Anyone buy the Podnutz laptop repair videos?

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Reviver

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I pre-purchased them (podnutz.com) and they went up for download about 4 hours ago. Currently downloading them; about half are done.

I watched the first six videos so far: Intro, Tools, Batteries, CD/DVD Drives, Motherboards, and How to Take a Laptop Apart. There are 23 more videos which are all "case studies" showing how to fix different kinds of problems on different types of laptops. Three more videos are forthcoming.

I bought them because I have zero experience repairing laptop hardware, and this is a service I want to provide to customers. So far, after watching the first six videos, I've learned quite a bit.

The production quality is not bad: crisp high def video, thorough explanations / voice overs etc.

The guy seems to know his stuff and its really great to be able to watch someone strip down a laptop and talk about how to diagnose the problem.

He doesn't seem to care at all about ESD though. It hasn't been mentioned in the videos yet. He doesn't wear an ESD wrist strap and just places components (motherboard, ram etc) on his table (no anti-static mat).

So far I feel the videos are of good value, especially for a complete laptop hardware repair newbie like myself.
 
I probably would have except for the fact it would take forever to download HD videos on a sketchy DSL connection if I ever finished one at all. I watched all the videos he posted on Vimeo and learned quite a bit so I figured they would be worth getting though. I'd be willing to pay a few bucks more for a data DVD compilation even if it were just burned disks with sharpie labels.

The Vimeo videos used to be on the main Podnutz site under the "Laptop Repair Videos" section, but he seems to have changed that page to an advertisement for the paid product. You can still watch a few of them here. I'm surprised he didn't link them, or post a new HD sample video. The advertisement page is kind of cheesy and reads a bit like your average "Become a Computer Tech" ripoff site. If I didn't already know who Steve was I wouldn't be convinced I needed them. Anyone that watched the free videos would know it had to be good stuff though. I hope he sells a whole heap of them.
 
Reviver said:
I pre-purchased them (podnutz.com) and they went up for download about 4 hours ago. Currently downloading them; about half are done.

I watched the first six videos so far: Intro, Tools, Batteries, CD/DVD Drives, Motherboards, and How to Take a Laptop Apart. There are 23 more videos which are all "case studies" showing how to fix different kinds of problems on different types of laptops. Three more videos are forthcoming.

I bought them because I have zero experience repairing laptop hardware, and this is a service I want to provide to customers. So far, after watching the first six videos, I've learned quite a bit.

The production quality is not bad: crisp high def video, thorough explanations / voice overs etc.

The guy seems to know his stuff and its really great to be able to watch someone strip down a laptop and talk about how to diagnose the problem.

He doesn't seem to care at all about ESD though. It hasn't been mentioned in the videos yet. He doesn't wear an ESD wrist strap and just places components (motherboard, ram etc) on his table (no anti-static mat).

So far I feel the videos are of good value, especially for a complete laptop hardware repair newbie like myself.
Click to expand...


yea but he does use those foamy rubber mats to lay the components on besides you don't know what hes got in his office he could be wearing the strap on his ankle like i do cause here soooooo annoying or he could be on a floor mat
 
yea but he does use those foamy rubber mats to lay the components on besides you don't know what hes got in his office he could be wearing the strap on his ankle like i do cause here soooooo annoying or he could be on a floor mat
 
These look like a great idea, but my question still remains (as it always has) with laptop repair. Since laptop prices have come down to the $300-$400 range, and these repairs are so labor intensive (what, a mobo swap = 3 to 4 hours labor at least), the average customer will likely balk and decide to buy new instead. In which case I'll get the work of moving the data from the old machine to the new, if the HDD is ok.

In other words, IMO, it's hardly worth it to learn these new skills. Always good to pick up new skills? Yes. Financially beneficial? I'm not so sure.
 
iladelf said:
These look like a great idea, but my question still remains (as it always has) with laptop repair. Since laptop prices have come down to the $300-$400 range, and these repairs are so labor intensive (what, a mobo swap = 3 to 4 hours labor at least), the average customer will likely balk and decide to buy new instead. In which case I'll get the work of moving the data from the old machine to the new, if the HDD is ok.

In other words, IMO, it's hardly worth it to learn these new skills. Always good to pick up new skills? Yes. Financially beneficial? I'm not so sure.
Click to expand...

I got to disagree with you on that. Even a beginner shouldnt take more than an hour to tear down a laptop. If it cost so much to do a mobo swap we wouldnt be getting so many DC jack jobs. It takes just as long to swap a mobo as doing a DC jack job, you have to tear everything down and pull the mobo on both. But we only charge $99 to do the DC, so it would be about the same for the mobo swap plus price of the mobo.

I wouldnt waste money on the podnutz stuff. You can learn all of this on youtube and from websites dedicated to doing laptop repairs.

Remember this, anybody can clean out viruses, format and reload O/S's, add hardware and software, etc.. but few techs really want to tear a laptop down and know how to do a DC jack. It takes skill and equipment that most techs do not have. I already have deals with a few techs in my area who come to me for jack jobs, which I give them a $25 discount on.

ps- there are very few laptops in the $300-$400 range. Go to newegg, tigerdirect and dell and see for yourself. Little toy netbooks do not count.
 
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NYJimbo said:
Remember this, anybody can clean out viruses, format and reload O/S's, add hardware and software, etc.. but few techs really want to tear a laptop down and know how to do a DC jack. It takes skill and equipment that most techs do not have.
Click to expand...

+1. More than half of our business is laptops. Granted we are doing in warranty repairs also, but still a ton of people pay good money for out of warranty work on broken laptops. When I first started tearing these things down I was a little intimidated, but once you've disassembled/reassembled a couple hundred replacing every part under the sun it becomes second nature and you become fast at it. You should at least be comfortable with swapping RAM, HDs, opticals, and secondly but not as often inverters, dc jacks, and displays because these parts folks will pay to fix and these repairs will be the bulk of what you do with laptops.
 
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Again, while I see the worth of knowing these skills, for as much work as you put in to doing said work, I don't think it's financially worth it. At least, not in the town I'm working in. I refer folks to a local shop that does the DC jack thing for around $150, and folks balk at that idea when I'm on the phone with them, saying they'd rather buy new in that case.

And my biggest problem with laptop repair is, once it has been dropped, all bets are off. Virtually ANY electronic part is suspect with one that has been dropped. So, let's say you swap a mobo in one; a month and a half later, the customer calls, screaming his or her head off at you, because they just spent a small fortune fixing an old laptop, and it still doesn't work. And then, you find that the screen is bad, and needs replaced. How PO'd do you think the customer will be now? Not worth the headache, IMO.

Yes, I'll swap memory, HDDs, spyware and virus clean, keyboards if I have to on a laptop, but other than that, a customer is spending money on old technology, when they could put that to use on a new machine. Plus, saves me the potential headache of future complaints regarding the original expensive laptop repair.

More power to you if you are a laptop repair person. Better have good insurance to cover your six though, in case something goes wrong.

And of note, It will likely take me 10 years of work to see a couple of hundred laptops. Since they're all different makes and models, that's like a backyard mechanic saying he can work on anything from a Yugo to a Ferrari or Porsche. I'm too honest, I guess.
 
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A motherboard swap takes about 20 minutes tops.
But that's after you've done your first 50 or so..


iladelf said:
These look like a great idea, but my question still remains (as it always has) with laptop repair. Since laptop prices have come down to the $300-$400 range, and these repairs are so labor intensive (what, a mobo swap = 3 to 4 hours labor at least), the average customer will likely balk and decide to buy new instead. In which case I'll get the work of moving the data from the old machine to the new, if the HDD is ok.

In other words, IMO, it's hardly worth it to learn these new skills. Always good to pick up new skills? Yes. Financially beneficial? I'm not so sure.
Click to expand...
 
My entire business is laptop repair. I do well doing it. It started as a b2b mail order service and went from there. I typically charge no more than 250 dollars for any repair including motherboards and lcds.

iladelf said:
These look like a great idea, but my question still remains (as it always has) with laptop repair. Since laptop prices have come down to the $300-$400 range, and these repairs are so labor intensive (what, a mobo swap = 3 to 4 hours labor at least), the average customer will likely balk and decide to buy new instead. In which case I'll get the work of moving the data from the old machine to the new, if the HDD is ok.

In other words, IMO, it's hardly worth it to learn these new skills. Always good to pick up new skills? Yes. Financially beneficial? I'm not so sure.
Click to expand...
 
I've been seeing and selling a lot more laptops lately. I still get desktops regularly from my few residentials, and of course a lot of them from my business customers. I agree that if you have a laptop that is 2 or 3 years old, it may not be worth it to the customer to repair depending on the needed repair. However, if a customer brings in a good laptop that is only a year old or so, it's not so bad for them to spend a couple hundred fixing. I see quite a bit of the $400 toshibas from BB or Wal-Mart. In almost all of them, it's either a bad mobo or hdd. In these cases, I usually convince them to buy a decent laptop rather than throw money after bad.
 
In about 3 years I've done about a 1000.


iladelf said:
Again, while I see the worth of knowing these skills, for as much work as you put in to doing said work, I don't think it's financially worth it. At least, not in the town I'm working in. I refer folks to a local shop that does the DC jack thing for around $150, and folks balk at that idea when I'm on the phone with them, saying they'd rather buy new in that case.

And my biggest problem with laptop repair is, once it has been dropped, all bets are off. Virtually ANY electronic part is suspect with one that has been dropped. So, let's say you swap a mobo in one; a month and a half later, the customer calls, screaming his or her head off at you, because they just spent a small fortune fixing an old laptop, and it still doesn't work. And then, you find that the screen is bad, and needs replaced. How PO'd do you think the customer will be now? Not worth the headache, IMO.

Yes, I'll swap memory, HDDs, spyware and virus clean, keyboards if I have to on a laptop, but other than that, a customer is spending money on old technology, when they could put that to use on a new machine. Plus, saves me the potential headache of future complaints regarding the original expensive laptop repair.

More power to you if you are a laptop repair person. Better have good insurance to cover your six though, in case something goes wrong.

And of note, It will likely take me 10 years of work to see a couple of hundred laptops. Since they're all different makes and models, that's like a backyard mechanic saying he can work on anything from a Yugo to a Ferrari or Porsche. I'm too honest, I guess.
Click to expand...
 
I think that's awesome that someone's doing well specializing, but what I typically see is what angry_geek mentioned; those type of cheap laptops. And I'm from Smallville, smaller than where angry_geek is located. Therefore, I'm never going to see the amount of business that some of you other folks might.
 
I rarely get desktops in the shop these days, as a matter of fact I dont think one has come in for a week now.

Just a few minutes ago this smoking hot girl came in with a dead HP laptop. Same thing, cooked from the GPU. I was going to offer to do the whole return process to HP for $75 but she was all "I dont want to spend any more money on this" so I just told her to call HP and they would be happy to help her.

I hope the trend of switching to laptops continues, repairing them is not for the faint of heart and you can make lots of money on just jack jobs, inverters and CCFL replacements.
 
Lately I've had cliens call who have laptops that are at 5 or 5+ years of age. One really wanted to fix it but I could not find the part cheap enough for her. (I wish I had a fantastic list of desktops and laptop vendors).

Whoever said that now days laptops are cheap, you are correct. However, the calls I've had were residential and business. Both had techs they call on, here is the kicker. they don't now how to work on LAPTOPS, my next STEP is to steal the clients from those techs (still thinking about it casue I don't like my clients stolen). My foot is already in the door.

I am not an expert like usacvlr but know enought to fix it. So, if you think its not worth working on them then send your clients to me :)
 
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just to respond to the ESD questions, I believe Steve has said in one of his podcasts that there is a metal bar that he is almost in constant contact near this wrists in order to ground himself.
 
I just bought these videos to help train new techs, I am enjoing theses myself.
 
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