My Acer Aspire 4741Z laptop…… This image was from my old files and its my laptop’s first appearance in my blog, I bought it last year 2010, and now its 3 years old already. I experienced lots of problems already when it hit its 2nd year, first was the charger, then the battery pack, then the hard drive (massive data loss), then problem occurred this year when the fan is not working properly and then the power IC and battery is defective.
you can read my story of my new laptop last 2010 - http://azraelsmerryland.blogspot.com/2010/08/finally-my-new-laptop-is-here.html I bought it in Octagon with a price of Php 24,900.
Last repair was done in SST Laptop in SM Bacoor. The tech guy fixed this for 3 days, kinda suck that I waited for 3 days for them to fix it. The power problems are repaired after 3 days, but before that… I told them that my laptop won’t work if ever I don’t use the battery and let it connected to direct power outlet. They fixed it and my laptop is working perfectly fine during the test in front of me. But as soon as I get home and use it..my laptop work okay, but after one power shutdown, the laptop seems not to work properly, it stayed dead, I tried to power it on and use electric CPR, yeah..like removing the electric cable and put it back again, just to give a spark on the power slot. It worked and I used my laptop without unplugging it for a month.
I thought that I will survive it for more than a month, because, I’m saving money to buy a new battery or maybe a new laptop, but I accidentally unplugged the power cable last Saturday and then it stays dead for good. So last Monday, I decided to go to Greenhills to visit a tech store there and help me fix this.
My agenda was – buy a laptop battery for my Acer Aspire 4741Z laptop. I went there in Shoppesville Greenhills, because my wife bought a Php2, 500 laptop battery for her Acer Aspire laptop last month, she said a fixer guy helped them score a laptop battery, but then we know that the battery is priced at Php 2,200, and then the fixer guy just added Php300 for his search labor and help. Weird business di ba?
but its okay, more important is that there is a receipt of purchase and a warranty.
Her Acer Aspire laptop is working fine and the battery is brand new, although not an original battery case, they used a brand new third party casing, but it works properly.
When I went to the 3rd floor of Shoppesville in Greenhills, I inquired on the 1st store that I saw there.
I inquired about a laptop battery and I started to complain about the defect of my laptop, the tech guy named Mike, Chinese looking guy – I think in his mid 20’s proposed to me that he can check my laptop, I said yes..you can check it…the SST Laptop tech repair might have done something wrong.
My laptop performed a weird trick…it powered on normally .it ran on its battery after tech guy Mike pressed the power button, that’s weird I told him..and then we tried plugging it and turn it on…it still working fine. I told him that he should do it again and see that it won’t run again.
After the third test..my laptop stayed dead.
Tech guy Mike opened my laptop, he said that he should check first if there’s something wrong with the power ic, I forgot that my agenda here is to buy a laptop battery, and forgot to ask him to try plugging in with a battery, because laptop won’t work properly if battery is defective.
Then he opened everything…checking for loose circuits or whatever he’s looking for, but I told him that I’ll wait and watch him repair my laptop, he told me that I should come back for tomorrow, but then I refuse and told him that I need the laptop right away, so he fixed it infront of me.
After the check up… He then told me that the SST Laptop tech guy didn’t even repaired anything…they just unplug and plug back those ic chips. He said he can repair it.
Now the tech guy Mike, added some sort of small black squares in my laptop’s mother board, that was 3 kinds of black squares and then he used a soldering thing to reheat and then clean up some chips.
From 3pm-5pm, he fixed it.. we encountered lots of problems like the Bios is not working properly, but then he fixed it..and the power is back and running properly..laptop is also using the battery and it can be powered on by it self using the battery. He also told me that he used a direct wiring of my laptop fan –so that it will ran continuously on its own and connected to direct power box of the laptop, so that I won’t experience any over heat problems…
I got worried that time..because my wifi hardware got misplaced, he said he will search for it and use another version of a wifi hardware, he installed it in my laptop, I got some worry that I might encounter some network adapter driver problems at home.. Btw… I brought my laptop here without the Hard Drive, I kept it at home and used it as my external drive. But I forgot to bring it with me so its hard to tell if the laptop will not experience any software driver issues. But the important thing for me that day is that…. laptop power switch is working okay.
After arriving home.. I’m so excited to use my laptop… it ran so smoothly.. and loads so fast, but I noticed that wifi is not working and network adapter driver is missing. so I search online for that driver..after 2 hours of searching and installing it ( I used my wife’s laptop to download the drivers and saved the file to a USB drive) , I failed again…I txted Mike that I’ll return the next day and for him to fix my laptop again. He said that I should go back, bring my laptop with the HD with OS, so that we can test it properly.
Day 2
He said that he found my wifi hardware and he is so happy that he have found it after a clean up. I think it fell on the ground. So he installed it right away and then he installed a driver using the – Driver Pack Solution 3 software, and then the wifi is working fine.
I’m not sure if its my original wifi adaptor, because the only hardware that has – my name – as a marking is the memory card, electric plug. that’s what I remember…
But I suspect that he removed the paper with bar codes intentionally from my wifi hardware, in order for him to replace it with a different (or maybe old 2nd hand ) wifi hardware. Because I remember that the tech girl in SST Laptop, requested that I should write my name using a pentel pen on my memory card and I think also for my wifi hardware. I saw that there’s no paper code on the newly installed wifi hardware. But I just don’t want to think that way..because in this rough times…I still need Mike to fix my laptop.
I don’t want to think that he want to trick me in getting new spare parts from my laptop and replace it with older scrap parts from an old laptop.
But I just want to go home with a laptop that works properly fine and save me Php20,000 to buy a new one.
I told him if he fixed it properly, I will go back there again to let him fix my other 2 laptops. He said that he can fix it so I told him to make a cost estimate on the parts that I need.
He said that my laptop can be upgraded to Core i3…as in whoa!!! my laptop is Duo Core only..but with a price of Php 1000, He can do that by replacing my Duo Core chip with a Core i3. If my laptop works well for 2 months.. I will go back and let him upgrade my Centrino laptop to Duo Core.
I want to say thanks to Mike for fixing it… I still believe that he is honest and a hard working tech guy for their customers.
Here’s the store in Shoppesville in Greenhills…
Core System
they also own the TipidPC.com account: jansenlaptop and coresystem
I'm posting here the contact number of Mike.. if you need laptop repairs, just inquire to him or visit their store in Greenhills.
Here’s the cost estimate for our old laptop
I will go back there next time
I paid Php 1,700 for the laptop repair.
I will go back there again if ever I’ll be in the area, I just want the laptop fan be disconnected to the direct power, because the laptop fan doesn’t stop running even if its in STAND BY MODE. yeah…it still uses the laptop’s battery even if its unplugged.
I will still go back to Coresystem store..bec. they just fixed my defective laptop while I wait.
So what do you think of the service?
