Laptop sent for repair to the screen and the repair company broke the motherboard

[omalleyr]

I'm hoping for some advice on this one.

 

Our two year old stood on the screen of our laptop and cracked it in the top corner. We took it in for repair and a few days later received a call stating it was ready for collection. On collection and payment, the person at the repair shop stated that they didn't have the correct charger and so couldn't demonstrate it working but that they had replaced the screen and all was good. At the time I thought this strange as it's a standard HP adaptor.

 

We got it home plugged it in and sure enough the scree didn't work.

 

I took it back to the shop and they said they would take another look. They were a little shady about this... The assistant said it was probably a faulty connection, but was corrected by the owner who butted in rather nervously and quickly stating it could be a faulty component. Anyhow they took it back and I was told it could be collected the following Monday and that they would call. The following Thursday, having received no call, I called them and was told it was not able to be repaired as it had a faulty graphics port.

 

I wen t and collected the laptop that day and asked how it had happened. The owner became very defensive and said it was and act of god and just one of those things. That it would need a new motherboard to fix it.

 

I protested that the fault was a crack to the screen and that the only people playing with the graphics port would have been the shop when they were repairing it and that the damage could not have occurred by a 2 year old standing on the top of the screen.

 

To cut a long story short, the old screen was put back in (interesting they still had this 3 weeks after they initially replaced this) and they refunded me the £85 repair fee.

 

However, I would like to pursue this to get them to take responsibility for the fault caused whilst in their care.

 

How can I best go about dealing with this?

Edited February 2, 2014 by omalleyr

[ericsbrother]

Write to the owner of the shop and tell them that your item has been damaged by their negligence and you expect them to make good your loss, this being the cost of acquiring and fitting a new motherboard. Give them the opportunity to minimise their exposure to your costs if you can trust them and get them to replace it. If the proprietor doesnt respond or agree then it will have to be a letter before action and small claims court. You will need to get the lappy inspected by another expert and a written report with the costs will be a necessity.

[dx100uk]

cant see to be honest, the graphics port being of any relevance here to their repair

not working as such.

 

that'll prob be the blue 13 pin VGA port on the side of the lappy.

so an external screen can be connected?

 

ok its quite usual for them to become loose

 

but it doesn't stop their repair.

 

weird answer from them

unless they mean the internal connector to the screen

but if he stood on the screen that would not get damaged...

 

very strange....

 

go get 'em

 

dx

[omalleyr]

Thanks for the replies.

 

Yes, he's referring to the connector on the motherboard that the screen slots into. He was deliberately vague about this though thinking he could bamboozle me with jargon.

 

I don't want to take the laptop apart to look as I'd rather a pro inspect it first.

 

The fault seems logical to have happened when they replaced the screen.

 

I'll write to them as mentioned and take it from there. Thanks both for help.

[labrat]

quick question what laptop is it

 

i douvt they mean the external connector. most likely the ribbon connector on the mainboard

 

brand is important. sony is a pig to get an lcd compatable with the mbd. dell has a fuse thats prone to blowing

[omalleyr]

It's an HP. Just over a year old. They were referring to the connector on the motherboard that the screen plugs into.

[labrat]

theres no way on earth a cracked screen would damage that.

 

im going to make a guess here and say the model is either g6 or g62 either way the connector on the board is a flat one that the cable simply pushes onto the top of how on earth they have damaged it i dont know

 

more likely is that they broke the led cable from that connector to the lcd. as they should have had no need to remove the topcase to get at that connector

[labrat]

oh and dx has a good point. plug it into ab external screen and see if you get anything.

 

either by that blue vga board. or if its the above models they have a hdmi port on the left happily you shouldnt need a computer monitor as most tvs have both these connections now

 

just be aware that with hps you most likely wont get in external image until it loads windows