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This Laptop Was DESTROYED! My Fix Caused It To ONLY Do This... SOMETIMES!

Parts-People Dell Laptop Experts

148,559 views

This Alienware m15 R7 Intel edition gaming laptop came in because it would not power on. They said the laptop had been warranty-repaired multiple times after a car wreck, and even said that it was hit by a train. I ended up spending 4 days trying to fix it, but it still has one issue.

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🙎‍♂️About me
I (Nathan) have been working on and repairing Dell laptops for more than 25 years, and in 2002, I started Parts-People.com, which is a company that specializes exclusively in Dell and Alienware laptops. We buy out and stock all of Dell's laptop inventory, which Dell no longer stocks. We now have more than 500K Dell genuine OEM parts in our warehouse and have become the number one place for Dell laptop owners. You can purchase parts to repair your own laptop or send it in and have one of our Dell experts or me service your machine.

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20 Comments

@GeminionRay 4 months ago

Man I wish my local repair shops had half your patience. Also at this point I think the CPU might be half-dead, or needs a full reball. You already have tried everything else at this point.

@angeltzepesh1 4 months ago

Yet another laptop destroyed by liquid metal. At least this time it wasn't from factory

@3S4afendi 4 months ago

That was a 12 round fight.

@chrisbertrand2969 4 months ago

Nathan, I KNOW you hate liquid metal, as a Senior EE, I 100% agree. Watching this video triggered a question in my head, when you found the LM under CPU edge within the ball array and then you tried to syringe suck it out... why not consider get a specialized high volume/speed "vacuum" that would hose scale down to the syringe size and literally "suck it all out" at high speed? Wouldn't that provide a higher level of confidence since it is "kind of like mercury" effect for removal? Maybe you have thought about it, just something I've never dealt with but might be a better approach to clean up LM in general, a fast, high volume vacuum with a LM collector for easy disposal?

@jonzweig5860 4 months ago

You have the patience of a saint.

@richardpeel6056 4 months ago

Please, I don't want a cake iced with liquid metal!

@daviddeschesnes2846 4 months ago

Hey Nathan, big fan of the channel — your work is clean, methodical and genuinely educational. Really appreciate what you put out.
One thing I wanted to mention as a friendly heads-up : I’ve noticed you work with 99% IPA pretty regularly without gloves. At that concentration it does absorb through the skin, and with repeated exposure it can add up on your liver and kidneys over time. A pair of nitrile gloves would fix that completely — cheap, simple, no impact on your workflow.
Stay safe and keep up the great work!

@davidwhelchel8774 4 months ago

This has been majorly damaged - poor workmanship by the previous techs - YOU are the pro.

@MemeticsX 4 months ago

Nathan, you are a madman. A mad scientist. A tenacious troubleshooter.

Thanks for the enjoyable video! [spoiler alert:] Sorry that ultimately you weren't able to determine the cause(s) of the issues.

@Joaco15Arg 4 months ago

You know you're dealing with a complicated case when you start performing CPR on the circuit board. 1:13:07

@artpeck9272 4 months ago

That Liquid Metal looks like mercury. Definitely not good.

@srmj71 3 weeks ago

You hit it about as hard as one man can. Rest well good sir, you have truly done all one can. ;-)

@RossLeon-gt3dw 4 months ago

I commend you, you did way more than most shops would do. Can't say you didn't try.

@bombacimulayim1453 4 months ago

It Flatlined , you CPR'ed , I admire your persistence. You did literally everything to revive this ... Liquid Metal ? Lost cause.

@DonaldDuvall 3 weeks ago (edited)

The problem with repair, electrical engineering, software development, and similar disciplines and enjoying it, is that you just want to figure it out. Sometimes the hard earned victory is the real reward. After struggling on a problem for hours or even days, scratch long your head, to finally figure it out, drives many (myself included) to try "one last thing" about 10 times, lol.

@deangreenhough3479 4 months ago

I felt your pain all the way through this 🙂

@zeusatoteles 4 months ago

You can safely inject voltage, even if the power rail is shorted to the CPU and even up to 50 Ohms. Just put the board into the freezer for 1 hour and then start injecting 0.5-0.7V. You can also put your thermal camera into the freezer, this greatly increases the sensitivity and helps with such small temperature variations.
Dont forget to let everything warm up and dry before using it again, condensation is almost as bad as liquid metal.

@Dr-Saltier 4 months ago

maybe a failing crystal?
or try 40 PSI air to blow out from under chips

@OctavMandru 4 months ago

Who knows how this gallium LM interacts with the solder? The only certainly is that once it's out of control it's game over... I would have abandoned the match after only a couple of hours. Man, you're a better tech then I'll ever be...