Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

[highpulse]

Re: Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

btw about screen issues , they are easy as hell to replace after a few ones its like removing a candy to a baby :P , you just have to use a good cutwire and hot air and thats all
well off course then removing the small screws on the sides and bottom and upper part and thats it

[dj_ricoh]

Re: Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

IBM/Lenovo I will never vote another brand I promise! I`ll never cheat on you

[alex39t]

Re: Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

dv9000 terrible
Dv6000 that too
Sony vaio terrible
Dell 1525 1520 hell
Clevo terrible
Toshiba a200 a300 c850 c660 hell
Acer good
asus good except x5dab
Lenovo good

[Pentium4]

Re: Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

MSI aren't too bad.

I've had good and bad experiences with all of them. I had to fix a Dell recently where there was absolutely no access panels at all on the bottom. To top it off, the HDD was under the motherboard, meaning that you had to take the board out to replace the HDD. That one is by far the hardest to work on ever - worse than any HP or ASUS I've ever seen.

Yes, this is true with a lot of the new Dell's but not all of them.

What i find superior with Dell laptops compared to other brands:

• All the cable slots are nicely routed. The cables basically route themselves when you put the thing back together.
• The keyboards go back in place without bending or bloating. *cough* Acer *cough*
• Solid plastic clips that don't break as soon as you take it apart.

THIS. That's exactly why I like working on Dell laptops. Plus, the older Dell laptops had superior speakers in them. Even the low end ones could pump out some sound! Not distorted like a lot of others too.

Who takes "hp" even remotely seriously?

The illiterate people. I'm amazed a lot of people still buy them. Let's say my shop gets 20 laptops in for repair. About 15 of them are HP. I think people buy them because they go "Ooooo, HP, I've heard of them...and it looks nice!"

[goontron]

Re: Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

<snip I'm amazed a lot of people still buy them. Let's say my shop gets 20 laptops in for repair. About 15 of them are HP. I think people buy them because they go "Ooooo, HP, I've heard of them...and it looks nice!"

mine was because of BSD compatibility, but yeah, most go "Oooh HP i have seen their commercials before".
hell, most of the HP's that come in where i work is because they are dead..... others are because they are "too old"

[kaboom]

Re: Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

but yeah, most go "Oooh HP i have seen their commercials before".

Fools that buy junk, sheepishly falling for it on teevee, deserve what they get- including the "surprise" that they actually paid money for the POSes.

The illiterate people. I'm amazed a lot of people still buy them. Let's say my shop gets 20 laptops in for repair. About 15 of them are HP. I think people buy them because they go "Ooooo, HP, I've heard of them...and it looks nice!"

Don't forget the extra service fee when you have to take 'em apart and write down all the chip numbers to find drivers, because "Horrible People" have rigged the drivers on their site to only work with $hitsta...

15 out of 20- I'd say the more destroyed the better... for everyone. Especially those who get "stuck" working on them, and putting up with the dumb users' attitudes.

About Apple, i disagree. Not having any kind of silkscreen on the board is nuts.

"Apple. Think different."

[dj_ricoh]

Re: Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

do you know how it works with apple vs notebooks?
i will tell in 2 ways i personally saw it

person comes in ;

brings a notebook - what`s wrong? no power... fix/ power ic fail 60£- Very expensive! pff

brings a MacBook - what`s wrong? no power... fix/ power ic fail 100£- Very Cheap i`ll come next time! LOL


still i`m the only one who voted IBM? SHAME you tech guys SHAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[c_hegge]

Re: Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

ThinkPads are not that great to fix. They take me longer to get apart than some others and they are picky about wireless cards.

[dellxps15]

Re: Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

for build quality dell for sure, but old dell mainboard are so thin that when u go reflow there is a possibility to bend the mainboard.

hp build quality in some models is really cheap, especially in those new dv9000 series where left hinge is so small that will broke bottom cover very easy.

hp pro are mainboard very durable when reflower or reballing.

acer are the most cheap, and the most cheap also to find spare everywhere.

dell parts also all available at a reasonable price, same for hp.

about asus they are ok, but harder to find schematics and spare parts.

fujitsu.... the worst bad assemblied, difficult in repair spare parts, hard schematic find.

sony..... plastic model with also cheap mainboard pcb. they bend easly and also hard to find schematics. few spare parts on the internet at very high price.

ibm, havent got any ibm for repair, since they dont sell so much where i live

toshiba build very good models except those nec tokin problem. build in quality is ok and they last years without any problem. spare parts not so much available. schematics seems ok , but theyr block on schematic make me put them low in the list of good brand.

apple: very well build except lcd assembly as a user said, and 3000000 screw for keyboard replacement. spare parts almost available worldwide, but most are in usa or china. schematics available. under warranty all is ok, but when warranty comes out, u need lots of money to fix them.



about service repair under warranty dell and apple the best for time. dell premium is a must for business people that need laptop fixed as soon as possible.

out of warranty, ill go for acer and dell and hp for easy spare parts find.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

for build quality dell for sure, but old dell mainboard are so thin that when u go reflow there is a possibility to bend the mainboard.

Oh, you mean the infamous blue boards? Those aren't specific to Dell. It's mostly Compal boards which are blue, but i've seen other brands too like Foxconn (in Sony Vaio) and Quanta (HP G62/Compaq CQ62 and others).

[dellxps15]

Re: Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

yes, the blue one that ive found in sony and some dell are bad, while green solid other board are perfect even after reballing

[dj_ricoh]

Re: Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

type eurocom notebook and select some parts for a mobile server.
they got gaming notebooks workstation but the mobile server its funnier

[tiak]

Re: Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

do you know how it works with apple vs notebooks?
i will tell in 2 ways i personally saw it

person comes in ;

brings a notebook - what`s wrong? no power... fix/ power ic fail 60£- Very expensive! pff

brings a MacBook - what`s wrong? no power... fix/ power ic fail 100£- Very Cheap i`ll come next time! LOL


still i`m the only one who voted IBM? SHAME you tech guys SHAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think :1-Macbook & Sony 2-Asus 3-Samsung,Lenovo thinkpad,Fujitsu and acer the others not good.It is about quality!

[goontron]

Re: Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

i change my vote to Panasonic, my toughbook is sooo easy to work on!

[SuperDuty]

Re: Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

I will talk only from my little experience with some specific models/series :

Acer Aspire, the silver and black models from around 2005 to 2008 (so Pentium M/Turion/Turion64x2/Core Duo/Core 2 Duo). While the materials aren't great, I find them easy to work with and disassemble. They seem pretty reliable if you stay away from nVidia chipsets or GPUs. Here's the one I remember working on : 3613, 5100, 5500, 5600, 7004, 9000.

Acer Aspire 5700Z something, the white ones with black bottom and green highlights. Having an MXM port for the graphics card is a HUGE plus, and there's only one panel to get access to it. Great design IMO. Swapped an 8600GT to an HD3650 easily.

Sony Vaio, only had an old VGN-A417M. The build quality is nice, but it's not well designed for service. Only one DDR2 slot can be accessed from the bottom, and the Wifi card. For the other DDR2 slot you need to remove the keyboard, and for anything else, you will have to remove the top part of the case. The hard drive is buried under a small board and several brackets.

Packard Bell LJ65/73, the build quality is not great, the top panels don't fit too well especially the LED band. The removable parts are easy to access though, so swapping things is easy and very quick. There is no caddy for the main hard drive, and only three screws are need to remove the panel to get access to the RAM, the CPU (a little tricky to remove as you won't be able to pull the heatsink entirely), the HDD and the Wifi. To pull the board, removal of the upper part is necessary.
Some versions have an MXM3 slot, mine has no such thing and uses the GMA X4500MHD instead. Works fine and seems reliable. It won't work with a C2D P8600 as the GM40 chipset isn't compatible with 1066Mhz FSB CPUs

Packard Bell Ajax : access isn't bad, but plastics are weak and tend to crack and wear. They have the Go7400 GPU and a ridiculous heatsink so I didn't bother with them. Motherboard made by Asus.

HP 620 : the whole bottom is one big easily removable panel, no problem there. Everything is easy to access. Complete disassembly goes smooth, but most screws are hex screws. The plastic quality is poor though, fatigue cracks and wear marks are common.

HP Compaq 6820s : not great, very similar to the DV9000 in design, but less attractive looking. Complete disassembly is not easy.

DV9000/6000 : never heard of them, no never, what are they, anyone knows

DV6 1120ef : nice build quality and finish, with a mix of metal and plastic. Not good for service though.

Asus EEEpc 1015PEM : very easy to disassemble, but only the RAM can be accessed from the bottom


I've had some others but they're too old.

[jasko_jacker]

Re: Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

I repair laptop from 1995, the quality of materials about the case and design of motherboards have deteriorated more and more also in the top range models.
The best manufacturer for the amount of documentation is hp and acer but the quality is very bad (thermal design, etc)
Apple is a special situation because there is very little documentation.
the best manufacturer for quality and assembly is panasonic but in some cases it's vey hard to repair

[Topcat]

Re: Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

I'm very partial to the Dell Precision line.

[dj_ricoh]

Re: Techs Only - Favorite laptop brand (servicing/construction)?

Let me bring this back up!

EUROCOM Alienware

i`m watching that website for a while and trying to find a way to save more money to get the lowest OMFG!