screen repair Archives - Computer Repair & Technology Services

Hey iNFLUX PC Repair friends! Looking for a repair on your laptop? Let us know what you need and we’ll take care of it for you.

Oldie but Goodie – Asus G72Gx Gaming Laptop Repair

A couple weeks ago we received a gaming laptop that definitely had seen better days and needed multiple repairs. The Asus G72Gx originally came with a 17″ in LCD screen, 1GB of dedicated graphic memory, 500GB hard drive, and 6GB of RAM. This was clearly designed for gaming use and is still a decent laptop today. Why not repair it, right?!

Our friend Daniel, brought us the laptop after it accidentally dropped out of a parked vehicle. Fortunately, he had insurance on it. We worked with the insurance company to justify the time and materials required for the repair and it was at very little cost to him. This laptop had so many things wrong with it, probably more than we have ever seen on a single device within the last 10+ years that we’ve been in business.

It’s easier to ask, “What is working?!”

The LCD screen was only showing black and gray; however, the attached external monitors worked fine.
The laptop would not completely boot and sometimes froze at the windows boot logo.
The Keyboard back-light was intermittent and sometimes wouldn’t register that keys were being pressed.
The exterior had cracks in the plastic, mainly the bottom case and screen bezel. This was strictly cosmetics though.
WiFi was not working. The laptop knew the card was attached but the radio would not enable.
DVD burner was not working. Again, Windows knew the drive was there; however, CD’s and DVD media could not be read or written.
The battery would not keep a charge.

The repairs.

We ordered the parts needed to get the laptop back up and running. The first problem was the screen. If a laptop doesn’t have a working screen, what is the point of having a laptop? So, we ordered the following parts right away:

LCD panel and bezel
Bottom case/cover.
Battery
DVD Burner.
500GB Solid State Hard Drive.

Once we swapped the LCD panel and bezel we could then see what was going on with the boot up process without having to use an external monitor. The bottom case swap fixed the gaps in between palm rest and bottom case. The battery swap kept the device mobile since it would now keep a charge. We put in a 500GB Solid State Hard Drive in addition to his 500GB spindle drive; now he had 1TB of hard drive space to work with.

Asus G72Gx Gaming Laptop Repair Woes…

Once booted, we determined that it was best to go ahead and do a clean install of Windows 8.1. Everything was going fine until we updated the BIOS using Asus’s update tool in Windows. The bios is a a set of computer instructions in a firmware that control input and output and if it goes wrong the laptop becomes a brick. This is the first time in 10+ years of updating BIOS’s that we actually witnessed a no boot failure after an updating. Short version of the story, we ended up ordered a new motherboard for him. The BIOS update on the new motherboard went perfectly, phew!

Once the new motherboard was in, we were back in business. We finished up all the Windows 8.1 update and a couple days later, Windows 10 was released. The Windows 10 update was simple and quick and fixed some other weird operating system issues.

Upgrades

We upgraded a few things to bring the laptop up to date. First, a brand new SSD. The solid state hard drive (SSD), is the best upgrade anyone can pay for. We’ve been turning 5-7 year old laptop into scream machines. This laptop allows two internal drives so we installed the Samsung 850 Evo SSD as his primary drive that has the operating system (Windows 10), his applications, and primary data on it. The 500GB spindle drive was installed in the secondary slot and can now be used for data that is not frequently accessed or even as a backup drive. This is the best setup for high performance. We also upgraded him to Windows 10 from Windows 8.1. I guarantee this laptop is at least 30% faster than the first day he got it.

It’s was great to see this shamble of a system go through repairs to become such a great computer again.

Now then, what could be so wrong with your laptop? Our laptop repair is $150 flat rate + at cost parts; love your laptop again!

Kindle Fire Screen Repair – Lighter and Smaller

Devices are constantly getting lighter and smaller. This creates a problem, people drop them, step on them, or set heavy items on them, which leads to shattered screens and other damages. What is the natural response to broken tablets, phones, or 2-in-1’s with shattered screens?! Consumers go out and spend big bucks on protective gear such as screen protectors, cases, and other accessories to ensure the safety of their beloved device. The Kindle Fire shown below was stepped on so the protective case didn’t help one bit.

Is the device worth the repair?

Consider if the device is worth repairing. Is it cheaper to buy a new device? Is it cheaper to buy and “new-to-you” (used) device? Is it worth the money to repair if there are cheaper alternatives? With technology changing and improving every day, sometimes it’s worth it to just upgrade. This is especially the case for devices that fall under $100 brand new. If you are repairing flagship handhelds such as iPads, Galaxy Tabs, and Asus Transformers, those are well worth the investment to repair. $50 Kindle Fire’s, not so much. The screen digitizer (the glass layer of the screen that detects the touch) can be half the cost of a new device. This doesn’t include a new LCD screen panel which just adds to the expense.

Do it yourself?

Screen repair is not easy; however, if you have the right parts, tools, access to YouTube, and a whole lot of patience, you can probably do it yourself. This saves you money!.. Many times it’s easier to replace the digitizer, screen, and bezel all in one.

Summary

For the scenario pictured below, we repaired the shattered screen on the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7. Fortunately, the LCD panel was still good. Only the first layer glass (digitizer) was cracked but the screen below appear just fine. We ordered the parts 2 day air and got it swapped out the same day the parts arrived. We’ll admit it was a tough job. We had to use our heat gun to soften the glue between the digitizer and the bezel! All the components tested working and the customer was super happy to get it back in one piece without having to buy a new one and reload all their apps and data on it.

How many times have you broken a screen on any device?