These guys run a racket. My nephew took his HP Pavilion dv2000 to them for repair. They charged him something like $75.00 as their base fee ""to take a look at it"" and then told him his system board was fried and would need replaced and be really expensive. In their opinion, he was better off replacing it. LUCKILY, they just happen to SELL refurbished laptops as well ... I googled it and found dozens of reports that the graphics chip overheats and loosens the solder that connects it to the motherboard. I'd never opened a laptop before other than unscrewing the hard drive door to change a hard drive, but I was able to crack open his dv2000 and fix the gpu chip by re-heating the solder connections with a hot air gun. An hour later it was done ... no new parts necessary, but he was out $75.00 from having to pay for someone at the Laptop guy to try to sell him a new computer.
more