Reformatt Computer Services

24/03/2026

I get many phone calls about replacing HDMI ports on gaming consoles (mostly PS5). I hadn't pulled any apart in ages, so bought a PS5 myself in order to work out what's involved. Wasn't going to experiment on a customers machine.

There are many screws! But what was quite amazing was the amount of dust that had clogged the heatsinks on this unit. It was quite amazing this thing hadn't died considering how choked it was. This is worse usually when the owners have pets! The hair gets sucked in and combined with dust entirely clogs it up.

Replacement of the port is straightforward if you have the skills with hot air. The most time consuming aspect with these machines is getting the main board out, clearing out the dust and removing all the heatsink components from the board. The other issue is the liquid metal on the APU oxidising and creating a spot where there is poor heat transfer. This needs attention prior to reassembly.

Anyway am now offering HDMI replacements on the PS5 consoles.

12/03/2026

I was contacted this week by a customer who had taken their Lenovo Ideapad laptop to another shop for a screen lid replacement due to a broken hinge. Long story short, the laptop display went very dim the day after they got it back (no backlight). The shop tried another screen and cable, could not resolve the problem and returned it to the customer as being a no fix. They cannot perform motherboard repairs so was out of their scope.

So luckily, the customer sought me out to see if I could fix the motherboard. He'd done some research and testing, and asked if I could replace the screen fuse FG2. Yes I could, however fuses don't fail for no reason and it would likely blow again.

So the laptop was brought to me (in pieces might I add). I reassembled it all, replaced the missing screws, and found the +19V power rail to the screen was shorted to ground within the LCD cable itself. Hence the fuse FG2 did it's job and blew. Replacement of this fuse (3 amps 0402 size) is relatively easy for board repairers. For reference, this machine has a NM-D701 motherboard fitted.

So LCD cable and fuse replacement was able to resolve the missing backlight. A relatively straightforward repair that was done with the week, the longest time was waiting for the new LCD cable to arrive from a local supplier. This customer had been waiting since the beginning of January only to be told 2 months later it wasn't fixable.

I was told the shop was waiting for a screen for 4 weeks, and another 4 weeks for a cable? This can be the case if you are going through official resellers like EMPR as they rarely have any stock and lead time is 4-6 weeks. These parts, while genuine, often are significantly more expensive and take forever to get. So we often use other local suppliers, or from Chinese traders on Aliexpress for harder to get parts. This often makes a repair viable price wise and usually less time to get them, even from China, than the official parts supplier.

So if you are told by someone your laptop isn't repairable, at least ask someone like me for a 2nd opinion before you throw it out. You might be pleasantly surprised!

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19/01/2026

2026 is looking to be a rough year for those in the Computer industry and other industries connected to it, such as Smartphones and Tablets.

RAM and SSD prices are through the roof due to manufacturers prioritising high bandwidth memory (HBM) over conventional DRAM. Large orders and higher buy prices from AI data centres means the poor old consumer is going to miss out. Take this video from a repairer who was reselling business laptops for resale. The suppliers are removing the RAM and SSD's as these are now worth more than the laptop itself.

The scale of what is happening in the AI space has now pushed companies like Apple into 2nd place with fabs like TSMC in Taiwan. In fact, TSMC's revenue is now coming primarily from the AI space, and not Apple. So Apple's influence in being able to dictate prices is somewhat diminished - prices for their products will inevitably rise. For those that don't follow, most of the worlds processors for smartphones, video cards and computers come from TSMC. The AI revolution is having a pronounced effect on many things in the electronics space, and as supplies run out, you will see prices increase dramatically.

The scale of what is being built for AI is absolutely insane. Google Colossus 2 for what Musk is building in Tennessee. They have their own power station that they recommissioned just to run it.

My goal was always to fight the "disposable tech" trend by flooding the market with reliable, repairable used business-class laptops. But because of the deva...

15/01/2026

WTF is going on with Microsoft and Windows? What used to be a great operating system is turning to s**t. Some are now dubbing them Microslop. They've now proclaimed that Windows will be an 'Agentic OS' - in other words WIndows is progressively being replaced by AI features and advertising.

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of this AI crap being shoved down my throat. I think this is Microsoft's way of dethroning Google by supplanting their search engine. If you ask the Copilot AI now to look for something, it will use Bing instead of Google. But judging by this video, Copilot has the least market share out of all the AI search engines.

We all thought years ago that Nokia was unassailable as the king of the mobile phones. But they got arrogant and totally dismissed the iPhone at the time. Now where are they?

Microsoft currently make more money out of the corporate dealings like Azure and subscriptions. Regular consumers now are at the bottom and now they only care about selling your data, shoving ads in your face and stealing your searches from Google and transferring it to Bing. We're being treated like battery hens.

Microsoft need to change course or we're back to the bad old days of Windows 8!

Windows seems to be on a downward trajectory. With Microsoft trying to force as much AI into as possible, what will the future of the operating system look ...

15/01/2026

I guess only the true computer nerds out there will find this funny...

BTW, Scott Adams (the author of Dilbert) just passed away. We have his comics to remember him by. RIP.

15/11/2025

It's AI but very well done 😄

Explore this post and more from the aivideos community

02/05/2025

I must get 2 or 3 calls a week asking for Apple Macbook screen replacements!

The problem is, that Apple have made this near impossible to perform for 3rd party repairers on these latest models.

Sourcing a genuine display isn't possible unless you are part of the Independent Repair Program (which is impossible for me to gain access to as I don't have a shop front), or Self Service Repair (something that is still not available in Australia).

I can source 'Aftermarket' displays from China, and these for the most part perform pretty well. My main issue as a repairer, is that the warranty on them is usually limited to 90 days. Any issues after fitting are usually physical damage in nature. Doesn't matter how it happened, if the screen is cracked, the screen is cracked. Physical damage is NOT covered by any supplier.

But the latest issues on these new models (with the notch around the Facetime camera) is that they need calibration after a screen replacement. They use active backlight zones to accommodate for the notch - failure to calibrate will have this in the wrong place. Some repairers are actually disassembling screens to transfer the 2 chips that store this calibration data. A lot of work for what used to be a simple process.

If you buy the part from Apple via the Self Service Program, you get access to the calibration tools. But this is still not available in Australia. Even if it was, the cost of the part usually is greater than what the repair would cost if you took it directly to Apple! They always win.

One customer was quoted an eye watering $908 for a display replacement for a 2020 M1 Macbook Air. $908 for a 5 year old design laptop. Most would not bother, and instead buy a new Macbook. They still win.

And yet, every person that rings me does NOT have AppleCare! You are mad if you buy the Ferrari of the computer world without insurance. Especially if you have kids!

01/04/2025

So a customer brought in her sons Lenovo L14 gen 2 laptop today after having a not so pleasant experience at another repairer local to Noosa.

Fault was not turning on. The other repairer said he knew what the fault would be and would have to send it away to Sydney. I'm guessing they thought it was a faulty USB-C port. And the customer was told that no one else in Noosa was capable of repairing it. Apparently comments were made to the effect that we are all akin to Gorilla's with crayons and she has no hope!!

Each to their own I guess 😄

Cut to the chase, all it needed was a CMOS reset and it came back to life. This is the removal of the small 3V backup battery, which in this laptop is separate to the main battery. Sometimes the settings for the BIOS get corrupted and can result in a seemingly dead laptop. We reset it by removing and reinstalling the 3V battery.

We all sometimes can get carried away, thinking a fault is more complex than what it is before doing the basic stuff first. And so it was in this case. It was comparing everyone else here as morons that made this one notable. People in glass houses, maybe shouldn't throw stones!

And they wonder why they got kicked out of Noosa Civic.

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23/07/2024

If you are considering buying a school laptop, the one brand you should pass over is Acer. They are just not built to last.

One thing the manufacturers like Acer are doing is making a chassis that isn't very rigid. Most people will open a laptop lid from one side or the other, rather than the middle. This causes a twisting effect on the base of the laptop as the lid is opened. If the chassis is weak, like a lot of Acer (and Asus) laptops, this will result in the motherboard also being twisted as well. This always results in early failure of the laptops motherboard.

Case in point is an Acer Aspire A515-47 dropped in for not working. When the unit was opened, it was obvious how much the laptop would twist when the lid was opened. When the motherboard was removed, no obvious faults could be found. But applying slight pressure to the CPU (in the red box in the picture), the laptop would power on successfully. This proves the fault is broken solder joints under the CPU itself. The joints are broken because of the twisting and flexing of the motherboard. This laptop is just over a year old and already has failed. Fix is to either remove the CPU and reball it, or replace the board. But due to the bad design of this laptop, the same fault will just reoccur again. The original cause of the fault is still there regardless.

I am seeing this fault more and more common now as the build quality of these new laptops continues to deteriorate. If the laptop is under two years old, it is covered by Australian Consumer Law warranty. But even if it is over, I believe a case could be mounted for replacement by Acer under the 'fair use' policy as it is such a poor design.

09/07/2024

Insects often like to crawl inside laptops and often die. This isn't a problem per se, unless it happens to be on somewhere like the motherboard.

A case recently where a 2020 Macbook Pro was taken to Apple as not working. They quoted her a replacement motherboard and Touch ID (as it is married to the board by Apple at the factory). They did note some minor corrosion, and said it would be over $1000 to repair it. She was somewhat shocked and wanted a 2nd opinion.

Apple do not repair motherboards (at least, not for the general public). They will send a faulty board back to a repair centre, but will only ever exchange boards to the end user. Often the fault can be quite minor, for those that do component level diagnosis and repair anyway.

Anyhow, this motherboard had a small area of green corrosion next to one of the CD3217 USB-C port controllers. The rest of the board was perfect. This corrosion was very likely caused by a dead insect, and as it decomposed it corroded that area. This process may have taken some months to occur.

Once these components were removed and the area cleaned up, the copper pads that two of the components were soldered to had completely been eaten away. Replaced the components and ran a jumper wire to make up for the broken connection. And viola, the Macbook fired up and worked ok.

Turned out to be a far cheaper repair than the $1000+ quoted. So before you take your laptop to Apple and think you'd be better buying another one, get a 2nd opinion from a electronics technician who does board repairs. Like me!

04/05/2024

One of the major design issues with all new Macbook laptops from around 2018 (or the Macbook Pro's from 2016) are the displays and how they are attached to the body of the MAC. Most people are unaware of this flaw and often find they get lines or breakup on the display despite there being no apparent damage to the display itself.

Displays on older models used a round cable, made of finely stranded wire that is resistant to metal fatigue from opening and closing of the lid. From 2016 (on Macbook Pro's), Apple changed this design to a flat ribbon cable instead. All models from 2018 now use this flat ribbon cable design. This was built in obsolescence. They went from something that never failed to a design that will fail at some point.

The main issue here is that at the bottom of the MAC, there is an opening where these cables are exposed. So if any dirt, sand or grit get in there, it will damage these cables. The cables are quite difficult to replace, and Apple will not provide any warranty on this defect. I had a 2020 Macbook Air in with lines on the display - you could see sand on the bezel so this MAC had obviously been to the beach.

Note that Apple do not sell these displays to 3rd parties. There are aftermarket displays, however they usually come with limited, if any, warranty from the sellers. Quotes for replacement displays often exceed $700 or more. The 15" and 16" models are the most expensive at over $1000. This is how most MAC's end up on the scrap pile. The displays are often that expensive, that users will opt to replace the entire laptop.

So keep your MAC very clean to avoid this issue. Apple do not acknowledge it, but as I repair these things, I see this fault very regularly. Especially with school laptops where kids aren't exactly the tidiest of people.

Put simply, you must buy AppleCare with any Apple product these days. They are designed to fail, and parts are not available to anyone outside the Apple umbrella. Without AppleCare, you will be up for a very expensive repair bill when you take it to an Apple store or Authorised Repairer. They are even adding 'calibration' tools when you replace a display now, so further excluding 3rd parties.

Some photo's taken of the flex cables on an A2337 Macbook Air which had intermittent breakup of the display are attached. You can see the bumps on the cables, causing the defect.

20/12/2023

Hearing about lots of (automated) phone calls from banks claiming you have unauthorised transactions and to talk to an operator. They will ask you to confirm your details to keep you safe. Don't fall for it.

These are a scam. If you want to be safe, contact the bank directly via the numbers provided by them on their websites, not from anything these phone calls tell you.