Customer Lappy Dilemma-kinda long

[BobBarr]

Ok so about 2 weeks ago I got my hands on this 10 year old Toshiba Lappy from a friend of a friend to fix and clean out/speed up everyone knows the drill. I gave a new life to this thing and put about 2-3 days of work into that lappy alone and I was satisfied with the job and gave it back 100% performance and they were happy. Sooooo one of my friends dropped it off yesterday and I was like wtf omg and they said that 2 little kids were using it last and when the owner went to use it it didn't work...... . I take a look at it and notice the screen feels a little lose near the hinges where it wasnt before. I checked the hard drive and ram slots and it didn't look like anything happened. I go to power it up and the indicator lights up then the lappy shuts off quick with like a faint snapping sound, I go to do it again and again and same thing, I figure to check the battery and its fully charged, the power cable is working fine and i initially thought the kids downloaded something that would screw with the software but I think its more along the lines of a hardware problem. So to sum up my long ....story.... anyone know the answer might be to the following question:

When pushing the power button and starting up the lappy it wont start even with a full battery and no obvious signs of mistreatment, nothing plugged into any of the ports/slots, could it be a hardware problem( anything) and could it have possbily happened from a drop, waterspill? What could I do to make some progress on getting this thing out of my house. Thanks to all who can help

 

[Mussels]

its too late now, but i always make sure to demonstrate things that i've repaired are working fine, before giving them to the person. nothing more aggravating than getting a bad rep, because the owner gave it straight to someone who broke it, and then blames you.

 

[bogmali]

I go to power it up and the indicator lights up then the lappy shuts off quick with like a faint snapping sound

It sounds to me that the lappy got dropped hence the loose hinge feeling.

I checked the hard drive and ram slots and it didn't look like anything happened

I'd go back to see if the HDD got disconnected from the SATA/IDE connection and re-seat it , I had this happened to me when my niece's lappy wouldn't boot and I was getting the same sound when I try to power it on.

 

[BobBarr]

its too late now, but i always make sure to demonstrate things that i've repaired are working fine, before giving them to the person. nothing more aggravating than getting a bad rep, because the owner gave it straight to someone who broke it, and then blames you.

I wasn't blamed the owner knew it worked fine before they got a hold of it and calls me for all their probs so I'm fine but I do know where your coming from it happens a lot in this business xD.

 

[BroBQ]

Its 10 years old... its not worth even trying to waste anymore time on it.

 

[BobBarr]

Ya i hear ya, I don't want to but shes not ready to buy a new one...idk why shes a rich @ss realtor.
It only has 200mb of ram lol and this was easily a $300-$350 job with fixing and upgrading and i didn't even make that much on it

 

[n-ster]

mobo or psu?

 

[BroBQ]

I would convince her to buy a new one ... Do you have any you could show her?

What OS does the laptop have installed on it?

 

[BobBarr]

It has XP on it, I actually managed to start it up and had a problem but that post is in the software forum. This thing wouldn't run at all before i got it, was loaded down with so much crap, trojans, Mcaffee the whole 9 yards. Im gonna try to convince her to buy a new one because I don't want to see this unit ever again tbh.

 

[BroBQ]

A lot of times when i'm working with a client and they are stuck on using a 7-10 year old PC. I talk them into at least looking at something a little newer. I always end up empressing them with a newer faster computer. Anything with 1GB or even 2GB of ram and a new install of XP and a few tweaks, any laptop or PC can be much faster then what most people are using. Even if she doesnt want to buy a new one, you can still "sell" her on something new or newer to her, in this case...

 

[Mussels]

if its a desktop, i always find a friend with a stable machine, and organise an upgrade. friend sells me their core PC, i upgrade customers - everyone happy.

Due to something like this, i have a 939 4200+ system with 1GB of ram in my lounge, just waiting for the next person who wants a media PC.

 

[BroBQ]

A newer faster system is very easy to sell... and thats a good idea to have some ready. I've got a few systems ready to go as well.

 

[BobBarr]

Ok I'm definitely going to convince her that this lappy has thrown in the towel. To close out the subject my friends and I determined it was dropped from a simple height of 3-4 feet to cause the damage,The loose hinge theory about it falling was true, an obvious sign that it was dropped was a crack in one of the corners where the plastic looked unjoined, and it was, and someone tried putting scotch tape over it to make it look like it didn't, freaking 10 year olds, the system isn't even booting to boot screen, doesn't even start up for more then 2 seconds. I conferred with the owner that this was the explanation and the suspects are keeping quiet about it. Go figure. She just purchased a new dell latitude for her secretary so she said she would look into with my help for a replacement. Thank you all for the help everyone.

To sum up this whole mess I determined TO JUST NEVER GIVE TECHNOLOGY TO CHILDREN. :shadedshu

 

[n-ster]

Hey I litterally started to be on a computer since 2 years old I actually knew more than anyone in my family about computers by 7 years old

 

[Mussels]

Hey I litterally started to be on a computer since 2 years old I actually knew more than anyone in my family about computers by 7 years old

i learned to read and spell from DOS. seriously.
The proof is in the fact that my handwriting is STILL totally illegible.