-off, but I found the IBM info, ordered about $150 of little broken bits and restored the thing to perfect working order in about a week. It was great.
I've been a devoted Thinkpad fan ever since. I bought a new keyboard for my T23 recently, it took about 5 minutes to order the right part and another 5 minutes to install it. IBM really does do service manuals and parts the way you think a big company should do it.
jeff
Thinkpad support has been excellent (Score:3, Informative)
You can download full service documentation (with exploded parts diagrams) from their public web site, and the parts organization does a good job of (a) helping you figure out the right part number and (b) actually selling it to you.
The prices for what I've needed seemed generally reasonable (~$50 for a keyboard). In one instance, though, I discovered that to fix an intermittent DC power input jack they wanted me to replace the DC converter module for $150. Since I only paid $450 for the machine in the first place, I wasn't about to do that, but I was able to use the on-line manual to disassemble the thing far enough to resolder the DC jack myself.
Compare this to my Sony Vaio, where they won't even tell you how to replace the hard disk.
So, at least until something changes I'm sold on Thinkpads for serviceability.
Getting plastic repaired (Score:3, Informative)
Buy Corporate Models (Score:5, Informative)
Then I dropped it, and it landed on the inserted wireless card. The machine seemed fine, but the PCMCIA guts inside got sheared off the daughterboard. Compaq's durability was not at fault, IMO, just my stooopidity.
I went to the HP partsfinder, and _every_ little piece was available, most of them at good prices. The daughtercard was $35, and the instructions to replace it were online. Strangely, the only expensive things were the commodity parts - memory, cpu, hard drive, etc. And the LCD, of course - they always are.
However, not satisified with that, I went to ebay and searched for the part number - and got a new daughercard for $15.
Moral: stick to models that the big corps are buying, if possible. Their IT shops don't suffer the higher prices and foolishness that consumers buying consumer models do. Corollary: see if there's a corporate version of your consumer notebook, and then look for parts again - Compaq/HP use the same guts in their presarios as they do in their corporate line, for example.
Jonathan
Tough... (Score:3, Informative)
My school required us to buy a certain laptop, and I carried that laptop with me every day for four years, in a backpack full of books, in all kinds of weather, subjected to all kinds of impacts.
The service center on campus was certified to repair all the student laptops, therefore they had all kinds of replacement parts. In addition, the mass purchase included a four-year warranty on each laptop, in case you did something like subject it to a direct lightning strike and it had to be sent back. But they had all the case parts. I had two front bezels replaced, a back bezel, top and bottom of the case, hard drive, motherboard, power control board, and floppy drive as well. I did not think I overly abused my laptop, it's the wear and tear you get from running it 24/7 and packing and unpacking it every hour between classes.
Virtually everyone I knew at school had to get their laptop serviced at one time or another. I have to say that for a laptop, the best accessory you can add to it is a warranty for however long you plan to use the laptop. If it's impossible to get individual parts six months out, how about two years?
Of course you need to realize why they won't just sell you little plastic parts cheaply: the parts are being kept on reserve, based on statistical analysis, to service the laptops coming in on extended warranty. When you buy a warranty, you are basically reserving all those esoteric little parts you won't find anywhere else.
If you don't want to shell out a hundred or so dollars more for a warranty on your laptop, you don't need that laptop bad enough to begin with.
Dell (Score:3, Informative)
I have a Dell Inspiron laptop, the bezel started cracking about 18 months after I purchased it, and there were also cracks in the case. Dell replaced both free of charge. They also carry the bezel in the online store for a pretty reasonable amount.
Not everything about Dell is right, but replacing the plastic parts for free or reasonable cost? They were wonderful.
Just one experience, of course.
Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... (Score:5, Informative)
IBM wanted $450 for the DVD. I bought a wrong model on Ebay(my bad, but IBM's whole FRU thing will drive you crazy until you figure it out). Then I bought another that's showing a corrupt firmware(AS-IS, damnit).
I've wasted hundreds of $ and time and I still have a otherwise nice Laptop with no DVD/CD player. I finally gave up and went out and bought a new one 2 months ago.
Have you tried Best Buy? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... (Score:2, Informative)
Fix it!!! Glue the damn thing!!! (Score:5, Informative)
1) plastic welding is a viable repair - you will find that if you contact your local panel banger (autobody repair shop) that they will be able to offer advise how to proceed.
The laptops are injection moulded plastics - possibly a TPE same as is used in the auto industy so the same techniques may apply.
2) glue it yourself. Call up your local 3M representative and ask them what structural glues they have for the plastic your lap top is made of. One product that MIGHT work is DP8005.
Another option is to contact polyurathane supply company. Those people have a nice website with good technical information.
------------
The type of equipment you need to plastic weld is generally an injection hot melt gun - they typically sell for about $5000 bux and are not too difficult to learn how to use. These guns force plastic under pressure into the crack and form a seam that is over 80% as strong as the original. The plastic comes in rods and is available in ABS, TPE, TFE,
You may want to check your Yellow Pages - look under PLASTIC WELDING equipment - call a supplier of the equipment and ask for a referal to who has the gun. Try to get to know the guy a bit and pay him well - broken plastic parts are a fact of life and these guys can do magic!!!
Plastic Welding (Score:5, Informative)
Since fairings are made out of PVC, it was a simple matter to repair cracks in them with a soldering iron and a strip of raw pvc (or some old bits of fairing laying around). The welds would come out as strong or stronger than the original PVC. The only side effect would be an awful scarring effect, which we would then sand out, fill with bondo and apply primer. Good as new.
Your laptop bezel is made out of PVC or a similar polymer. It would probably be a simple matter to weld the crack back together, or whatever (hinges, clips &etc).
The most important part of this technique, however, is to work in a place with good ventilation and *WEAR A GODDAM FACE MASK*. The fumes and smoke of the process are toxic, carcinogenic and easilly filtered by a cheap paper mask over you mouth and nose. You know, like Michael Jackson would wear on the streets of Hong Kong. Eye protection is a good idea, too. This is why I still have lungs and vision.
I would always do the plastic welding in the paint booth, with the painter's mask and the fans on high. Since you'd only need to do a small amount, the face mask and a kitchen or bathroom fan would probably suffice.
And remember: this is slashdot. think before you take any advice.
Circuit City? Figures :p (Score:3, Informative)
speaking from experience (Score:2, Informative)
When I went to work for a smaller shop, I stockpiled any laptops that the customer didn't want repaired because of prohibitive costs, and would use them as spare parts to fix laptops that came in. Unfortunately, getting parts is a pain, they are way overpriced. Sony is the worst. I don't care how slim their notebooks are, wait until you have to replace the stupid keyboard and it costs you $400. Your best bet is EBay, after that there is a website called laptopparts or laptopking or something (or there was about 2 years ago). Still priced kinda high, but usually you can find small plastic parts/cables for relatively cheap. Also, don't necessarily blame the guy who had to order the whole part and wanted to charge $$$, sometimes the part supplier will ONLY sell the screen as an entire unit. I'm not saying that's what happened, but I've run across that before.
Going forward, your best bet in buying a new laptop is to buy a model that looks similiar to others by the same mfg. If you buy that crazy small, weird shaped thingy, with all the nifty gadgets and crap, make sure you buy an extended warranty for 3 years, because the first time you have anything fixed you will have paid for the cost of the warranty, hell they'll probably have to replace the thing because parts will be so hard to get. If you don't have a warranty, guess what? You're screwed.
Oh, and even though I was a laptop technician for 4 years, I never owned one. After seeing how many came in broken, costs of repairs, and quality of components... I probably never will. Cept for Apple, Apple always had some seriously kick ass hardware in their machines.
Build a barebones? (Score:3, Informative)
Anyhow, I'm interested in your problem for selfish reasons, family and friends have been asking me about building/upgrading existing/fixing their notebooks for years. I've dodged them this whole time because I couldn't afford one myself, but this is finally starting to change.
So, anyhow, if I where going to buy a computer today I'd look seriously at building a 'barebones' notebooks. A few familiar companies seem to be building barebones notebooks, which is basically a motherboard and graphics card wrapped up with a keyboard, LCD screen and a case. ASUS, ECS, AOpen, Arima (??) and FIC seem to sell them. I couldn't guarantee it, but I bet you'd have much better luck getting a replacement part from someone like ECS or ASUS, plus you get to pick out or upgrade things like your CPU, hard/cd/dvd drive and memory.
Here are a couple of quick links to product pages for a few of the manufacturers:
Aopen [aopen.com.tw]
ECS [ecs.com.tw]
ASUS [asus.com]
Arima [arima.com.tw]
FIC [fica.com]
Most of these links came from this [it4profit.com] site, which seems to specialize in mobile computing bare bone systems and hardware. Man, is it lunch time yet?
They don't use duct tape for ducts (Score:3, Informative)
-ccm
Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... (Score:2, Informative)
If you do all your plastic soldering on the inside portion you can often place the cracked pieces back together in such a manner that the crack can't even be seen unless you look real close.
Just don't get any one portion of it so hot that it actually burns. The object is to get it to kinda ooze back together.
Re:Dell (Score:2, Informative)
One example is some replacement keyboards I need for my Asia users. I thought it would be realatively easy to get a replacement keyboard in Korean or Japanese for a Latitude but they don't sell foreign language keyboards in the U.S. Trying Dell Asia Pacific results in a response that "...because these systems were purchased in the U.S. you must contact the Dell spare parts dept in the U.S...." I've been hounding Dell for months on this with no resolution in sight.
My advice to anyone looking to buy a laptop stick with IBM or Apple. Dell makes inferior machines and the support is pretty poor.
Re:To likely mis-quote Aldous Huxley (Score:2, Informative)
Close! The quotation is: "ending is better than mending." In my troubleshooting experience this is best illustrated by inkjet printers: if it breaks (or even if you just run out of ink!), the most cost-effective solution (for the end user, anyway) is often to just pitch the thing and buy a new one.
Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... (Score:3, Informative)
I drop the thing , spill coffee on it (which has happend with every single previous laptop I have had) and they still cover the replacement.
Small Dogs (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... (Score:2, Informative)
IBM sells parts and handles shipping :) (Score:1, Informative)
That's why I choosed IBM. You can have any part as long as you pay it AND the shipping costs are free since IBM takes care of those. So when you get an IBM laptop, you can order anything, from small plastic parts or adhesive covers to hide screws to the CPU-child board that plugs onto the motherboard. Kick ass.
--
Gilbert Fernandes
Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... (Score:3, Informative)
By standard I mean one of about 2 dozen sizes, not just the consumer sizes you cay buy at the grocery store.
I have no idea what the battery for a palmax looks like, but there is a good chance that you can get suitable replacement cells for it.
Re:Computer Junkyards (Score:2, Informative)
I haven't seen this problem with IBMs that I can recall, but plenty of the Dell laptops I work on have LCD problems similar to yours.
Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... (Score:2, Informative)
Plastic Welder (Duro et al) on ABS (Score:3, Informative)
Plastic Welder is designed to glue ABS.
Wal Mart, True Value Hardware stores, and lots of other places sell it.
If they call it "Plastic Welder" its the Duro stuff under licence.
Sorry...SOL (Score:1, Informative)
Re:If its plastic, make your own. (Score:1, Informative)
I've repaired trackballs, mice, and even my old Laptop latch and hinge (Compaq armada 1100) with EPOXY.
Yes, that's right folks, good ole' epoxy.
I make a 'trough' out of electrical tape (the slick side dosen't bind to epoxy) I mix it, I let it set.
From there... it gets tricksy.
Generally you want to shape the trough in the same general form you'll eventually need. For those non-straight pieces, you can make dovetail joints and get this, expoy them together.
Once you have a rough form, exacto knives, sandpaper, and of course, a dremel are essential to getting a smooth, replacement part. If worse comes to worse and the part sorta 'sticks' a bit, a little white-lightning grease will go a LONG way.
Seriously, I know how geeky this is, but a $2 syringe of epoxy will replace a part that'll cost you $100 bucks, and can even withstand more pressue than most industrial plastics used on cheap-o consumer devices.
Epoxy is the way to go!
Extended service plans (Score:2, Informative)
In all honesty, I could go either way on an extended service plan on a desktop. Never use past experiences with PCs as a benchmark for what your new PC will operate like, cause it could be completely different. It could fail after 6 months. I've seen people with failed screens and failed harddrives who back after a few weeks. This is why we offer the service plans, because you never know what could happen. To someone like me, who can do all the work himself, it's nice to cover the parts. If the monitor and system were covered (which, depending on the price range, is sometimes the case), I'd probably get it. Otherwise, it depends on the cost and who's dealing with it (Circuit City sends out *all* their systems regardless, whereas CompUSA and Best Buy do most of their work in-house, unless it requires a specific part to be ordered in).
Laptops, on the other hand, are a different story. I wish I could tell a customer outright, but you would be stupid not to buy the service plan on a notebook. This is the perfect example. Notebook parts are so expensive and hard to come by...you can't just walk in to a store, buy a new laptop harddrive (usually), and install it yourself...you gotta have a deathwish to do something like that. Factor in the costs of labor, you're in over your head. I know our service plans cover the battery up to 2 times a year...you're talking a $100 to $250 battery. That in itself covers the cost of the plan, for a single battery which is guaranteed to fail. Plus, if we can't fix it, we replace it...if we mess something up, we replace it.
Unfortunately, people do buy laptops and don't get the extended service plan. It's unfortunate because they're literally up the creek if it fails. They don't seem to understand, regardless of what I tell them, how risky it is to deal with a notebook. I'd give my left leg before I'd have to deal with over the phone tech support or customer service on an issue like this. Granted, people might get gyped or get bad service from an extended service plan; that's the way the world works. But you know, you have options. You can usually complain to the higher ups in the company to have something done about it. You have the facts with you there in black and white in the pamphlet...it's almost a contract...if the company breaches it, you're entitled to fight it. So please, before you tell your friends that "extended service plans are crap, don't buy them," make sure you explain to them the costs and risks they'd be incurring by not going with one, and how much money they'll be wasting in the end. I'd love to hear what others think on this subject matter.
laptops for less (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.laptopsforless.com/
JON
Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... (Score:3, Informative)
For instance, your 15 year old CRT probably has a 4x3 aspect ratio and only supports standard NTSC interlaced video (480i I believe). So it's already stuck with crappy resolution and a poor refresh rate, and if you watch movies in letterbox the resolution will be even worse. Newer high-end TVs have progressive scanning, higher resolutions (540p, 1080p), and 16x9 aspect ratios, all of which are supported by sub-$100 DVD players now. Sure, the newer equipment may not be nearly as reliable or durable, but watching a high-resolution wide-screen movie sure is a lot nicer than watching it with crappy resolution (especially if you're like me and you can hear the annoying 15 kHz buzzing of standard resolution sets).
My point is that as well-made as something may be, there's going to come a point when technology offers something that you'll really want. I'm sure there were some cars made in the first half of the 20th century that were extremely well-built, but these days you really want a car that can handle 80 mph decently and gets over 15 mpg, and sticking with an antique simply won't get you that.
On the other hand, sometime the new-technology products are made so horribly and with a built-in business model that's so crooked that you don't even want to bother. That's where I am with printers; ink-jets are a total ripoff because of the ink cartridge costs, and most of the sub-$5000 laser printers have terrible reputations for reliability. So many people pine for the old HP laserjets (series II and III) that I'm thinking of buying one of those off ebay instead of trying to find a "modern" printer that won't need a replacement drum in 6 months which costs almost as much as the printer did.
Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... (Score:3, Informative)
I would like to point out that a new, high-end TV does NOT need to be made in a 16x9 ratio. I've got a 61" 4x3 ratio RP TV that I use exclusively for DVD and hi-def TV service. Because I'm still watching "normal" TV channels (broadcast in 4x3, 480i), I prefer to have a TV that won't cut the top and bottom off the picture, nor will stretch it out horizontally making everything look "fat". The TV has a 16x9 mode that will compress the scanlines into what looks like a letterbox mode, and looks beautiful with all of the hi-def content I can find.
The TV I have isn't the only model with this feature, either. Until all broadcasts are made in 16x9, there's no real reason to make the switch.
In addition, most hi-def receivers (cable, DirecTV, etc.) will give you options for what resolution and aspect ratio you'd like to output to, with 1080i being forced to a 16x9 ratio. I can tell you with certainty that an analog cable signal at 4x3 480i, up-converted to 480p, is a major improvement in image quality.
The point I'd like to make is that you've got options if you'd like to keep watching "regular" TV as you upgrade to hi-def. It's usually less expensive for the 4x3 hi-def units, too.
And before anyone starts getting a burr up their butts about how a 16x9 TV is better and that I don't know what I'm talking about, I also pikced up a 42" 16x9 RP TV for the rec room dedicated to DVDs only. It's just as good as my 2 year-old 61" mentioned above.
Re:Everything is made cheap and unrepairable... (Score:2, Informative)
A) The bezel, which are interchangable on drives manufactured by the same company. ie an LG DVD drive for a 390 is exactly the same as an LG DVD drive for an A20, they just have different bezels, which can be switched around.
B) The connector. The base DVD drive has the same connector, but some models will have an additional adaptor attached on the end. Simply remove or switch the adaptors, and you can interchange drives.
C) Some models have extra plastics or are mounted in a bracket. These are easily removed.
As part of my job, I'm constantly pulling old drives out of 380s and 390s and switching bezels to bring a higher end model (A20's and T20's mostly) back to 100% working condition. All you have to do is ensure the two drives are manufactured by the same company.
Here's a place to get the part (Score:2, Informative)
as far as I know, if your laptop is a compaq presario you are out of luck though since they are only selling the whole lcd panel with bezel, mask, hinges and inverter. Other than that you should be able to find the part you need.