Near Hopeless Laptop Repair
WAY WAY south of the border. UPS, mail, computer parts a thing of dreams. An OLD laptop works fine. Dead battery. Power supply 19.5 volt brick burned its circuit board. 2.8 amps @ 19.5 volts. Batt...
Forum Discussion
The price is not an issue. ADUANA. Mexican CUSTOMS has every and all last method of shipping diverted to Mexico City. No PC's are allowed only laptops. There is a hundred dollar allowance made for personal items. After that it's full bore right up the chute. The 329 dollar computer would become five hundred dollars after taxes, and the nearest ANYTHING office is A THOUSAND MILE ROUND TRIP. Using Mexican mail would cause a massacre. Seven or eight people would be trying to kill the others to get their hands on the Postal Laptop (after it clears customs in Mexico City - but it would never get there by mail. Try four or five miles afer crossing the border. It is REALLY discouraging.
I had to use intense magnification and a direct beam of a 30 watt LED lamp to make out the 19.5 volts. The pin polarity orientation had been rubbed completely off.
The store taxes are on the hard drive and they can't even access their cloud account. Federal tax is infinitely more cumbersome than any USA tax. It takes hours and hours to complete. When someone goes a THOUSAND ROUND TRIP MILES they will pick up a computer.
When I asked the store manager at Costco Morelia Michoacan WHY a computer that cost four hundred dollars in the USA cost almost seven hundred dollars in COSTCO. Here is his verbatim reply:
"This is not the USA"
The computers were absolutely identical. They were PC's.
There is absolutely no way to get around the mail / commercial carrier 10-day detour to Mexico City.
Think this is bad? Aduana assessed a THREE HUNDRED PERCENT TAX on a tourist's Honda axle shipped direct from Japan (the only source).
Flip a coin time. I'm going to solder the old tip onto the Compaq's brick with center pin positive and hope for the best. After cutting off the injection molded plug sleeve, I am left with manufacturing a sleeve using multiple layers of 3/8" 4/1 heat shrink tubing.
Can you imagine a cell phone store selling a used 1.0 GHz 2008 laptop with Windows XP Espa?ol for TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS? The battery is no good. And it's only a 155 mile drive distance.
But to put this issue to sleep, may I say I am supremely pleased with the information about polarity and the compatibility of a 19.0 volt brick from my old Compaq. I know you folks cannot know about the hassles of shipping stuff in (My new BiPAP masks worth $400 were seized in 2008).
I grin and flippem-off driving through Customs at the border when contrabanding merchandise. My LED lights are being sold at prices affordable to Mexicans. On top of everything else, the fishing cooperative here employing 800 in a town of 3,000 went bankrupt last February.
Thank goodness the USA has Canada and Mexico as neighbors instead of Iran and North Korea.
But a minor but important miracle was achieved thanks to you. Happy New Year! ¡Prospero Año Nuevo A Todos!
I had to use intense magnification and a direct beam of a 30 watt LED lamp to make out the 19.5 volts. The pin polarity orientation had been rubbed completely off.
The store taxes are on the hard drive and they can't even access their cloud account. Federal tax is infinitely more cumbersome than any USA tax. It takes hours and hours to complete. When someone goes a THOUSAND ROUND TRIP MILES they will pick up a computer.
When I asked the store manager at Costco Morelia Michoacan WHY a computer that cost four hundred dollars in the USA cost almost seven hundred dollars in COSTCO. Here is his verbatim reply:
"This is not the USA"
The computers were absolutely identical. They were PC's.
There is absolutely no way to get around the mail / commercial carrier 10-day detour to Mexico City.
Think this is bad? Aduana assessed a THREE HUNDRED PERCENT TAX on a tourist's Honda axle shipped direct from Japan (the only source).
Flip a coin time. I'm going to solder the old tip onto the Compaq's brick with center pin positive and hope for the best. After cutting off the injection molded plug sleeve, I am left with manufacturing a sleeve using multiple layers of 3/8" 4/1 heat shrink tubing.
Can you imagine a cell phone store selling a used 1.0 GHz 2008 laptop with Windows XP Espa?ol for TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS? The battery is no good. And it's only a 155 mile drive distance.
But to put this issue to sleep, may I say I am supremely pleased with the information about polarity and the compatibility of a 19.0 volt brick from my old Compaq. I know you folks cannot know about the hassles of shipping stuff in (My new BiPAP masks worth $400 were seized in 2008).
I grin and flippem-off driving through Customs at the border when contrabanding merchandise. My LED lights are being sold at prices affordable to Mexicans. On top of everything else, the fishing cooperative here employing 800 in a town of 3,000 went bankrupt last February.
Thank goodness the USA has Canada and Mexico as neighbors instead of Iran and North Korea.
But a minor but important miracle was achieved thanks to you. Happy New Year! ¡Prospero Año Nuevo A Todos!
