Experiences on New Laptop Mainboards

[caspian]

Dear Forum Members,

There are many non-authorized sellers who sell spare mainboards for laptops. The question is how do they provide these mainboards?
It is possible that some of these mainboards were defective working mainboards that were set to be recycled in the factory, but they were sold as spare mainboards. It is also possible that some of these mainboards were defective working mainboards that were replaced by a new one so that the old one was sold as a spare mainboard.
Defective working means the mainboard still works but it has some minor problems. In the past, I bought a new mainboard that was perfectly fine. I recently bought a new mainboard for a Dell laptop. Its Bios has admin password and its southbridge overheats. It works for now. But I do not know when it will fail.

Please share your experiences on buying new spare mainboards for laptops, so that the members know what to do with these kinds of mainboards.

Thanks

[mcplslg123]

Re: Experiences on New Laptop Mainboards

First of all, spare mainboards are 90% or more china refurbished and never so called new. Some of the boards are repaired by sellers themselves and washed with special chemicals to look like new. Its a mixed bag buying these boards. Some of the boards lasts more then 3 years but in some cases so called new mb failed within 3-6 months . With SOC mb's, things are more complicated and less reliable. I buy very few mainboards as most are repaired and delivered but in some cases when the mb's are damaged beyond repair(mostly by other inexperienced guys)-one has to buy a new mb.

[piernov]

Re: Experiences on New Laptop Mainboards

I agree with mcplslg123. Although usually the sellers don't even know what they sell.

It's also pointless to buy a motherboard when it has a well-known failing chip that you cannot replace. For example if you have a Macbook Pro 2011 with a failed GPU, don't buy another motherboard: it will have a failing GPU as well, probably heated before the motherboard is sent.

I've had a case where I received motherboard "99% new 100% tested working" or whatever, that was obviously defective with a shorted MOSFET. The seller sent a video of the testing. Obviously the motherboard of the video was not the same as mine because tantalum caps color was different, and he claimed my parts were defective, so I sent a video testing CPU/RAM in another laptop, different brand, and he said "it's not the same laptop, parts are not compatible"...

[FrozenHaxor]

Re: Experiences on New Laptop Mainboards

From experience many "new" boards are repaired and cleaned. There are witness marks always left. Also some are production rejects that instead of being destroyed and recycled, get sold. It's always best to buy used ones without repair history, they are tested and for the most part can be trusted. Worst of worst are GPU problem boards that shoddy sellers will just heatgun the GPU and sell as new or used working, where it will fail completely after a few days or weeks at most. I have came across a genuine seller that indeed was selling new parts for laptops for a higher price, and he claimed that they were from brand new laptops that were taken apart. No idea how he made profit off of that, probably the source of those laptops was not entirely "clean" or they had some defects.

[caspian]

Re: Experiences on New Laptop Mainboards

So, a nice conclusion is: If we have to buy a new mainboard for a laptop, it would be better to buy the mainboard version without a dedicated GPU chip.

[FrozenHaxor]

Re: Experiences on New Laptop Mainboards

Often that will not satisfy the customer as they might require the graphics. For most boards it's not a problem to replace the GPU itself - Lenovo makes it most difficult with newer revisions - hard black underfill under all BGAs pretty much impossible to remove without damaging the board and the chip. When I buy boards I look for the amount of warranty the seller gives, often they come with 1 year warranty and that suffices. With BGA replacements we go into another rabbit hole, as there are many laser-remarked fakes from china around and sometimes they even make it to reputable sellers of the chips. Worst thing you can do is order pretty much ANY BGA chip from china. Guaranteed crap.

[mcplslg123]

Re: Experiences on New Laptop Mainboards

agree 100% with frozenhaxor. lenovo's are pain in the ass as far as bga replacement are concerned due to black glue. I was never succesfull in removing those chips without damage. Other brands bga replacent is not a big deal but reliability is a big question mark on bga chips.

[jasko_jacker]

Re: Experiences on New Laptop Mainboards

I bought some of these motherboards on the Chinese market, most of them are 90% repaired. They are often repaired by a laboratory which then supplies them to individual sellers. But knowing the seller, this has never made me trouble to send one back in case of problems. This procedure is not hidden because on ebay many Chinese sellers accept non-functioning cards in exchange for a working one.
Prices are very high at least for the cards I purchased (zenbook UX510UWK top spec 300 euros, rog g752vx 360 euros) but lower than the European market (the cards are the same). Unfortunately many of the new cards (skylake U, etc) have the processor to be replaced and for example, a cpu intel i7-6500 costs about 200 euros on the Chinese market without any guarantee and for example on an official channel (mouser) 430 euros. Now the question is: should you risk 200 euros for a CPU or buy a working card? (if it breaks after six months, it's not a problem because the product has already been sold with the as is formula.
The situation changes on other products, for example I have problems repairing an hp 15-an starwar that is worth about 500 euros but the card is sold for 350 euros and is therefore not convenient.

[Conste]

Re: Experiences on New Laptop Mainboards

I have bought two boards from china over Aliexpress and both of them were okay and working 100%. One of the boards was repaired, clear traces of heatgun were visible at a condensator.

[caspian]

Re: Experiences on New Laptop Mainboards

Yesterday, I received an Asus-N552VW which has GTX-960M graphics chip. Its mainboard is out of repair and has to be replaced. I am afraid to replace it. As you said, the graphics chip on the new mainboard may be a heated one. Or one of its chips may overheat. I have not bought the new mainboard yet.
I believe laptops do not suite heavy graphics processing and Intel graphics is enough for them. But this customer insists to use it for graphics rendering.
Does any member know a bad history about the GTX-950M or GTX-960M graphics chips on gaming laptops?

[jasko_jacker]

Re: Experiences on New Laptop Mainboards

I have a lot of motherboard with these bga but all with other problems, I consider a gtx950m -> gtx960m as robust chips.