Fried Inspiron 8100

[VansTheMan]

During the gigantic snowstorm in the MD area this past winter, my room flooded. My laptop, which happened to be running on the floor from when I watched a movie the previous night, also flooded. Long story short, it's fried. My thoughts when buying it were "Nah, I'll never need that CompleteCare coverage crap. That's just a waste of $200..." So Dell wants $700 to replace the mobo, which is stupid because I could get a new Inspiron 8100 better than mine off ebay for that. Does anybody have experience replacing mobos in laptops? I'm pretty electronically/mechanically adept, but I don't know what's involved with replacing it. I should be able to get a mobo for around $100, but I read somewhere that there are tiny connections soldered onto the mobo that would have to be re-soldered onto the new one. Do you guys think it would be better to get the mobo and try to replace it myself or just save my money and get a new Inspiron one day?

 

[Stealth1024]

insurance?

I have an Inspiron 8100 also, great laptop isn't it? hehe..

 

[VansTheMan]

If only insurance covered it. My insurance company said that because the water came from outside, not inside, that there's nothing they can do. This is exactly the reason why I hate insurance companies. It's just a bunch of money you pay every month for a service that the company always tries to screw you out of. hehe, and yeah I did love that laptop. If I ever buy another Dell again, I'm getting 3 years of CompleteCare, though. That's way better than insurance, plus you can get a new laptop whenever you feel like it as long as you don't leave "hammer marks"...

 

[dnuggett]

My thoughts are if the laptop was completely flooded, you probably have more damamge than just the motherboard. The hard drive, memory and just about evey other component my be damamged too. Do you have anyway to test the other components independently?

 

[VansTheMan]

Yeah, I had important stuff on the HD, so I got an adapter kit. The HD is fine, I hooked it up to my desktop and it still runs like a champ. It's a little IBM Travelstar 10GB. Come to think of it, I should put that in my desktop for a straight storage drive instead of the crappy Seagate 4.3GB that's dying on me. I could get my friend to bring his laptop and test the memory. I have no idea how I could test any of the other components such as the LCD, video card, floppy drive, or CD-ROM. See, the AC adapter flooded before the water got to the laptop, so I don't know if it just surged when it shorted and friend the mobo. I wasn't home when it happened, so I don't know if the laptop itself was powered on when the water got to it. I guess I wouldn't have ever known had I been home because I would have picked the friggin thing up. Man, that's what I get for leaving my laptop on the floor. My friend has a little 4 inch wooden table that he keeps his on on his bed. I should have had one of those. I kick myself every time I think about the whole stupid situation. ::mumbles angrily::

 

[VansTheMan]

Anybody with experience working on laptops have any suggestions? bump

 

[Foghorn]

Getting any type of integrated circuit board (MB, memory,vid card, contollers) wet is bad news. You're better off starting over with a new one.

 

[VansTheMan]

Well, the laptop wasn't completely flooded. The case wasn't full of water. I had it apart to dry it out right afterwards. The RAM compartment had a few drops of water in it, there were droplets in the compartments where the battery and floppy drive go and there were droplets in a few other places, but it was by no means soaked through. My main question is: Is it worth me paying $100+ for the motherboard and replacing it? or should I not even attempt it and just start saving for a new one?

Hooray, this post makes me a full fledged Member!

Edit: At least I thought 20 posts was how many you needed to get rid of Junior Member status...

 

[MWink]

If it's just the motherboard that's fried it shouldn't be too hard to replace. I have a Dell Inspiron 8200 and I've replaced the motherboard in it with very little trouble. My biggest concern would be if anything else was fried. Since it's already dead you might as well just try taking it apart before getting a new MB. Then at least you'll know if you can get it apart/put it back together.

 

[VansTheMan]

When you replaced your motherboard, was there any intricate soldering involved? I had read that there was somewhere and that was one of my main concerns. I'm not bad at soldering, but I don't know if I want to bet $100+ on my skillz. I don't know if anything else is fried or not, but like I said, the hard drive is fine. I don't even know how I would test any of the other stuff besides the RAM.

 

[MWink]

No there wasn't any soldering at all, just a lot of screws. It didn't seem much different from replacing a motherboard in a desktop, except for the fact you're working in a much smaller space.

 

[VansTheMan]

Hmm, that sounds very tempting... I might just have to buy a mobo for it and give it a shot. I'll be so happy to have a laptop once again, even though I'm gonna have to upgrade some stuff.