Laptop Repair completed: chances of having to resolder video board socket?

My alienware m5550 stopped working 2 weeks ago. When I first turned it on, white pixels filled the screen and 2 seconds later, the screen became pitch black. The hard drive boots up but there was no display. I tried plugging in an external LCD to try to test it, and there was no signal to the LCD. Every time after that, when I try to boot up the computer, the screen is always pitch black.

I dropped it off at a local mom and pop shop since alienware wanted to charge 250 for shipping both ways and a diagnostic. My warranty had expired 3 months ago. This mom and pop shop charged 130 dollars for diagnosis and repair. They said the solution was resoldering the video board socket. My parents use to own a desktop computer store and they said the chances of having to resolder the video board socket is very slim. No parts had to be replaced in my laptop and I'm starting to think the repair did not really involve resoldering anything and it was probably something very minor.

So my question is do you think the shop really had to resolder the video board socket? Or do you guys think my laptop malfunction was something very minor and the shop just said they had to resolder the video board socket to justify the fees? What other minor problems were a possibility? Thanks.

 

Usually, what happens, is something simple like a surface mount transistor will blow. The worst case scenario, is that the fault transistor cannot be found, and you have to buy a new graphics card.
Sometimes a transistor will blow, and it can be fixed with a $0.50 transistor.
Its not the part which costs the money, its the skill and understanding of how to do this. You really need a good soldering iron and knowledge of electronics.

If they just reseated the card and it worked than you paid for them to basically do nothing.

Still $130 is not a bad price to get your graphics card fixed. GPU's are very expensive, and usually cost a fortune to fix.

K-TRON