Bought refurbished laptop - is this a shoddy solder job?

Hello chaps,

Just after a bit of advice here from the eggheads! I bought a refurbished Sony Y2 laptop off eBay just over three months ago, and it has suddenly died. I'm a pretty experienced techie (having built and repaired many PCs and laptops in the past), but this died completely suddenly and left me a bit stumped. Used it one evening, turned it off, left it plugged in but turned off at the wall and the next day absolutely nothing. No LEDs, no noise, battery won't charge, mains won't run it either, nada, zip, zilch.

So I bought a new power adapter, that hasn't solved it. Got a new DC jack coming on Monday, will try that too. It's only 15 months old judging by the labels on some of the components.

However.........I was rooting around this morning looking for a blown fuse (couldn't find any SMD fuses on the motherboard near the DC jack), but I did come across what looks like a bodged repair job. It looks like the company I bought it from has soldered a wire from a solder point to a chip via some other component, which is so small that I can't make it out (and is so small no camera I own will focus on it). It's also covered in tacky translucent yellow tape, which seems unprofessional.

Here's a picture to show you: clicky. It's pretty big so I thought I'd post the link to preserve the resolution so you can see what I mean when you zoom in.

My question is: am I right in thinking that this is not Sony's factory work? Has anyone ever seen anything like this coming out of the factory? I've never seen it before, but thought I'd ask you guys to tap the collective experience

In the UK we have strong laws about how goods are sold, satisfactory quality etc so if this is not factory standard I'll be claiming a refund.

Cheers for any thoughts!

Dom

 

I've seen such things: usually fixed in the next updated production run.

Either way; you still need to get a refund for this dead product though?

 

Thanks for the reply! You've seen such things straight from the manufacturer? OK interesting. Yes I do need a refund, it's really unacceptable for a premium product from Sony to die so suddenly and at such a young age

 

try macro mode aka flower mode on the camera?

EDIT, yes you did. fairly clear picture actually.