1 hour ago, LongTimeLurker said:

I've had the opposite experience, they didn't want to touch my 'phone with a bargepole

Can I guess your phone was not a Samsung ?

I had similar experience with  Acer and Asus phones.

1 hour ago, LongTimeLurker said:

I've had the opposite experience, they didn't want to touch my 'phone with a bargepole when i had a faulty screen (so I thought), but driving away I spotted an outside shop and popped in as a last resort.

 

The lady 'cold booted' the 'phone and the screen was working perfectly and her husband looked at it and I got it back good as new. It still works to this day although the battery doesn't charge so well.

 

Unfortunately that shop no longer exists so when I went back to indoor Tukcom to see if I can find someone to cannabalise two 'phones into one, again they were not interested.

 

It is possible that now with the virus they have closed the small stalls, I don't know.

Before in Tukcom there were large houses (Samsung, Apple, ...) and large telephone stores, but there were also small telephone repair stations, some of them less than 4 square meters, with hardly room for a table of work.

In those small stalls they didn't sell phones, they just fixed them, and they were very interested in the repairs. Normally at a low price, although it was convenient to ask for a quote on several before hiring.

I guess the large telephone stores all they want to do is sell new phones and take their commission.

 

 

1 hour ago, LongTimeLurker said:

i had a faulty screen (so I thought), ... I spotted a shop and popped in...

 

The lady 'cold booted' the 'phone and the screen was working perfectly ... It still works to this day.

 

Funny. Same thing also happened to me in Spain with my Samsung Galaxy S7.

 

Formerly, in the previous store, after taking it to the workshop and examining it for a few minutes, they told me that they had to change the screen and the repair would cost 150 euros.

 

17 hours ago, Espanol said:

I think that they specialise in Apple there.

 

Is this a 'funny'?

 

Whilst that is the name of this current shop; his former shop inside Tukcom did PC repairs. So he can do the job; he's just a bit lackadaisical.

15 hours ago, Espanol said:

Funny. Same thing also happened to me in Spain with my Samsung Galaxy S7.

Mine did it just after getting back to the UK and it was relatively new, scared me a lot as I was using it for so many things, Wi-Fi hotspot for one. Did that reset trick and all seemed to be OK and never an issue again.... I have upgraded my phone since, but the old S7 is in a drawer and still works fine..... although the battery does not last long, built in obsolescence.

@giddyup Having owned a chain of computer shops back in Australia, I think I can offer an explanation as the the price for repair of "just the power button".

See the picture below where you can see the power button is incorporated into a keyboard assembly (a sealed unit), the button itself is not replaceable. (and often not the fault)

 

To get to the underside of the keyboard, to correctly diagnose that the keyboard assembly is faulty, (short 2 pins on the ribbon cable connection between keyboard and motherboard) usually requires a 80-90% dismantling the laptop, remove motherboard etc. This takes time/labor.

 

When you press a power button it usually sends a voltage to a 6-8 pin mosfet (19v) on the motherboard, which turns on a voltage that then turns on another mosfet (5v) etc etc. Usually a complete diagnosis would test all the mosfet/power ccts. Most of the time it is just the keyboard assembly but a proper diagnosis would also test all the individual mosfet power circuits (find and inject the various voltages to the gates of the mosfets and measure output). this takes time.

 

So, what appears to be "just a power switch" ends up being a lot of labor dismantling and testing, (often chasing up scematic/pin outs for that laptop) a faulty keyboard that has to be ordered, delivered and paid for, re assembly etc. 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

I got the laptop back yesterday after approx 1.5 days of repair.

It works well.

The repair guy said something on the graphics card had run too hot and failed, he had to replace a chip.

So my diagnostics were wrong.

 

And my laptop runs much better than before. I think its performance had degraded over the past months without me noticing. in fact, I have had a couple of temp shutdowns a year ago which stopped after I renewed the thermal paste, I thought that solved the problem. Apparently, the graphics card had already suffered damage.

Not a simple repair. It was certainly worth my 3500 baht.

 

So my hat is off to Pattaya2U and they got my recommendation as well !

 

I'd also like to note that we are really lucky to have such repair shops at our disposal here, because such repairs are rarely possible in the Western world.

On 8/10/2021 at 2:35 PM, johng said:

Can I guess your phone was not a Samsung ?

I had similar experience with  Acer and Asus phones.

It IS a Samsung, but not one available in Thailand.