How easy is it to replace a motherboard in a notebook?

[Stu Pidasso]

20 days after the warranty expired I had problems with my Dell 5150 laptop. Dell tech support thought it was the motherboard and would not fix it unless I paid. What a bunch of bastdards.

Anyways, I decided just to take the laptop completely apart and re-assemble it. I was hoping that doing that would fix the problem. It didn't. However I did learn that changing out a motherboard in a laptop is a fairly easy and straight foward process.

I bought a motherboard for a Dell 5160 laptop off ebay. When it arrived it took me about an hour to successfully replace it. Basically you need a set of precision screw drivers, a sorter to put all the little screws in, and some thermal grease. Pen and paper as well as a digital camera can be very handy if think you might not remember how to re-assemble it once its down to bits.

If you can replace a motherboard in a desktop computer, replacing one in a laptop should not be a problem(I think its easier in fact).

Stu

[MowrMowr]

[ QUOTE ]
I asked them if there was a possibility that there was some problem causing the motherboard to go bad, as I had just had it replaced. They said the most likely scenario was that when I sent it in for warranty service, the motherboard was replaced with a used board that was on its way out.

[/ QUOTE ]

96% chance there's something causing the mobo to die
4% chance that scenario took place

Expensive lesson forthcoming

[StoneAge]

Thanks for all the replies- I think I am just going to get a replacement and try to get a little money by selling it as a parts computer.

One of the deciding factors was finding www.zd7000forums.com on which I found out a LOT of people had recurring motherboard failure problems- so it looks like this has a high probability to be a big hole to throw time/money into.

Another question- if I sell this is there any way to reformat the hard drive (when the computer starts up there is no image on the monitor) so no personal info can be taken from it- or should I just remove it?

[smoore]

I'd just remove and keep it for my personal spare part but if you want to sell it with the HDD use something that writes zeros to the drive multiple times. "Data shred" sounds familiar but I don't remember.