A new day brought a new mail-in laptop for repair. I knew this would be a fun repair because the laptop would not boot due to a processor fan failure. But since it was sent to me at Parts People, it couldn’t be a simple fix, and this one did not disappoint me. When I opened it to check the fans, I found that the fan connector was ripped off the motherboard. What made it worse was when I looked at it under the microscope, I could see that 3 out of the 4 solder pads were gone.
But since replacing this motherboard would have cost more than $500, so I had to replace these pads with new ones. After scratching away the solder mask to expose fresh copper, I grabbed nano-sized replacement pads and installed them. I also needed to add a fresh solder mask and cure it with my UV light. It was then simple to install a new fan connector and save the customer more than $300.
If you have a Dell or Alienware and need a repair, visit partspeople.com to fill out a service request form.
