Broken headphone outlet on laptop

[HEIST]

To make a long story short, I busted/mangled/set-fire to the speaker outlet on my laptop and somehow broke the internal speakers to my laptop as well all in one night.

My bass teacher tried to fix it for me by detaching the microphone outlet (because I don't use it) and replacing it where the old headphone outlet was but he couldn't get the two outlets off the microchip to switch them. He used a solder sucker I believe.

I've been rotting away without sound for a week now and instead of buying a new laptop (which I am seriously considering) what are my other choices? I'd hate to have to get a brand new machine just because the headphone outlet doesn't work.

Are there people out there that fixes microchips? Who are they and what are they called so I can look them up in my local phone book!

Are any of you DIY microchip-inclined that could walk me through fixing it up myself?

[santucci218]

man i did that too.

but to fix my problem i just bought a new laptop...

if not...take it to a tech!

[HEIST]

Originally Posted by santucci218

man i did that too.

but to fix my problem i just bought a new laptop...

if not...take it to a tech!

Did you try super-glueing the shattered pieces back together and then accidentally glueing your finger to it and then when trying to get it off, left a piece of your skin on the microchip?

Where do I find these 'techs'?

If I just take it to a electronics store they just say that I don't have it under warantee etc. etc. so they aren't obligated to fix it for me. Even if I paid them. It's weird, I don't know.

What kind of place should I be looking at to get something like this fixed?

[santucci218]

hmm..idk, i live in Pittsburgh, a bigger city. so there are a lot of little tech stores around...do you have best buy up there? call geek squad?

[HEIST]

Geek Squad moved away from my neighbourhood 4 months back...but a Best Buy just opened somewhere on the transit line. They're kind of similar to our Future Shop, those electronics stores that refuses to touch it. I'll give it a try tomorrow, hopefully they'll do it. Thanks.

[Vandelay]

Poke around on eBay for that same laptop model. If it's a few years old, you can often find a cheap deal where someone is selling a broken laptop (like one with no hard drive or a bad screen), or they've taken apart a broken one and are selling the parts separately. Buy it, then take it to a tech to have him replace your speakers with the ones from the other broken laptop. You could possibly do it yourself, but I don't recommend it -- laptops have a million pieces that have to fit into tiny spaces, it's delicate surgery.

Then keep the other laptop around, you never know when you'll need to scavenge from it for more parts.