Repair Stories
These are stories, written by people just like yourself, all about repair. Some end well; some end poorly, but all are fascinating tales of repair adventures. Read through some of the stories below, and perhaps you will be inspired to fix some of your own things — even the ones that aren't broken... yet.
I am a Radioman onboard the mighty USS Michigan SSGN 727. We do work on computers and other assorted communications devices daily. We are always running into weird screws, and always looking for small screwdrivers. I saw this kit and just had to have it. I've already talked at least 3-4 other people onboard into buying their own, since they are always asking to borrow mine.
My 2010 MacBook Pro was running out of space from its stock 320GB 5400rpm. It was also getting slower and slower as the free space was running out. Boot times were taking much longer than they should and some apps would take their time loading. So I bought an SSD to solve the issue.
My Macbook Pro was overheating while gaming in Windows 7/bootcamp due to the terrible job that apple did applying thermal paste to my cpu and gpu at the factory.
Reclaiming drives from broken devices, and replacing a broken drive with a new one, repairing broken drives and using them as external storage. PLUS A BONUS! -- Reclaiming an old DVD/CD burner from my ten year old G5 tower. It works great as an external DVD/CD drive to my MacBook Pro!
My 360 is about 6 years old, and it's been able to play most of my games without me ever even opening up the case. I never sent it in for repairs, it seemed like a waste of money and I think Microsoft is an unreliable company when it comes to customer support. Recently I've had to open it up three times in order to try to reduce fan rattling noise. But, this latest time it shut off right as I was loading a game, and I got the dreaded 3 red lights. I had a feeling it was because it overheated, it had issues with that before, getting 2 red lights (not like it was under-ventilated, but I took an air gun to it and sprayed a cloud of dust out). I looked on ifixit, and sure enough the most common cause of 3 red rings is overheating melting the solder. I was sure nothing was wrong with the input, power cables, or disc drive. Nothing else happened to indicate it, so I bought a RROD fix kit from this website.
My 2011 iMac was getting slow and was low on disk space.
So I added a 512MB SSD and while I was inside I replaced the 512MB HD with a 2TB HD.
avoid to carry external drive with removing optical drive with iFixit
IPhone 3GS battery expanded like a balloon. Pulled five of the six metal inserts out of the back cover, bent the circuit board, popped the screen off. Phone sure looked like toast...
IFixit battery was not the cheapest - but I was sure I would get a good one that worked in my phone.
Root beer happened to my keyboard. Though I immediately shut the laptop down and inverted it on paper towels — thus probably saving the rest of its innards — the N, H, Y, 6, F5, /, -, and + keys all went kaput in the end. Removing the keycaps and cleaning with rubbing alcohol was to no avail — something was fried, so my only option was to replace the keyboard.
After replacing the broken digitizer with a new one, I noticed that although the home button worked, it was depressed below where it should be flush.
A tear down of the phone found that the glue on the old gasket I transferred was no longer holding the button in place.
I had to replace the digitizer again anyways, so I just waited until both things arrived and did both again at the same time.
My iPod stopped working and the battery would not recharge. My iPod needed a new battery.
The screen went black around New Year, and I hoped it would be fixed by replacing the LCD panel, but it didn't. It seems to be a much more complex issue and I would probably have to hand it in to an Apple repair expert. I talked to a guy at an Apple shop, here in Stockholm, who seemed to know what he was talking about.
Since it's from late 2008, I probably won't attempt a repair, but instead buy a new external display, so I can use when in a second home. I bought a Macmini to replace it, which I have at home.
The display on my wife's old MacBook would darken to a black screen at the worst possible moment. The iFixit site helped me figure out it was the Display Inverter. I ordered the parts but didn't get to the task until three months later.
My iPhone 3G S has been one of the greatest phones I've ever owned. Each of my family members have one. Two of them recently started shutting off with no warning due to aging batteries. Take more than a couple of pictures? It dies. Facebook app for more than a minute? It dies. Battery percent below 75? It dies. TIME FOR A NEW BATTERY.
I had issues with both my hard drive and my fan. Both were making lots of noise and the hard drive was failing diagnostics. I replaced the hard drive first, using the videos from ifixit, and then I ordered the parts and tools to do the fan also.
Phone was randomly turning off, only seemed to happen when the battery was under 50%. Assumed it was a old worn battery so ordered a replacement
I done cracked my fancy cellphone screen. Gorilla glass my !@#! (Although I hear gorillas are emotionally fragile...)
Spilt beer on keyboard. After a dry out period I confirmed that the computer still worked, as did the keyboard, but after a brief warm up period the keys would get sticky and the aroma of the the ale became more evident.
My iPhone 4S dismounted from my bike when I ran over a rumble strip and it bounced into the travel lane where it was run over twice leaving me with a functioning device that had lost its screen protector and home button, which were torn off by the initial tire contact. The monster glass shattered into a mosaic of a few hundred pieces that still responded to my finger touches (with some 'cutting' complaints) and the underlying display was pretty much unaffected. Aside from the glass, the only anomalous behavior was the battery recharging. It still seemed to recharge, but with a declining maximum until it eventually (after about the 3rd recharge) wouldn't stay above 2%. I suspected that the battery was compromised from the crushing force and I was advised (after posting here) to stop recharging since I might find circuitry damage causing shorts that would only do more damage while plugged in.
After upgrading memory in mac spent three days and the computer connected with the symbol of a folder with a question mark ... I tried to wiggle the cord, clean, fit again but nothing resolved. I heard of another case with an acquaintance who already changed 3 times the cable. I decided to buy and you risk the exchange.
My old 2006 20" iMac 2.0 Core Duo started shutting down randomly and would not turn on. It became impossible to use and I had to do something. I looked at a new iMac and the base model with tax would have cost me over 1,400.00. I did some research and my computer model seems to have been susceptible to power issues.The repair seemed like a logical choice since the probability of success was high.
Power button got stuck, couldn't press down any longer plus battery was dying.
Computer suddenly lost power and would not restart. No power at all. Tried different power cable. Tried resetting power management unit.
My I-Phone was no longer holding a charge.
I was scrolling on instagram in the bathroom. As I arose from the toilet I inexplicably grew 7 ft tall and my iphone took the drop of death. The LCD violently ripped from the front glass rendering my phone unusable.
A mother having to discipline her unruly teenage sun needed a lesson in respect and responsibility and therefore took the iPhone 4S from her son. Threatening to destroy the phone the teenage son dared the mother which obviously did not go well in his favor of a bluff and the mother took a knife to it. OUCH!!
Just needed to get pentalobe screwdriver to replace my screws after changing the rear panel.
My buddy stepped on his iPod Touch 4G and thought he was going to do the repair himself. Unfortunately, the overseas company he ordered his replacement screen from did not include the adhesive strips and he had no idea how much was involved on the 4G. I offered to do it for him.
I needed a screwdriver to open my macbook pro retina and could not find anywhere!
My iMac went dark and I didn't want to give a repair service access to my hard drive which has personal information. I trust no one with my computer. So what a relief to find ifixit! I was encouraged by the detailed instruction on how to replace the power supply so I ordered one and took a chance. Replacing my iMac was just too expensive.
One of my employees dropped their phone and shattered the rear glass panel.
My MacBook was actually having trouble to charge the battery and the LED on the plug of the MagSafe was switching on/off without any good reason. I made a "cross test" : I pluged my MagSafe Power Adaptor to another laptop and the LED was staying on. So the Adaptor was not the one to blame :).
Then I pluged a recent Power Adaptor to my MacBook and the LED problem appeared again.
So I decided to change the plug of the computer which is attached to the DC-In Board card.
The rear panel was crushed. I was afraid that water/humidity could enter the phone and destroy it. I like the iPhone and hope it will work for a few more years. PS, I still have the first iPhone1 and it still works.(Backup phone). So I decided to fix it and found ifixit on the web.
The optical drive had stopped working, and I was trying to breathe new life into the 2007 MacBook
My late model 2008 Macbook Pro has been a gem, but all of a sudden the right fan started to give out, the left would be clocked at over 6000rpm while the right was dredging at barely 2000. It was time, after 4 years, to swap the components out.
While in Japan my Mac suddenly stopped working. I noticed that my Magsafe light wasn't indicating any charged nor charging light was on checked my battery since I had previous problems with batteries and noticed it was pretty much dead low, however it was functional and in good shape. Puzzled I go to of my co-workers who has another Magsafe charger and plugged it in, nothing.
At that point I checked the Magsafe and notice some damage and came in conclusion it was that it had to be replaced. A quick visit to ifixit.com showed me the part as the left I/O board.
Tokyo has some nice stores but after 2-3 hours searching Akihabara (electronic city) no one had anything. I ordered the part from ifixit.com and only used my iPad and Samsung Infuse as my connections to the world.
A day after my arrival from Tokyo to Texas the part arrives and the fun begins.
My MacBook (Model 1181) is in pristine condition, so getting a new one seemed wasteful. After doing an internet search on possible causes of intermittent track pad and keyboard failure, I found it to be a consistent problem with these models. I ran thru the prescribe checks and decided to change out the upper case cable instead of the whole upper case, $30.00 vs. $150.00 plus.
My PlayStation 3 died with the YLOD problem and I wanted to retrieve my saved files, game disc and media.
The time between turning on the PS3 and having it shutdown without warning grew shorter and shorter until it wouldn't power on at all.
And then I saw the lights flash yellow.
My external microphone stopped working after I successfully repaired a failed telephone ear speaker. I'm not sure if the mic failure was related to my speaker repair or just a coincidence. The mic was not disturbed during the speaker repair.
one of the main reasons to buy the ps3 slim was the power consumption and shrinked cpu/gpu diode, therefore cooler and more silent hardware. additionally it received this amazingly quite, improved and bigger fan upgrade. but a noise still remained in a super silent environment... the vibration from the fan caused the heatsink and therefore the case to emmit this buzzing noise.
My MBP15 had the too much thermal paste problem, with constant 6krpm fans running. And, consequently the left fan was worn out, sounding like a two-stroke chainsaw. Worse, it never revved up beyond 2500rpm, so heat became an issue. 103° C on the CPU is Not Good.
Due to a battery malfunction ( became bigger) I lost access door