c/broken-gadgets-help

Tried to replace my laptop battery and ended up bending the connector pins

Was prying at that tiny white ribbon cable for 20 minutes in my kitchen before my neighbor knocked and said I'd been swearing loud enough for her to hear through the wall, has anyone else mangled a ZIF connector and somehow still gotten it to work?

2 comments

olivia_morgan8•14h ago

3 years ago I replaced my laptop battery and it's still going strong - everyone told me I was crazy to DIY it

Back in 2021 my old Dell started dying after 20 minutes off the charger. Every post I read said to just buy a new laptop because the battery replacement was too risky. But I watched a 10 minute video, spent $45 on a battery from eBay, and it took me 12 minutes. Three years later that same laptop runs fine for 4 hours now. People act like opening up a laptop is brain surgery but it's really just unsnapping a connector and 4 screws. Has anyone else had success ignoring the "just buy new" crowd?

1 comments

faithf77•1d ago

Dropped my phone in a bucket of ant bait at a job site last Tuesday

I was out at a client's place in Tacoma treating a carpenter ant infestation and my phone slipped right out of my sweaty hand into a half-full bucket of Terro liquid bait. Yanked it out quick but the charging port was sticky and the speaker sounded like it was underwater for two days. Anyone else had to clean electronics that got into something weird at work?

2 comments

christopher952•1d ago

That water damage trick from YouTube killed my iPhone 13 last weekend

So last Saturday I found my phone in a puddle on my shop floor after a transmission drip landed right on it. I remembered this old tip I saw 3 years ago about putting a wet phone in a bag of rice, so I did that for about 12 hours. Well when I pulled it out Sunday morning, there was rice dust stuck in the charging port and the screen started flickering like crazy. Took it to a repair shop in Tulsa and the guy told me the rice actually made things worse because the fine dust gets inside and shorts more stuff out. He showed me the corrosion on the logic board and said the silica gel packets wouldve been way better since they actually absorb moisture without leaving grit behind. Has anyone else wrecked their phone trying that rice trick or did I just get unlucky with the amount of water?

3 comments

olivia_morgan8•4d ago

Shoutout to the guy at the repair shop who fixed my laptop with a pencil eraser

Was hunting down a weird blue screen error for three days on my old Dell. Replaced the RAM, swapped the hard drive, nothing worked. Finally took it to a tiny shop on Elm Street in Portland. The owner, maybe 75 years old, just grabbed a pencil, rubbed the eraser on the motherboard contacts, and it booted right up. Charged me five bucks. Has anyone else run into these old school fixes that actually work?

2 comments

leep33•5d ago

Lost $60 on a cheap soldering iron before learning my lesson

Bought a no-name 30 watt iron from an online sale for $12 thinking I was saving money. It couldn't even melt the lead-free solder on my laptop motherboard repair. After spending 3 hours fighting with bad joints, I grabbed a Hakko FX888D for $99 and finished the job in 20 minutes. Has anyone else wasted money on cheap tools before getting the real thing?

2 comments

rivera.jake•7d ago

Tried using a hairdryer on my water-damaged phone at a Starbucks in Austin last spring

After I dropped my Galaxy in a puddle near the counter, the barista told me to borrow their hand dryer for 10 minutes and it actually saved the screen from those white spots (has anyone else tried this or am I just lucky)?

2 comments

faithf77•8d ago

Spent 4 hours trying to fix a dead Xbox Series X that just needed a different HDMI cable

I swapped out power supplies and thermal paste before I thought to test a cable I pulled from a different drawer. Has anyone else burned a whole afternoon on something this simple?

2 comments

quinnbailey•9d ago

Dropped my Switch in a puddle at the park, fixed it with rice and a toothbrush

Last Saturday I was at Riverside Park playing Zelda on my Switch when I knocked my water bottle over and the console landed right in a puddle. It turned off instantly and I thought it was dead for good. I raced home and pulled the battery out, then buried it in a bag of uncooked rice for 48 hours. After that I grabbed a soft toothbrush and some 91% isopropyl alcohol and gently cleaned the charging port and headphone jack. Let it dry another 12 hours and popped the battery back in. It booted right up and everything works except the left joy-con drifts a little now. Anyone else had luck saving a water damaged console with this method or is there a better trick for the joystick?

2 comments

the_jason•11d ago

Spent 4 hours fixing a loose charging port that needed 10 minutes

My phone wouldn't charge unless I held the cable at a perfect angle. I watched 3 YouTube videos about cleaning the port and replacing the flex cable. Turned out it was just pocket lint compacted so deep I needed a sewing needle to dig it out. After 4 hours of troubleshooting I got it working in under 10 minutes with a toothpick and some compressed air. Has anyone else wasted a whole afternoon on something this simple?

2 comments

jason958•14d ago

The heat gun trick for stripping phone back glass is overrated

I keep seeing people online say to use a heat gun on iPhone backs for 2 minutes to pop the glass off. Tried that on my iPhone XR last week and cracked the rear glass in 3 separate places before I even got a tool near it. Ended up using a hot plate set to 80 degrees Celsius and leaving it for 5 minutes instead, glass came off clean with zero damage. Has anyone else found heat guns just blast too much heat in one spot?

3 comments

xenan64•17d ago

PSA: Stop using thermal paste like it's cake frosting

I keep seeing people in here slathering a huge glob of thermal paste on their CPUs and it drives me crazy. That thick layer actually insulates the chip instead of conducting heat, and I learned this the hard way last month when my Ryzen started hitting 95C under load. A pea-sized dot or a thin spread is all you need, anything more just makes a mess and hurts your temps. Has anyone else dealt with cleaning paste out of socket pins because someone went overboard?

2 comments

diana314•18d ago

Had a repair shop guy tell me I was using way too much thermal paste, changed everything for my laptop

This old timer at a shop in Denver watched me paste up a CPU and said 'you're putting enough for a whole sandwich, not a laptop.' After I switched to just a pea sized dot, my temps dropped by 15 degrees and I stopped having to repaste every 6 months. Anyone else get told they were overdoing it on something simple like that?

2 comments

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caseyl18•19d ago

Cracked my 500th phone screen repair without a single broken digitizer

I hit 500 phone screen repairs last Thursday on a beat-up iPhone 8 from a customer in Portland. It surprised me because I used to break at least one out of every five digitizers when I started three years ago. Now I can do most models blindfolded and the numbers just piled up. Has anyone else kept count of their repair totals over the years?

2 comments

kelly_roberts•19d ago

The week I fixed three game consoles and broke two more

Last Tuesday I got cocky after swapping out a capacitor on an old Xbox 360 for $0.75. Then I tried to reball the GPU on a PS3 and my hot air station blew the solder all over the board, bricked it completely. By Friday I had a Game Gear working again with a new screen from Handheld Legend, but I snapped the ribbon cable on a second one. Has anyone else had a repair streak where you go one for three and feel like a genius and a fool at the same time?

2 comments

emmasmith•19d ago

Why I stopped using canned air for cleaning circuit boards

Last month I was cleaning out a dusty old Xbox 360 and used a can of compressed air upside down. Shot liquid freezer all over the motherboard, had to wait 3 days for it to dry before it worked again. Has anyone else switched to those electric dusters for console work?

2 comments

hill.barbara•20d ago

Swapped my old soldering iron for a TS100 last month

I used to stick with a cheap Weller WLC100 for years, but after ruining a third laptop battery connector with its clunky tip I finally switched. The TS100 heats up in like 7 seconds and the temperature control is way more precise for tiny phone board work. Did anyone else notice a big jump when moving to a digital iron or am I just late to the party?

2 comments

violafox•21d ago

Heard a repair shop owner say 'soldering is dead' at a trade show last March

I was at a small electronics repair meetup in Columbus when a guy who runs a shop in Dayton said soldering is a waste of time now because everything is modular. He claimed we should just swap boards instead of fixing traces or pins. But I've resoldered dozens of laptop charge ports that worked fine afterward for under $2 in materials. Is that old skill really becoming useless, or are we giving up on fixing things too fast? Has anyone else run into this debate in their own work?

2 comments

john_murphy•22d ago

My worst week fixing phones ended with a shattered iPhone screen and a busted knuckle

Last Tuesday I tried swapping a battery on an iPhone 8 plus and the adhesive was so stubborn I pried too hard with my metal spudger. Screen cracked right down the middle, cost me $45 for a replacement part from a local shop in Austin. Then on Friday I was removing a logic board and my screwdriver slipped, stabbed my hand, and I bled all over the customer's motherboard. Has anyone else had a run of bad luck like that or am I just cursed with these repairs?

2 comments

ninah10•25d ago

Spilled coffee into my laptop fan vent and froze instead of acting fast

I was at a diner in Cleveland last Tuesday, typing up notes, when my elbow knocked a full mug right into the side vent of my Dell. Coffee went in, screen flickered, then went black. I panicked for a solid minute before yanking the battery out and flipping it upside down on a napkin. Let it dry for two days with a fan on it and somehow it booted back up. Anyone else have a liquid spill that should've killed their machine but didn't?

2 comments

piper_thompson31•25d ago

Just realized I've been cleaning my laptop fan backwards for 3 years

I used to blast compressed air straight into the fan from the outside, thinking I was blowing dust out. Last week I finally opened the back cover on my old Dell and saw this crusty wall of lint packed against the heatsink. Turns out you're supposed to either remove the fan or hold it still so the spinning doesn't generate voltage back into the board. Anybody else make this rookie mistake or just me?

2 comments

clark.faith•25d ago

I finally fixed my own phone screen after 3 broken attempts

Everyone says to use a heat gun for Samsung screens, but I cracked two that way before I just used a hairdryer on low and it popped right off. Saved $200 in repair costs doing it myself. Has anyone else had better luck with lower heat over the fancy tools?

3 comments

stellac97•26d ago

Warning: cheap thermal paste vs Arctic MX-6 is a 15C difference

I used the free tube that came with my cooler on my Ryzen 5 and hit 92C under load, swapped to MX-6 and now I'm at 77C max. Has anyone else noticed that much of a gap with generic paste brands?

3 comments

betty_park62•26d ago

Why does nobody talk about how bad the factory thermal paste is on Dell laptops

I popped open my XPS 15 from 2022 last weekend to clean the fans and figured I'd re-paste the CPU while I was at it. The stock paste was crustier than week-old bread... like completely dry and flaking off. After I swapped it with some Arctic MX-4 my temps dropped a good 12 degrees under load. Has anyone else seen this or did I just get a lemon?

2 comments

seth_martinez21•29d ago

Hit 50 phone repairs this month and that number threw me off

I've been fixing phones on the side for about a year now. Last night I counted my logbook and saw I did 50 repairs just in March. That's way more than I expected since I only work weekends. Most of them were just screen swaps or battery changes on old Samsung models. Has anyone else here hit a repair milestone that surprised them?

3 comments