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.
the mouse was bouncing all over the screen! it was clicking and highlighting stuff - it had a mind of its own! I thought that the NSA had hacked my computer!!!
My old battery was making my Iphone turn off all the time and turning it on only in charger.
My 2 y/o picked up my wife's phone and dropped it right at her feet on the tile in the bathroom, smashing the display
The old battery was dying very quickly. I would switch off 3G to save battery, but it would still die on my way to work :-(
So my circa 1995 Sega Nomad was having some issues due to an unfortunate match between my basement, it and flood water. Needless to say, there were a few things that didn't work anymore such as the LCD screen or the NiIMH battery pack.
This phone served me well but the battery needed replacement after 3 years.
The glass back was cracked. Did I drop it? Did my wife? Was it spontaneous combustion? No one will ever know - it was inside a case at the time.
I received a non working iPod Video and decided to see if I could repair it. It would not stay charged and it wouldn't reformat. I thought I would see about replacing the battery and get it working again.
my mom uses the wii to play animal crossing. it's a great stress reliever and a nice rock in her life. recently, the DVD drive gave out and refused to read any discs at all.
There were 2 phones that needed to be fixed. One with a broken screen and the other was bricked. The broken screen is self explanatory. The bricked device was a Motorola Droid Razr Maxx. He bricked it to where it wouldn't charge. So eventually the phone just died. I could get enough power in it to start it up and get to the fastboot screen, but that's it. Everything I could get it into wouldn't charge the phone. I had to tear it down, and manually charge the battery in order to use fastboot to restore the phone to stock.
One day, my MacBook Pro mid 2010 model was acting strange. There were times it starting freezing which I thought it was odd. CPU cores were spiking at 100%. Maybe it was the hard drive I thought?
The following day it got even worse...to the point that even typing a single character took 3 seconds for the display to update. Went to the Apple Store and the first "genius" guy told me it was the hard drive because a 'warning' sign appeared during the hardware diagnostic but I felt he wasn't doing it properly. So the following day I went back and got another genius and told him discreetly, "Give me a FULL hardware diagnostic. Turns out, he told me that the warning sign on the hard drive appeared because I was using 3rd party hard drive, the same goes with my 3rd party RAM - this is normal and a non-issue. He discovered the real culprit (where the first genius guy failed to notice) was indeed the fan (I must say he was really thorough and happy with his service).
The dead fan caused all the sensors in the MacBook Pro to go haywire. So I went to you guys and ordered one.
My daughter dropped her (our old) iPhone 3GS and shattered the front glass. Her phone needed frequent charging so while I was repairing it, I decided to go ahead and get a new battery also. Took the opportunity to go ahead and order a new 4S rear panel for my wife's phone that was also cracked from a different drop.
The original battery was defective so I went to the source ifixit.com and the process was incredible!!
After 2 years of heavy usage, my iPhone 4 could barely last half a day, but otherwise worked perfectly fine. I was reluctant to buy a new phone, so I thought I'll give the replacement battery on ifixit a shot.
The fan on my MacBook Pro was reaching its end. It was terrible noisy ! I was in the middle of a programming project for the iPhone and making video guide for the new software, when the fan of my computer broke down. I had to stop all recording (Big Blue Yeti mic, ScreenFlow recording...).
MacBook fan was starting to sound like a mini jetplane taking off. The fan seemed to only have two speeds, 1000rpm and 6000rpm. Because of overheating problems, the computer would slow down and sometimes crash. I decided it was worth trying to replace the fan and clean out the heat sink.
screen broken and rear case with too much miles.
The on/off button doesn't work and there was no volume up/down button
Oh! And the battery was almost dead :)
As for many users, my 3GS ran out of battery too easily and often, and I was fed up by Apple's repair costs...
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.
