Even for those of you who feel it is no mystery to pop open the side of your computer, making your own laptop repair is a different matter. Computer manufacturers send their engineers out to do whatever it takes to shrink powerful computers down into sleek and lightweight notebooks. They use miniature internal components and clever Tetris philosophy to fit the keyboard, mainboard, hard drive and everything else into such a small package, so they should get a lot of credit. However, in most cases it seems like repairing or even upgrading laptops was a secondary consideration. Sometimes laptop repairs, even by expert technicians are prohibitively pricey of just plain impossible. Of course the manufacturers usually void the warranty if you attempt to open the case yourself, so you'd better be sure you know what you're doing if your delve inside. The cases are so devilishly designed that it's also a challenge just to get inside of the notebook case to attempt any of your own alterations. But that may not be necessary in the cases where the major components are just tucked underneath the keyboard, which you can pop open.

Laptop repairs are nothing like working with desktop computers that have large cases and large components. Everything is much smaller, like the hard drive and the RAM sticks. These devices are also much more expensive, and in some cases they're firmly affixed to the case or the mainboard. This is why the expert technicians make the big bucks for getting the job done. But some manufacturers and humiliated techies admit that they can't do anything and they advise you to return the equipment to the factory repair center. These hectic warehouses are usually located far away where the mail system run irregularly, and not at all on the first and third Tuesdays of the month for volunteer fireman training. Once you get authorization from the manufacturer's call center (a repair or ticket number) you will have to send in the whole notebook computer and bide your time for several weeks, up to months. Don't be surprised if their prognosis is terminal. It's up to their discretion to scrap the whole machine and send you another one. It's certainly a good idea to back up the data on your hard drive and kiss it goodbye, you may never see it again.