Repair guides for the trade

Everything written for shops rather than customers: the triage guides that stop a job being misdiagnosed, the postage and packing notes, and the data-recovery explainers. Written by the bench, updated as the bench learns.

Laptops we repair

• MacBook Pro logic board repair: every era, Intel and Apple Silicon, fixed at £120 + VAT.
• MacBook Air logic board repair: charging, liquid and soldered-storage faults on both eras.
• Apple Silicon MacBooks: what board repair looks like on M-series machines.
• Intel-era MacBooks: the machines board repair saves money on, 2012–2020.
• Razer Blade: thin chassis, real heat, repairable faults.
• Alienware: charging circuits and power stages under years of load.
• ASUS ROG & TUF: power delivery and BIOS faults.
• MSI: GS/GE/GP/GT ranges, one fixed price.
• Lenovo Legion: cooling done right, the faults that remain.
• Dell XPS: USB-C PD and the ultrabook power path.
• ThinkPad: business machines, spill channels and all.
• Microsoft Surface: the machines where board work is the only route.
• HP Spectre & ZBook: ultrabook and workstation personalities.
• Acer Predator: value gaming, honest hardware.
• Framework: when component repair beats a board swap.

Laptop board repair

• MacBook won't turn on: the no-power checklist, and what a USB-C meter tells you before the bench does.
• MacBook not charging: port, controller or circuit: the ten-minute triage.
• One USB-C port dead: why it is board work every time.
• MacBook liquid damage: the first moves after a spill, and why Macs age worse.
• Laptop not charging (Windows): port, charger or board, and the trap of stopping at the port.
• Gaming laptop won't turn on: the five checks before the bench.
• Shuts down under load: heat or power, told apart.
• Gaming laptop GPU faults: power stages, reballing, and the honest limits of chip replacement.
• Black screen, laptop alive: the torch test that stops you selling a screen over a backlight fuse.
• Boot loops and BIOS faults: the fifteen-minute sort between firmware, board and software.
• Boards damaged by a previous repair: torn pads, lifted traces, and what is recoverable.

Decisions: repair, replace or rework

• Board repair vs replacement: the three routes compared on cost, data, pairing and warranty.
• Reflow vs rework: why one of them is not a repair.

Data recovery

• Data from a dead laptop: slotted vs soldered storage, encryption, and why board repair is often the recovery path.
• Soldered SSD recovery: recovery through the board, not a drive bay.
• SSD not detected: the "no bootable device" triage, and what each outcome means for the data.
• BitLocker recovery keys: the conversation to have before any repair.
• A clicking hard drive: what to do in the next ten minutes when a drive fails.

Trade and postage

• Liquid damage: the first hour: the advice that decides how much the spill costs.
• Packing a board for post: layers, paperwork and what not to send.
• Repair glossary: the words on a job sheet, defined plainly.