Friend has a problem

[astoroth88]

My friend has a Mega Book laptop, 4gigs, xp pro, geforce 8600 yada yada.
The problem pertains to the AC port ON the laptop, one of our other friends tripped on the power cord, yanking the power cord out of the laptop and ever since that incident he hasn't been able to recharge his battery and his outlet on the laptop heats up incredibly hot, almost enough to burn the skin! Now a local computer repair shop, although I personally think they're just there to pull in as much money as possible for the smallest problems, even though this isn't exactly small. ANYWAY, they claim it's the lines running from the power outlet to the motherboard are loose and they have to replace everything to fix it! this sounds expensive to me seeing as it pertains to a laptop. (go figure, laptops being expensive :rolleyes: ) My friend wants a 2nd opinion on this, so i've given you the incident which led to said symptoms, and the symptoms and a repair shops diagnosis. Now, what do you guys think? They want to replace the whole motherboard connection to the power outlet on the laptop.

[PrntRhd]

You would have to inspect the connection to see if it can be simply re-soldered or if it requires a board replacement

[mjc]

What exactly do they mean by 'everything'?

Usually, a laptop has a connector mounted directly to the motherboard...and when the cord gets yanked like that it breaks the internal connections of the connector. The fix is to replace that connector.

But, sometimes, the traces on the motherboard break or get pulled loose from the substrate...that usually means a new motherboard or some serious, warranty voiding hardware hacking...

Also, a large number of laptops have the connector attached to a 'daughter board'. If it has one of those, the fix is to just replace the daughter board. The connection from the daughter board to the motherboard is usually flexible and is able to withstand quite a bit of punishment.

In any case, though, the fact that things heat up is indicative of there being a short in the power subsystem.

[astoroth88]

See, I tried to take a look in it but there is a spot on the case that's completely sealed off from normal tool access, you need some special item to open it I'm guessing, cuz I got all the screws out and it wouldn't budge on the back edge. Yea there is a short obviously, but I cannot say for sure because I cannot get into the system to take a quick look. By "everything" I mean what ever the power is connected to inside.