Any recommendations for a shop to replace the body of a laptop?

[dhupverg]

I have a laptop where the body/frame is starting to fall apart.  It is literally being held together by tape and clips.  I was just in the US and a shop said they could replace the whole thing, but I didn't have the time.  It is a 17 inch  hp powerhouse with 32 gbs of ram, 1gb ssd and 3 gb of HDD.  I already bought a cheap new laptop, but I would like to keep this high end spec laptop with a new body.

 

Does anyone have a recommendation for doing this?

 

 

[Raindancer]

Goodfix shop chiang mai in icon plaza on the moat.

[steve187]

are the cases available in Thailand

[impulse]

OP may want to specify what city he's in.

 

If it's Bangkok, my first stop would be Fortune Town at MRT Phra Ram 9 station.  Then it would be a matter of looking for a shop that repairs HP's, and hope they have (or can order) that particular shell.

 

Edit:  I'd also check the benchmark speed of the CPU before I'd dump a bunch of money into it.  My "top of the line" I7 laptop from just a few years ago benchmarks slower than a new I3 laptop that costs today 1/2 or less than mine did when I bought it.

[ChaiyaTH]

Is very rare to come by, you would almost need to start digging on eBay or amazon abroad to find the actual body of a laptop. Isn't exactly a common replacement part, you could still turn it into like a normal PC too though, using something else or some creativity so certainly worth keeping.

[retarius]

Make a new body/frame out of scrap hard wood. Not only serviceable but beautiful as well and much better than factory produced rubbish made from plastic or anodised aluminium. 

[OneMoreFarang]

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad with a bad hinge for the screen. The notebook is maybe 7 years old and working fine. I asked Lenovo and they don't have a spare part to fix this issue. And in general Lenovo ThinkPad are notebooks with one of the best supports. 

[dingdongrb]

26 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

And in general Lenovo ThinkPad are notebooks with one of the best supports. 

Every product has an 'end of life'......  The better companies usually announce when that occurs and when will be the last time service/parts will be available.

[dingdongrb]

To the OP...... trash it and buy a real computer.....  HP Is rubbish and I'll never buy another HP product again!

[OneMoreFarang]

1 minute ago, dingdongrb said:

Every product has an 'end of life'......  The better companies usually announce when that occurs and when will be the last time service/parts will be available.

Yes. I wrote above because in my experience ThinkPad is about as good as it gets about support and spare part. After a couple of years these devices are treated like obsolete, like nobody would ever use them again - even if they are still working. Sad.

[dingdongrb]

6 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Yes. I wrote above because in my experience ThinkPad is about as good as it gets about support and spare part. After a couple of years these devices are treated like obsolete, like nobody would ever use them again - even if they are still working. Sad.

I agree with what you are saying but the companies these days don't care about older models as they like to conjure up newer models with more bells and whistles in order to bring in consistent revenue year-year. (Think iPhone)

 

ThinkPads are great, even back in the IBM days. I still have a couple that work great. The problem when IBM had them was that IBM didn't care about the consumer PC market as they were focused on their mid-to-large mainframes and services. As an ex-IBM employee I was fully aware.

[xylophone]

47 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad with a bad hinge for the screen. The notebook is maybe 7 years old and working fine. I asked Lenovo and they don't have a spare part to fix this issue. And in general Lenovo ThinkPad are notebooks with one of the best supports. 

I've got the same thing happening on my Lenovo Idea Pad and I will have to do something about it soon. As it's not something which I carry around with me and stays in one place all the time, I will have a crack at drilling through the top and bottom parts, missing vital innards, and put a very thin screw/bolt in it.

 

It may sound strange, but I did this with an old Toshiba laptop which someone gave me because the same thing was happening and I did exactly what I suggested above and kept it for another few years, before finally ditching it!

 

I do have an old HP laptop as a backup, but I'm not keen on putting that back into service, however I will have to think again about that.

[TroubleandGrumpy]

1 minute ago, xylophone said:

I've got the same thing happening on my Lenovo Idea Pad and I will have to do something about it soon. As it's not something which I carry around with me and stays in one place all the time, I will have a crack at drilling through the top and bottom parts, missing vital innards, and put a very thin screw/bolt in it.

 

It may sound strange, but I did this with an old Toshiba laptop which someone gave me because the same thing was happening and I did exactly what I suggested above and kept it for another few years, before finally ditching it!

 

I do have an old HP laptop as a backup, but I'm not keen on putting that back into service, however I will have to think again about that.

Youtube - find video on how to dismantle your model.  Always easier to do repairs with bolts/glues etc with the laptop dismantled and the casing clear of components. Good opportunity to clean things up and remove all the dust/lint that collects in there too.  If you can, get some new thermal compound and change it (CPU) - a good clean up will often make it run better/cooler.

[BigStar]

Shop may not have a case. Suggest you search on Aliexpress, lots of spare parts there. Buy a new case and it'll be trivial for a shop to fix you right up.

[Captain Monday]

5 hours ago, retarius said:

Make a new body/frame out of scrap hard wood. Not only serviceable but beautiful as well and much better than factory produced rubbish made from plastic or anodised aluminium. 

Mahogany would be nice. With a backing of rich Corinthian leather 

[dhupverg]

Thanks for the ideas/suggestions.  I am in Phuket if someone happens to know of something besides the basement of big C.

[BigStar]

On 4/14/2024 at 7:33 AM, dhupverg said:

It is a 17 inch【43 cm】  hp powerhouse with 32 gbs of ram, 1gb ssd and 3 gb of HDD.

 

How about giving us the exact model of the "powerhouse."

 

[dhupverg]

6 hours ago, BigStar said:

 

How about giving us the exact model of the "powerhouse."

 

It was custom made.

[BigStar]

3 minutes ago, dhupverg said:

It was custom made.

 

So you can't know what model the case is taken from? I guess checking with shops is your best bet then. Let us know how it goes. Hate to see good machines down & out.

[transam]

On 4/14/2024 at 10:44 AM, retarius said:

Make a new body/frame out of scrap hard wood. Not only serviceable but beautiful as well and much better than factory produced rubbish made from plastic or anodised aluminium. 

Yeh, the Termites could do a bit of Googling when you are not using it..........

[tomazbodner]

Is this ZBook from HP? I didn't try to replace body of 17" ZBook but I did replace body for a friend who dropped it for the 14" Firefly model. It requires taking entire notebook into pieces and putting it back together, but the body was purchased from Lazada from a parts seller in China. I can attest that the parts were identical to original ones (minus the dents), including being made from metal, not plastic.

 

Maybe I can help some more if you pass on the actual laptop model.

[ignore it]

Any recommendations for a shop to replace the body of my aging wife?

 

Works great, memory getting weak...

[dlclark97]

Try this one, HP Thailand.  https://www.hpe.com/asia_pac/en/contact-hpe-thailand.html

[dhupverg]

On 4/17/2024 at 1:29 PM, tomazbodner said:

Is this ZBook from HP? I didn't try to replace body of 17" ZBook but I did replace body for a friend who dropped it for the 14" Firefly model. It requires taking entire notebook into pieces and putting it back together, but the body was purchased from Lazada from a parts seller in China. I can attest that the parts were identical to original ones (minus the dents), including being made from metal, not plastic.

 

Maybe I can help some more if you pass on the actual laptop model.

 

I've got a product id, device id, but finding the actual serial number is proving illusive.  I've run the command prompt wmic bios get serialnumber  which did give me a serial number, but going to hp support's website, they don't have anything even when including the device name.   I've also tried the fn + esc keys and that also gives me nothing.  

[kwak250]

On 4/17/2024 at 8:02 AM, ignore it said:

Any recommendations for a shop to replace the body of my aging wife?

 

Works great, memory getting weak...

Takes ages to warm up?
Press the buttons and nothing works?

need a trade in i think
Plenty out there ,new models turn on so quick and are ready for anything you have

[tomazbodner]

7 minutes ago, dhupverg said:

 

I've got a product id, device id, but finding the actual serial number is proving illusive.  I've run the command prompt wmic bios get serialnumber  which did give me a serial number, but going to hp support's website, they don't have anything even when including the device name.   I've also tried the fn + esc keys and that also gives me nothing.  

If this is still original body, you have serial number printed at the bottom plate, although very small. Alternative is to find HP System Information in All Apps. That lists all details of computer including serial number.

 

Hotkey for it is holding Ctrl and Alt keys together first, then pressing S key.

 

From information above, this seems to be HP Pavilion 17-ab067nr. Is that correct? Not sure if this would fit: https://www.ebay.com/itm/364844380360?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28&var=634391659182&srsltid=AfmBOooluSlsOuJ8DZGXPjbsd7ke_Z8kTBQqP2yW3EcUK6e-jIPOIblFoC0

 

[dhupverg]

1 hour ago, tomazbodner said:

If this is still original body, you have serial number printed at the bottom plate, although very small. Alternative is to find HP System Information in All Apps. That lists all details of computer including serial number.

 

Hotkey for it is holding Ctrl and Alt keys together first, then pressing S key.

 

From information above, this seems to be ,. Is that correct? Not sure if this would fit: https://www.ebay.com/itm/364844380360?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28&var=634391659182&srsltid=AfmBOooluSlsOuJ8DZGXPjbsd7ke_Z8kTBQqP2yW3EcUK6e-jIPOIblFoC0

 

Thanks.  It is indeed a pavillion 17 in, but not sure of the model number, but looks to be quite similar in the hp product page  https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05177219.  ctrl alt s didn't work for me and there's nothing on the bottom of unit now that is visible.  I'll ping that seller on ebay, thank you.