What should I do? My laptop is broken and I don't know who can fix it

Hi guys, so I bought a clevo w230st from a canadian reseller and it's pretty much been a buggy computer the whole time. It had a plethora of problems with it right away and I sent it to sager to get repaired around april 2014. Keeping in mind shipping is expensive from canada to the US and I paid like $200+ despite it still being under warranty at that time. Well anyways they fixed it and sent it back to me and a few months later (late august) it just suddenly beeps whenever I start it up and then shuts off after a few seconds.

So I sent it to one computer repair service (nerdsonsite) and they didn't know what was wrong with it so they sent it back. I sent it over to canadacomputers and they 'fixed' it after making me wait for almost 2 months; it was really still broken with the exact same issue. I sent it back to them, they took it in and a week later said that they couldnt repair my laptop so they're sending it back to me and that I "should" get a refund. Okay, whatever. This happened today so I'm going to pick my laptop up tomorrow.

My question is, what should I do now? If I send it to sager again I'm going to have paid $500+ in total for this piece of garbage laptop, and I don't know any other company that would be willing to fix it. The laptop is no longer under warranty. I also happened to have stupidly bought this laptop for school use as well so it's been a nightmare trying to get schoolwork done without my laptop. Thoughts? Should I give up and sell it for parts or something?

 

Who did you buy it through? If it's been in repairs for a large majority of its life see if you can come to some sort of arrangement. A power up and shut off a couple of seconds later points to a short on the motherboard.

 

If you're hearing beeps, something is broken internally. The W230ST has integrated GPU, so it'll likely need a motherboard replacement if anything like that is the problem. I seriously hope you get this sorted out; it sounds like you're really due for something.

Also, if you ever buy from an american company and get it warrantied, try to pay for canadian shipping in the warranty. It will be about $25 per year of warranty and it will save you that $200 hurt when you need warranty replacements done.

 

You can either take your laptop to a service, either try to fix it by yourself. If you are interesting in learning how to repair several components of your old laptop, you could check this.

Mod note: Possibly malicious link removed from post. May not have been intentional.

 

I bought it through reflex-notebooks. I guess I can see if I can get into some sort of arrangement with them but they are just a reseller ie they don't repair it themselves

 

That depends on the reseller as to where work is done.

 

Where in Canada do you live? There's lots of independent repair shops in cities that can do the work and save you money on shipping.

 

It's going to need a motherboard replacement most likely, and Sager would be the only ones able to supply the parts for this.

 

so it's not possible to repair it yourself or something?

 

Without knowing your skill level or anything about the problem/problems there is no way of saying.

 

well I mean i might as well give it a try since it's dead weight otherwise. Afaik it's the motherboard that's having the isses

 

Can you exactly describe what is happening? What errors/behavior is the machine showing? Repairing it yourself is possible but to avoid ordering the wrong parts you need to know exactly what is wrong.

 

when you boot the laptop up, after around 30 seconds the fans come on and the laptop starts beeping, 30 seconds after that it shuts down.

It seems like a heat issue but I know it's not overheating... checking the temps while the laptop is beeping gives temps in the 50s and 60s.

The repair shop told me it was a motherboard issue but I have no idea how I would repair that (even where to get a motherboard)

 

Sager will not send/sell motherboards individually so if that is the issue then your best bet is looking for a pre owned one like on eBay.

Does it make it far enough to boot into Windows? Can you get it to in Safe Mode?

 

hey thanks for the reply

Yes it makes it far enough to boot into windows, get into the desktop etc. It gets into safe mode but I cannot do anything else because it shuts off.

Before the problem only occured if I used the dgpu on the laptop, but I uninstalled the nvidia drivers and it started happening all the time

I mean like if I could just disable the heat checking I would be good

 

Download a linux distro of your choice, and boot into it. See how far you get into it.

 

If it just shuts off without a BSOD it probably is a motherboard problem as you suspect.
Even though your temps look good, you can try removing and reseating them if you're comfortable doing this. You will need to reapply thermal compound so make sure you have that ready to go if you so this.

 

just wanted to thank you for trying to help me out, I was actually originally going to order from you guys but shipping to canada killed me... reflex notebook was not a great choice but it was free shipping to canada

I already removed the heatsink, cleaned cpu and gpu multiple times, reapplied paste and the problem is still there. I did this before I sent it to a repair shop

I'm actually from taiwan so would contacting clevo help? I can probably send it to relatives and have them get it to clevo or ask clevo for parts.

 

Sager moved to China, and Taiwan is pretty much just another country as far as parts availability. Learned this last week from a friend living in Taiwan.

The issue is you really do not want to start ordering parts for your laptop before you know what is wrong. I would get a Linux distribution booted up and run memtest to ensure the RAM is ok. Then I would disable the discrete GPU and run exclusively on the integrated Intel GPU to see how long that lasts. Also disable wifi, BT, etc and see. Run it off AC, battery and both.

If the crashes still occur, the motherboard is a very likely candidate. Then you have to decide if you still want to sink money into that laptop or not. It sounds like you are in the GTA, and I may be able to help out replacing it. But there is no guarantee that will fix your issues.

 

alright I will try that, as someone who has never used linux, should I try to get it on a usb and boot it from there? And how would I disable the dgpu?

 

@svcr0c0 - Sager is still in California, they haven't moved to China. Good tips on other things to try.

@byviolet - You can try contacting Clevo directly to see if they will sell you a new motherboard, the worse that can happen is they say no.

 

clevo told me to contact sager haha

 

Also, I'm trying to install ubuntu with a usb right now. Should I choose desktop or server iso?

 

Ubuntu Desktop would be best.

 

alright so I managed to get the computer 'working' again somehow. It no longer beeps while I turn it on. However, trying to use a usb to reformat the computer still causes the beeps. The computer feels a little slower than usual.

EDIT: okay nevermind, when i use the dgpu it still beeps

 

When it tries to use it then it starts getting temperature information and then starts an EC panic from the sounds of things. You need to replace the GPU most likely.