Laptop repair advice

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GrootBaas

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Will appreciate if anyone has advise on the below.

Bought a secondhand Dell Latitude E5570 (i7 version) about a year ago from my employer for very cheap. Immediately realised 3 things were wrong:
1) Battery pretty much non existent so needs to be replace; pretty much required the power cable connected all the time
2) All the ports (USB, HDMI etc) were dead
3) Some of the keys on the keyboard needs to be pressed quite aggressively, but this is not a biggy

I really don't use the laptop though, so didn't bother much with it. Last week I used it again and it died on me completely. Took it in to a reputable company to assess and got a call today. They are going to send it to a more specialised company to evaluate, but the gut feel is the motherboard needs to be repaired which is usually in the region of R4k-R5k.

What do you guys reckon is the most I should spend on the laptop to try and have it repaired? It's a decently spec'd machine, right and in theory should still have a few years left in it? I see refurbished models online for around R11k so not sure how far I should take this. Or any other recommendation on next steps? Am located in Cape Town, northern suburbs.

What would you do if this was your laptop? :unsure:
 
Battery and motherboard repair will push this to beyond 50% of the value of a refurbished laptop (like the R11K in your example). Cut your losses on this laptop I'm afraid.

For anyone else, my business is based in Pretoria and you can DM for repair of laptop's and other electronics. Thank you!
 
GrootBaas said:
Will appreciate if anyone has advise on the below.

Bought a secondhand Dell Latitude E5570 (i7 version) about a year ago from my employer for very cheap. Immediately realised 3 things were wrong:
1) Battery pretty much non existent so needs to be replace; pretty much required the power cable connected all the time
2) All the ports (USB, HDMI etc) were dead
3) Some of the keys on the keyboard needs to be pressed quite aggressively, but this is not a biggy

I really don't use the laptop though, so didn't bother much with it. Last week I used it again and it died on me completely. Took it in to a reputable company to assess and got a call today. They are going to send it to a more specialised company to evaluate, but the gut feel is the motherboard needs to be repaired which is usually in the region of R4k-R5k.

What do you guys reckon is the most I should spend on the laptop to try and have it repaired? It's a decently spec'd machine, right and in theory should still have a few years left in it? I see refurbished models online for around R11k so not sure how far I should take this. Or any other recommendation on next steps? Am located in Cape Town, northern suburbs.

What would you do if this was your laptop? :unsure:
Click to expand...

Just call Dell helpdesk. They come out and check it out.

More likely your motherboard is busted (ie the ports), unless its got encryption that wasnt removed properly.

You could A. just use it as a deskop.
So get a monitor, mouse and keyboard, and only open the lid to turn it on and off. See if it works on the VGA. Maybe do a BIOS reset, and see what works or whats enabled in the BIOS, especially the ports.

My friend has a IMAC which screen went bust. Insurance paid him out for it, he asked if he could keep it so they charged him R50 extra. He well placed it behind his plasma stand with a wireless keyboard and mouse and plugged the video out to the TV. Served him well for a few years as a media server.

Then his mac mini rom drive packed up, so Apple store wanted R8k to replace the superdrive, or suggest better he replace the mac mini. I got him an external samsung dvd drive for R350. We stuck it onto the mac mini, and problem solved.
 
Thanks all. The laptop was out of warranty already so I don't think Dell would've supported it anymore. I was lucky though and managed to get my hands on a replacement motherboard for free. This solved all my problems and the laptop is now working as if brand new.
 
Ok. Dell doesnt just does in warranty items by the way. They will quote you on out of warranty repairs too. They do their support very inhouse.
 
GrootBaas said:
Thanks all. The laptop was out of warranty already so I don't think Dell would've supported it anymore. I was lucky though and managed to get my hands on a replacement motherboard for free. This solved all my problems and the laptop is now working as if brand new.
Click to expand...

Lucky you, where did you score a mb from?
 
Just use it on mains. Generic battery is R550 up.

If all IO is dead you can dock it but that's also kind of expensive. And effectively makes it a desktop PC. replacing the IO usually means a new motherboard but you will have to check if IO is on seperate board. I can help you source those parts but either way that's very expensive fix. So just use it via cloud, wifi and BT for IO.

The keyboard can also be replaced from R750 up. Check if it just needs a good cleaning.
 
Soulware Technology said:
Just use it on mains. Generic battery is R550 up.

If all IO is dead you can dock it but that's also kind of expensive. And effectively makes it a desktop PC. replacing the IO usually means a new motherboard but you will have to check if IO is on seperate board. I can help you source those parts but either way that's very expensive fix. So just use it via cloud, wifi and BT for IO.

The keyboard can also be replaced from R750 up. Check if it just needs a good cleaning.
Click to expand...
Most just needs a bit of cleaning. I have found soo many videos about how to open up some mice and give it a good clean and then works like a charm as if its new.

Surgical alchol with some cotton pads and earbuds work great especially if you work tidily.

With older keyboards a ruler to pull off the keys and then giving them a good wash with some handy andy or sunlight liquid and a sponge or old toothbrush then rinse then with water and leave them to dry on a towel. Great too.
 
Corelli said:
Most just needs a bit of cleaning. I have found soo many videos about how to open up some mice and give it a good clean and then works like a charm as if its new.

Surgical alchol with some cotton pads and earbuds work great especially if you work tidily.

With older keyboards a ruler to pull off the keys and then giving them a good wash with some handy andy or sunlight liquid and a sponge or old toothbrush then rinse then with water and leave them to dry on a towel. Great too.
Click to expand...
I hate removing some keys because it's a schlep getting them back sometimes. Those sciccor-type mechanisms.
 
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