I was in a hurry the other day and I grabbed my laptop off my desk and turned to leave, but it was still plugged in to my speakers. The cord pulled my laptop down on the desk with a pretty big bang and now I have a couple of problems:
The internal speakers don’t work, it still plays through the earphone jack but no sound from the laptops speakers; and
It won’t play DVDs. It will still run software, but regardless of which media software I use, it will not run DVDs.
Finally, any suggestions on where to take it for repair? I’ll be in the states for a few days in three weeks or so, but I need to get it fixed quickly before I leave the country again. Would anyone recomend something like Geeksquad from Best Buy? I won’t have time to ship it to the maker for repairs.
Thanks in advance
MM28
Thanks for the reply. I’ll be in Washington DC and I’ll only have a week turn around. If it was a desktop, I’d feel okay swapping out DVD drive, etc. but not with a laptop.
Laptops are designed to be upgraded too, they’re just screwed together a little tighter. That’s my impression from reading up on them, am I correct or quite wrong?
I’ve done some light modification to my laptop (upgraded the RAM). It’s terrifying as all hell, but not exceedingly more complicated than modifying a desktop. So, IMHO, if you do the research and are sure to get compatable bits, you probably could replace them yourself. However, if you screw it up, you have no recourse but to get a new one. Did that to our PS2. Not as fun.
Good luck. Hopefully, some DC computer dopers will be by in a bit.
just a WAG, but I have done quite a bit of laptop repair (mostly on Dells and Toshibas), and they are not much more complicated then Desktops, just tighter work. It sounds to me like you may have just knocked some things loose. This is not a hard fix, and should not take more then an hour, really much less then that, but they will charge you a 2 hour minimum regardless I would bet. Taking out a DVD/CD-ROM drive is really quite easy. There might be switch near the bottom back corner of the drive, flip it and a little handle will pop out. Pull on handle and the drive will be removed. Of course this is not standard or anything.
I would hesitate to recommend geeksquad, but really for no other reason then I think their prices are outrageous.
Assuming operational security permits, why don’t you email the manufacturer, describe the damage, and see what they suggest? If they have a site in DC then they may be entirely happy with you bringing it in. Your DVD drive is probably a removable unit and therefore replaceable. I don’t know about the speakers. Given that it’s so new, it’s probably a warranty repair, so they may simply take the HDD out of your current laptop and put it in a new one. 30 minutes, tops.
I’d personally try to fix both issues myself on an older laptop, but given the desire to fix it professionally, go with the manufacturer’s opinion.
Unless they’re certified in repair for your laptop, I’d hesitate to use an electronics store to fix it; they’re likely going to send it to the pros and charge you more for it.
The DVD drive is most easily fixed by replacing it (unless ejecting / re-inserting it gets it going). The speaker sounds like a bad thing, as it sounds like the metal bit inside that lets it switch between internal / external sound is bent, probably requiring it and the board it’s soldered to to be replaced. Those components are quite often soldered to the motherboard, which could be expensive.