9 ms·

India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

325 points by hilux 2y ago

ggm 2y ago
If the thinkpad community gets behind this, there will be a market for upspecced thinkpads as long as supplies last. the reduce re-use re-cycle part here is nicely inserting itself into the recycle tail side.
- nxobject 2y ago
  It's such a pity 51nb's upgraded ThinkPad project is no longer quite as active as it was. I think the small niche market for hacker-friendly laptops is far too diluted now, especially with qualitatively unique products like the MNT Reform. https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/1dh04ud/how_do_get_51nb_thinkpad/ https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/1dh04ud/how_do_ge...
  - lproven 2y ago
    There are others... https://www.tpart.net/ https://www.tpart.net/
    - nxobject 2y ago
      Wow, just about to be shipped, too! Now if only I had a cool $1299++ :(
- noufalibrahim 2y ago
  Abhas Abhinav of Deeproot Linux runs "Mostly Harmless" which sells refurbished Thinkpads with binary blobs removed. https://mostlyharmless.io/computers/ https://mostlyharmless.io/computers/
  - HexDecOctBin 2y ago
    This is amazing, I didn't know we had people doing this kind of stuff in India. Are there any other similar services that you know of, that are doing open source/Linux-friendly hardware, etc.?
  - forinti 2y ago
    That is super cool.
  - balancesoggy 2y ago
    Highly recommend. Bought a ThinkPad from Abhas and it runs like tank.
aamederen 2y ago
Even though the aim here is different, sustainability through repair and reuse is uplifting. It's also a reminder that 10-year-old computers can do a lot and most of us may not need the latest shiny laptops.
- chrismorgan 2y ago
  It’s also good to upgrade certain components. Firstly, upgrade from HDD to SSD. For random access, these are commonly 100–500× as fast, and even for block I/O 10–30×, and that will concretely speed up startup by a large fraction of that ratio, quite apart from speeding up other things later. Once you get used to modern SSDs, as almost everyone on this site will be, I think you lose track of just how bad HDDs are, to run the OS from. My wife’s ten-year-old work laptop takes well over five minutes to boot up, log in, start a browser, load something like Gmail, and settle down so the disk is idle and it’s running as smoothly as it ever will; and sure, the aging i5-4300M CPU doesn’t help¹; but I suspect spending less than a thousand rupees replacing its HDD with even the cheapest and smallest SSD (acceptable capacity, in this case) might cut that to a minute, and spending a few thousand for a faster one would speed it up to below a minute. (One fun thing about SSDs is that, overall, bigger is faster. At some points in history, for some makes, it’s been almost as simple as “twice as large, twice as fast”. This is, of course, a gross simplification, but I think not too far off.) Secondly, if you have less than 8GB of RAM, get more. Beyond that it varies depending on what you’re using it for, but up to at least that point, it’s just an unconditional improvement. —⁂— ¹ PassMark lists single/multi scores for the Intel Core i5-4300M of around 1,700/3,000. Some units in recent generations from approximately the same segment: the Intel Core i5-1334U scoring 3,350/13,400, and the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H scoring 3,450/21,500. This basically means an absolute minimum of 2× speedup on any workload, and for most it’s more like 3–4×. There’s a lot of difference in ten years of CPU.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  An Amiga or PC running Windows 3.x would be quite capable to handle the word processing and spreadsheet related activities I do at home, and from the Amiga side I dare say I would still enjoy more many of those games than the 80 € AAA graphics pumped games that come out nowadays with their 60 h gameplay and 120 GB disk space.
tommica 2y ago
Honestly cool, though it really sucks that they don't have any safety from all those harmful chemicals.
- nyanpasu64 2y ago
  What's the chemical exposure from laptop repair? The biggest thing that comes to mind is flux smoke, which needs a fan or ideally a fume extractor to keep out of your face. Modern devices use lead-free solder, though I understand solder is mostly a concern for scrapping electronics for gold rather than repairing it (unless you don't wash your hands after soldering). I've gotten nasty effects from isopropyl/acetone vapors and super glue/epoxy too. EDIT: Are they salvaging components from e-waste, or diving in dumpsters with non-computer waste as well?
  - tommica 2y ago
    Article did talk about lead
ravirajx7 2y ago
This reminded me of something that happened to a friend of mine not long ago. He’d just been laid off from a pretty good Salesforce Admin job and was already in a tight spot financially when his laptop’s motherboard fried after a voltage spike. Local shops were quoting ₹25,000–₹30,000 (roughly $300–$360), which he just couldn’t afford. Then a friend told him about Nehru Place. He sent the laptop there through someone he knew, and the repair only cost him around ₹5,000–₹10,000 ($60–$120). Way more reasonable. He was glad to get it fixed without spending a lot but it does make you wonder how reliable those reused parts are. Like, how long is it gonna hold up before something else goes wrong?
- gyomu 2y ago
  I could also see unscrupulous businesses swapping out original parts in machines sent for repair for cheaper ones as a way to drive their costs down. The vast majority of customers wouldn’t be able to tell/prove what happened.
  - sokz 2y ago
    Spare parts are expensive in general in India. Add to the fact that there are unscrupulous repair centers, I am certain that the theft of genuine parts happen regularly.
- LordGrignard 2y ago
  this is all the more important since 60$ in india is enough for a meal for four in an expensive restaurant in one of the better malls ( for e.g. in Mumbai ) ... and 25k to 30k is just ludicrous for a laptop. Even 5-10k will easily hurt his pockets but it depends on what the laptop's specs were and what it was worth
- sokz 2y ago
  Delhi NCR in general looks like a pretty nice place to source tech in India. The Bangalore counterpart of Nehru Place, SP Road felt expensive and a bit less competent than I expected.
- InfinityByTen 2y ago
solarpunk 2y ago
Hell yeah! I wanna read more about this kind of stuff.
nxobject 2y ago
I’d love to learn some of the advanced rework skills they need to work on modern motherboards - especially BGA part replacement. And how to build a workshop on the cheap! I’m always in awe at the skills they need to learn that are nonexistent in the western world.
- walterbell 2y ago
  Some repair shops have videos on YouTube. Search for a specific device or IC replacement. Some videos are oriented towards teaching vs. demo.
- Saigonautica 2y ago
  Here are some good "value for money" tool brands I use (I live in Asia): 1.Yihua combined hot air rework station + soldering station. 2.Pro's Kit multimeter, tweezers, and wire snips. 3.Uni-T hand-held oscillosope (quite optional). 4.Mechanic brand solder paste. Get the one in a plastic syringe. The tubs dry out. 5.TS100 soldering iron as a spare. Heats up so fast at 24V! I use them mainly for prototyping, but they are equally handy for repair. I don't re-ball BGA though. I've seen vendors do it with a machine that's mostly just a holder for the chip, and the hot air gun. Plus some templates and the solder balls.
  - nxobject 2y ago
    Thanks for the recommendations! I have a Yihua soldering station - such a solid budget option - I’ll shell out on a hot air rework station too, maybe one with a board preheater.
  - NikkiA 2y ago
    > Yihua combined hot air rework station + soldering station. I personally wouldn't recommend this. I have one, it cost just short of £100. But I much prefer my T12 based 'KSGER' soldering station that was $30 from banggood and has far better features, plus I don't have to worry about the heating element dying (since with T12 the element is part of the tip). One day when I need hot air again, I'll probably think hard about finding a stand alone hot air station from banggood or aliexpress. I see they have some for $30. Since the hot-air has all the critical parts in the hand unit, and the heating and fan often die randomly, having a 2-in-1 is just too much liability. Btw, I recommend a butane soldering iron as a true 'backup' that doesn't even need a charged powertool battery.
zkmon 2y ago
My Dell XPS-15 laptop's screen was falling off. To fix it, I drilled holes right though the border area of the screen and fitted 4 bolts so that the screen stays with the laptop. My colleagues were horrified to see large bolts at the back of the screen, but everything worked like a charm.
- grishka 2y ago
  My classmate at the university had a laptop that first developed lines on the screen that he fixed by strategically cramming pieces of paper between the bezel and the LCD panel, and then eventually the hinges broke so he carried a book stand to prop up the lid. He did get a new laptop eventually iirc
  - noufalibrahim 2y ago
    I "fixed" broken hinge on a Dell laptop using some mseal. Sort of worked.
    - dangle1 2y ago
      Can also add a binder clip after applying the adhesive for additional strength. The handles will fold around the screen kind of out of the way.
- devsda 2y ago
  I would have made it needlessly complex by gluing a set of strong neodymium magnets on the exterior and a set of small flat magnets on the screen side to avoid the risks of drilling and protruding bolts. Of course gluing or taping are also viable options ?
anshumankmr 2y ago
I had an HP laptop bought in 2016, that worked like a charm and worked perfectly till 2023, when I upgraded to Windows 11, which wasn't supported on it. But in Delhi's Nehru Place, I got the damn thing repaired several times for several times, including battery repairs, a broken keyboard amongst other things, that extended its life quite well. In fact, I was open to using it for more years, though the HDD kind of sucked compared to the SSD.
zkmon 2y ago
I grew up in a village, where literally nothing goes waste. Eevrything is recycled. You can't think of anything that is junk. Animal poop and rotten bio-waste makes a great fertilizer for crops. Metal waste is melt by blacksmith, Wood in any form or shape is highly reusable. Plastics are almost absent, but they are sold in exchange for onions etc. Fabric is extremely reused. After reusing multiple time, things end up in a dump at the corner of own premises, which degrades and becomes fertilizer, in time for next crop.
blackoil 2y ago
It's simple, the labour cost for repair is lower than the replacement cost, we also have people scavenging for valuables in landfills. As/When India will become rich enough, this will become uneconomical. Long term solution is to force companies to build products with repairability in mind.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Companies should have to bear the full cost of cleaning up, repairing, or disposing the products they unleash upon the world. If I have to throw away my laptop because it broke, Lenovo should pay the cost of disposing (or repairing) it and bringing the environment back to the condition it was in before the product existed. When my car dies, Toyota should have to tow it away, part it out and reuse what it can. We've somehow normalized the idea that companies can just externalize these real disposal costs onto the public and environment.
  - meta_ai_x 2y ago
    what about people who don't care for the products they own. Why should it be Toyota's responsibility for lazy people who don't even do basic maintenance?
    - lompad 2y ago
      Pretty much every product becomes trash at some point, maintenance only changes the timescale. Something somewhat similar is already law in germany and works rather well. There is no reason society should have to pay for expected costs for disposing a company's products - as this would only incentivize companies to care even less about the difficulty of recycling/disposal.
  - sidkshatriya 2y ago
    This is a fair and valid view of looking at things. Though the trick is to not get too heavy handed. At what point does regulation become too stifling ? The American way is to possibly put too few responsibilities on manufacturers. The European way seems to be to saddle them with just too many regulations -- possibly killing so much innovation. One way to approach this would be to put more responsibilities on large established companies and less on smaller companies. But then the problem is that larger companies will want to arbitrage this somehow by indirectly "owning" these smaller companies with less environmental responsibilities. This area is far more complex than we think it is. Also what do we do about totally new materials that are thought to be benign when introduced but then are proved to have harmful effects many years later. Does the company that introduced them now have huge open ended costs and now go bankrupt ? The solution is as always in the middle ground. Society as a whole bears some cost of cleanup (a kind of insurance policy for all companies) and companies bear some of costs.
saidinesh5 2y ago
During my middle school days, we lived in a small town for a little while (read: A place where i was allowed to take my bicycle out onto the main road). After school, I used to spend a lot of time just hanging out around some TV and radio repair shops and just watched them work. They used to be friendly and gave me parts like spare motors, lights that were lying around from broken Walkmans they wouldn't repair. I took those motors and added to my bicycle as a "dynamo light" , built "wired RC car" etc ... Fast forward to a few years ago when i got into building racing drones, soldering certain tiny wires was difficult for me. I went to a nearby mobile repair shop to get that done and he was happy to help me out. I owe a lot of my curiosity and my knowledge today to these repair shops. It's not a good thing that our electronics are becoming less and less repairable these days. No wonder these repair shops are vanishing as the time progresses. The closest thing to that we have these days are makerspaces. At our local makerspace we encourage people try to fix their broken electronics instead of throwing them away. But I feel like there should be more.
- gloxkiqcza 2y ago
  All tech is becoming more and more integrated and purposefully locked down. Everything from operating systems to cars. It’s truly a shame. I think many of us tinkerers/hackers have a similar story to yours - something grabs your attention when you’re a child and develops into an engineering knack later on.
  - vladms 2y ago
    All tech or all physical tech? For now software managed to somehow go in the opposite direction. In the '90s many / lots of operating systems / tools / libraries were paid / hard to access, today we have lots of (open-source) stuff for people to tinker with. Tinkering with physical stuff is also good and should be encouraged / supported, but let's also be careful not to loose the software tinkering (for example by not permitting in any shape rooting mobile devices).
    - coretx 2y ago
      No, most people are stuffing everything into the application layer, or worse, a web/mobile app these days and don't know how to fix anything below it. I know many "programmers" who can neither configure a SME/Enterprise firewall or switch nor build their own PC or server from parts. Also, during the 90's everything was easy to find and access. Piracy was the norm and FOSS was booming.
userbinator 2y ago
Happens a lot in China too. https://www.hwcooling.net/en/recycling-in-china-laptop-cpus-turned-into-lga-1151-upgrades/ https://www.hwcooling.net/en/recycling-in-china-laptop-cpus-...
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  Less so now than a decade ago. You need to watch them while they repair it, I learned that the hard way.
  - thenthenthen 2y ago
    EVERYTHING gets recycled in China period.
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      That isn’t even close to true. But I get you are using hyperbole here.
      - thenthenthen 1y ago
        Name me one thing that not gets recycled? I have seen ppl opening manholes to scope the oil off the sewer (gutter oil). Styrofoam is the hottest commodity amongst trash collectors (plus cardboard that gets soaked before sold).
- usagisushi 2y ago
  Here's a somewhat cyberpunk-ish fact I learned today: Back in '98 Taiwan, unbranded, mysterious desktop CPUs called Golden Soldier ("黄金戦士") were available in the street. It turns out they were actually modded mobile Intel CPUs installed in slockets. https://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/article/980618/parts4.htm https://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/article/980618/parts4.ht... https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BB%84%E9%87%91%E6%88%A6%E5%A3%AB https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BB%84%E9%87%91%E6%88%A6%E5... BTW, speaking of repair culture, I love this idea of repurposed headless MacBooks. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Screenless-MacBooks-masquerading-as-Mac-Minis-are-selling-like-hotcakes-in-China.606913.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Screenless-MacBooks-masqueradi...
pjmlp 2y ago
I remember up to the early 1990's we had repair shops all over Portugal, we would buy devices for life, and any kind of malfunction would be rescued at one of those repair shops, unless it was really a death sentence for the device. Now in a throw away society with planned obsolence devices, most of those shops are gone and the repair knowledge gone with them. Unless goverments fix the planned obsolence culture it is almost impossible to have the repair culture back.
- zoobab 2y ago
  "The throw-away society is a human society strongly influenced by consumerism. The term describes a critical view of overconsumption and excessive production of short-lived or disposable items over durable goods that can be repaired." — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throw-away_society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throw-away_society
  - djrj477dhsnv 2y ago
    Isn't it also a natural consequence of rapidly improving technology. Even if a laptop were built to last 20 years, who would want one when a new one is an order of magnitude better?
    - griffzhowl 2y ago
      If it's two orders of magnitude cheaper then plenty of people could want one. It's handy to have a spare laptop or two around and with a lightweight linux on there old ones can be perfectly functional
    - fitsumbelay 2y ago
      > Even if a laptop were built to last 20 years, who would want one when a new one is an order of magnitude better? Someone living in poverty whose life may be markedly improved by having one?
      - Ray20 2y ago
Sateeshm 2y ago
I used to do at-home computer troubleshooting as a part time job when was in college. Most of time it was just opening up the casing, dusting it and reattaching all the parts/reinstalling Windows that did the trick. 90% of time it was just RAM popping out a bit. But in rare cases, it was the components themselves. I used to rely of these shops in the city (Hyderabad, India) that fixed motherboards etc. really cheap and relatively quickly (less than a week most of the time). People that worked there weren't engineers or anything, more like tradesmen. It was amazing to see them work.
DeathArrow 2y ago
I remember a time when I bought an used laptop and was able to upgrade the CPU, RAM and hard drive. While I might buy now a laptop such as a MacBook without being able to replace major components, I will never buy a desktop such as a Mac Studio and accept the same shortcomings. And it's not only that I want to tinker with hardware, but buying parts and assembling the desktop myself has a much better price/performance ratio than buying of the shelf parts. Being able to upgrade is a bonus and that allows me to have cheaper upgrades than selling it and buying another one. How much more would Apple tax me for a Mac with the equivalent performance of i9 14900K, Nvidia 4090, 128 GB RAM and 8 GB SSD I assembled in a few hours. If I were much richer so the few hours spent on assembling the thing were more valuable than the price difference, I might have thought differently.
Brajeshwar 2y ago
I have a friend who runs a devices (mostly Laptops and Phones) rental business. Repairs are a key component in their business model. They have a well-established setup powered by processes automated by technology. He is a programmer, who bootstrapped his business into a successful enterprise today. If you are in India (or more specifically Bangalore), check out his team https://spurge.rentals https://spurge.rentals I remember advising him to protect his domains with a .com while using an interesting but .com domain.
DeathArrow 2y ago
I grew up in a poor Eastern European country which is not as poor anymore. We repaired anything: worn out shoes, distressed socks and clothes. Even cooking pots were patched when they developed holes. Everything had very long lifetimes and those lifetimes were extended with periodic repairs. Cars were rare and using parts of low quality made the break often. People repaired their cars in front of their houses or apartment buildings. Or on the side of the road if it broke there. Everyone carried big toolkits in their trunks and and almost any car owner or driver knew how to fix the car. If a tire ran flat, they had the tools to fix it on spot. There were electronic repair shops everywhere. There were also other kind of repair shops. If someone looked in the trash cans at the time, most of it was vegetable waste resulting from people cooking their meals. It wasn't unusual to own a 30 years old car, a 20 years washing machine, a 30 year radio or a 15 year black and white TV, all being repaired lots of times. Some mass market goods, or most of them, were handed down to the next generation as priced possessions. Now, we repair next to nothing. We still repair cars, although many people sell their old car if it breaks and buy a new one. PC, TV, washing machines, fridges, furniture get replaced in a few years even if it's in perfectly good condition. Good got cheaper, although of uncertain quality and the wages got high so it's expensive to repair something even if you find a place to do it. If you buy a new bicycle and go to the repair shop two or three times it will cost you the price of a new one. I am not nostalgic about it, and I don't think people should stick with old junk. But I do believe we need an equilibrium, goods should be of higher quality, easier and cheaper to repair. I dislike being forced to throw something away because it can't be repaired, even if such a repair should be simple and cheap in theory. We pay less for good and we don't spend for the wages of repair technicians (almost none left) but since the goods are of low quality, have planned obsolescence built in and can't be repaired, we end up buying the same good two or three times so we spend more. While that might create jobs in China or other remote country, I as a consumer, care more about my budget and my quality of life.
rockyj 2y ago
I spent many a weekends at Nehru Place, even though it was a 90 mins drive and the parking ... oh the parking, well if you want to test your patience this is this is the place to go. But for a hardware / gaming junkie this was the place to be. Not to mention (pirated / photocopied) books. Almost any book / media you could dream of. The lanes are buzzing with scamsters / pirates and geniuses who can build / repair anything - phones, TVs, PCs, laptops, watches etc. At one time Nehru Place was the "IT" hub of New Delhi. The street food was not half bad as well. I was just happy watching the men at work in dinky shops fixing anything, built a few PCs there (a tradition which continues to this day). Some happy memories (but you have to be careful or you will need to walk back home without your wallet and your shirt). Edit: 2 movies to understand this culture (a bit more) - - Rocket Singh (salesman of the year) - Mickey Virus
- farhanhubble 2y ago
  Nehru place was almost 100% scammers than real geniuses but definitely the place if you wanted a custom computing rig. The food was good enough, like you said but the prospect of having a 2GB RAM module made you salivate even more! The neighboring areas also had electronics importers that proved super helpful. You could find some of the most "lethal" tech with their help. I got myself some powerful FPGA kits that are normally not accessible outside defense, academia, and select licensed labs. I have great admiration for those folks who let me lay my hands over the most powerful technology of that time.
boricj 2y ago
Somewhat related, Gamers Nexus made a video about motherboards made from salvaged parts in Shenzhen a while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNje63vx73s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNje63vx73s
FilosofumRex 2y ago
In the US they're not called repair shops, they're chop shops - where all our stolen electronics wash up
h4ck_th3_pl4n3t 2y ago
There was this famous guy, which sold custom old Thinkpads, but with newer mainboards and Intel 10th gen chips in it, with custom USB-C adapters and all. At some point he kind of disappeared and rumors appeared that he is now in mandatory military service, but will come back afterwards. Well, that was pre-COVID. He also knows a friend that backports coreboot to the new mainboards. No idea how they manage to do that in a 2 person project like this. So yeah, all of the laptops they sell run coreboot in it (including the Thunderbolt EC, which is insane amount of work to implement). Nonetheless the build quality was insanely good, and lots of folks were amazed by what they essentially bet blindly on when they ordered it. The X2100 would be my dream laptop, but I didn't manage to get one in time. [1] https://www.xyte.ch/shop/x2100-pricing/ https://www.xyte.ch/shop/x2100-pricing/
- accurrent 2y ago
  His last post was in 2022. Singapore's national service is 2 years, he'd be out by now. Seems like he probably ran into issues. Also he mentions his university: you can't start university till you've finished your military service.
- lproven 2y ago
  Try: https://www.tpart.net/ https://www.tpart.net/
  - h4ck_th3_pl4n3t 2y ago
    Holy shit. X210 with an Intel 7 Ultra 165H in it? Damn. I'm sold. Anyone got one of these already or are they still in pre-production?
    - lproven 2y ago
      Right? I am extremely tempted to take some cash from my savings account. I spoke with a chap called Franck Deng and he seems to be taking orders right now.
anthk 2y ago
That's the way, India. Helping the poor and avoiding waste it's the key point to improve the society.
robin_reala 2y ago
Not the same thing as this article, but I was impressed with the Chinese trend of “fixing” 2015-era MacBook Pros with broken screens by deleting the screen and installing a blanking plate, leaving the machine as a sort of C64/Amiga/ST/Acorn style keyboard-and-CPU single unit that could be plugged into an HDMI screen. https://ioshacker.com/news/people-in-china-are-using-macbook-pro-without-screen-and-now-i-want-one https://ioshacker.com/news/people-in-china-are-using-macbook...
- datadrivenangel 2y ago
  I did this with an old ASUS laptop. Just removed the whole screen after the hinges and LCD died. Worked fine!
fifticon 2y ago
Part of the appeal of refurbished computers is that currently, fresh new laptops and tablets have reached a horrible minimum-quality. I have chewed myself and our household through a possibly obscene number of laptops, tablets and smartphones over the last 15 years or so. One of the villains in this story is Asus. An ugly pattern emerges. In my country, there is mandatory 2year warranty on bought electronics - if it breaks before 24 months, the retailer owes you a working specimen. Well, what do you know.. I see a pattern of a lot of these items breaking before 3 years have passed. It is almost as if some hierarchy of managers have dictated "can you make this thing last for 25 months, but no further than that?" - 1 the non-replacable battery will die, leaving the device a brick. - 2 the power management IC will die, so the system refuses to light up or receive electrical current. - 3 often, when (2) happens, the motherboard will be toasted as a by-product, leaving you to pay 600 DKK to have the retailer inform you "we have looked at your device, unfortunately the motherboard died, so repairing it will cost you same price as brand new. Thank you for the 600 you paid to have us tell you that". Within the last year, I have had two separate Asus VivoBooks die on me, both after about 24 months of use - but critically, ">24", so no repair/warranty. One of them a DKK-10.000 purchase, the other a DKK-6.500 purchase. Neither of them have seen particular abuse, they were used by me, as "household pets" - so laptops that never left the couch. I have taken a long time to learn this, but my learned lesson is that I have stopped buying these "10k DKK for 24 months of laptop" devices. I am a pathological computer hoarder, and I have plenty of desktop PCs that are still alive and kicking after 10+ years (in which I may understandably have to replace PSUs). The scam/grift that suppliers like Asus are operating on comsumer devices, is that the PMIC is designed to fail, is soldered into the motherboard, and that they love whenever the failing PMIC kills the motherboard during its death throes.
lou1306 2y ago
I literally just bought a 2nd hand laptop, made by $huge_tech_conglomerate_from_pacific_northwest, with an 11-th gen i7, for less than EUR 250. The reason it was so cheap? It has a defective charging port so it only charges via USB-C. So it's not even "dead" dead. This is mind-boggling, the CPU alone almost basically makes the full price. In what world is this an efficient allocation of resources?
- fn-mote 2y ago
  > This is mind-boggling, the CPU alone almost basically makes the full price. In what world is this an efficient allocation of resources? The world in which diagnosis (plus risk of incorrect diagnosis) is done at $200/hour. Obviously a corporate sale, where they cannot be bothered to check it out because that's not their core business.
DrNosferatu 2y ago
Want a real solution to electronic waste, with real international knock-on effects? The EU should mandate 10-year warranties for higher-end consumer electronics and durable goods. This could work on a sliding scale: less expensive items get shorter warranties (but never below the current 2-year minimum), while pricier products require longer coverage periods. Such legislation would: 1. End the exploitation of workers in sweatshops producing deliberately short-lived products 2. Discourage planned obsolescence and reduce manufacturing waste 3. Significantly decrease the climate impact of consumer electronics 4. Create genuine incentives for a Circular Economy where durable products like quality ThinkPads become standard rather than exceptions By requiring products to last, we'd not only protect consumers and the Environment, but also the vulnerable workers currently trapped and exploited in sweatshops designed to produce disposable goods.
_7acn 2y ago
It seems to me that one (of many) factors contributing to the fact that electronics are no longer repaired as often in Western countries is the wealth of these countries and the relatively low cost of electronics. If an hour of a technician's labor costs X, and a particular piece of equipment can be bought for, say, 3X, it doesn't make much sense for most people to repair it.
sunshine-o 2y ago
Are there any good online resources for this beyond iFixit?
- pramodbiligiri 2y ago
  I've heard of Fixable (https://www.isfixable.com/ https://www.isfixable.com/) in India. They seem to link to a lot of resources.
intrasight 2y ago
As a suburban kid in New York in the 70s, I also got my start in tech by taking apart and sometimes repairing old radios. In my case it wasn't a repair shop but an older sibling who encouraged my interest.
preezer 2y ago
I just love it, when people repair old stuff and the things are running again for another time. I love to repair things myself, it's just a very good feeling, if you managed to repair a device. Don't ask how often it would be cheaper to buy a new device, but the feeling is priceless.
danielktdoranie 2y ago
[flagged]
danielktdoranie 2y ago
One of the events in my early life that got me interested in computers was a friend from middle school who lived near a Radio Shack and a neighbourhood computer store. He dumpster dived and got every computer he owned that way. He had a couple of Macintosh computers, this was like 1992, with cracked plastics. I enjoyed just sitting there and watching him tinker. His entire bedroom was filled with stuff he liberated from dumpster diving.
p3rls 2y ago
[flagged]
bubblethink 2y ago
This is largely a result of tariffs/duties that India imposes on everything. A typical $800 laptop is going to cost $1200-$1500 in India. Combined with the purchasing power parity, a good laptop is out of reach for most people. The repair culture works entirely due to artificial scarcity. Nostalgia for repairs notwithstanding, it is a failure for the country that people can't afford a decent laptop in 2025.
- InfinityByTen 2y ago
  Food for thought: if a failure (of sorts) can make the successful rethink their ways of being, is that success missing the point, maybe? A lot of ways of life in India are sustainable. In fact going the consumerist ways of West is a step in the opposite direction, given what all problems that has created for the planet. I think the motive of the piece is not the nostalgia of repairing, but how living with constraints births sustainability and how we all can learn from it (including India) and in fact foster it in a positive way :)
  - gruez 2y ago
    >A lot of ways of life in India are sustainable. In fact going the consumerist ways of West is a step in the opposite direction, given what all problems that has created for the planet. I think the motive of the piece is not the nostalgia of repairing, but how living with constraints births sustainability and how we all can learn from it (including India) and in fact foster it in a positive way :) Isn't this the degrowth ideology expressed in a slightly obfuscated way? Being poor is more "sustainable", because you don't have as much resources to consume.
    - InfinityByTen 2y ago
      I didn't know there was a term to it. I wouldn't think of my stance currently as advocating of purposeful scarcity in an anticipation of better distribution. Instead I do consider it critical to "take a step back" and "evaluate the problem statement at hand". Is the end goal more consumption or better living?
spaceman_2020 2y ago
A few years ago, I wanted to add more RAM to a Lenovo laptop. I opened the thing, remove the RAM, and like a complete idiot, switched on the power without any RAM in the slot. The laptop refused to start. I took it to the Lenovo center and they said about 7-10 days and a minimum of Rs 10,000 (about $150 in those days). Since this was too much for an old laptop, I looked for alternatives. Someone suggested a repair shop in Nehru Place, New Delhi This was tucked into the back of the basement of a big tower. A tiny 10x10 room filled with laptop parts The guy at the counter looked at the laptop, opened it up, twisted some wires around, added another few wires, and the thing was working again Total time: under 10 minutes. Total cost: Rs 200 - just about $2.5 today
- einpoklum 2y ago
  Wait, you mean the laptop refused to start after replacing the RAM? And - was the price quote you got for adding RAM, or for fixing the laptop so that it starts again (with the old RAM SODIMM)? I couldn't quite follow the example.
  - spaceman_2020 2y ago
    I never replaced the RAM. Switched off the laptop, opened it, removed the RAM, and then accidentally switched it on again without any RAM in the slot
    - glouwbug 2y ago
      It was the secret button: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26932247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26932247
- gruez 2y ago
  >I opened the thing, remove the RAM, and like a complete idiot, switched on the power without any RAM in the slot. >The laptop refused to start. >I took it to the Lenovo center [...] This makes no sense. Why didn't you just replace the RAM? I seriously doubt starting the laptop without RAM bricks the laptop.
nirui 2y ago
> “...For instance, we salvage parts from old laptop motherboards, such as capacitors, mouse pads, transistors, diodes, and certain ICs and use them in the newly refurbished ones,” says Prasad. This highlights the problem of parts availability, especially for older laptops (10 years old or even older). Since no one, the original manufacturer as well as the "dup(licat)ors", is going to make parts for laptops that old. During my own attempt to revive my old laptops, I had to buy three different keyboards, each costs around $8, from 2 different recycling shop, to "Frankenstein" a working and fairly new-looking one. And then the screen bezel and palm rest is another struggle. One total revival ended up costed me around $50 and 2 weeks, and give up on another one. I imagine in order for laptop/electronic repairing to work reliably, manufactures needs to create standardized parts, like what happened to desktop PCs. But that hasn't happened since ...ever?
- pmontra 2y ago
  I remember that my old HP nc8430 from 2006 cost only 20 Euro some 10 years later. I could have bought a couple of them for spares if I planned to keep it running. The problem was that the GPU run out of software support circa 2012 and I had to pin the Linux kernel to a 3.1x version. An open source driver apparently made it into the kernel many years later but I never checked if it actually works. I bought a new laptop in 2014 which is a kind of Frankenstein on its own nowadays. I replaced the screen (a defective hinge under warranty), the RAM (maxed it out at 32 GB), the HDD with a 2 TB SSD, the DVD burner with another SSD, the keyboard many times as it wears out and maybe that's it.
- knowitnone 2y ago
  It is somewhat standard. CPU, memory, drives, LCD. The only thing not standard is the motherboard. With 3d printing, you can print your own base to contain the motherboard, plug all those parts back in, screw on the LCD. Framework Computer is doing repairable laptops
schnable 2y ago
I wonder if repair culture will expand in the US if prices on consumer elections rise with tariffs.
- knowitnone 2y ago
  The US is unable to fix anything even if they are willing. Throw-away culture has consequences.
dartharva 2y ago
India is a classic cyberpunk dystopia. High tech penetration, extreme income inequality, prevalent hacker undergrounds (as shown in the article) and horrible quality of life.
- thenthenthen 2y ago
  This should be the top comment.
sharadov 2y ago
India still has a thriving repair and refurbishment culture, which was born more out of financial necessity than environmental concerns. I know someone who exports automobile tires from the US to India to be retreaded.
penguin_booze 2y ago
The repair culture exists because there's a market for it. People's disposable income--or lack thereof--forces them to make do with less shiny, older, products. As society gets richer, this repair culture, too, will fade and go extinct. "When I can easily afford, why should I settle?", the thinking will go. What I'd like to see is for society to embrace repair culture because that feels the right thing to do. A culture where it should feel immoral to chuck something out when there's still life left on the product. A culture where repairing makes economic sense--i.e., the cost of repair doesn't surpass that of a new, comparable, product by a wide margin. When deprecation is the norm and fashion, when companies are incentivized to "innovate" (read: planned obsolescence) and flood the market with cheap products, there won't be a repair culture.
srameshc 2y ago
I bought a 2016 for someone for about $150 and it was probably refurbished at such shop few months back. It had 16GB RAM and i7 processor enough to get going with design work with a nice external laptop. I wasn't sure if it will last but took a bet and it works perfectly.
silexia 2y ago
Please ask your local representatives to vote for the right to repair!
goldforever 2y ago
[dead]
evgandr 2y ago
I'm living in Russia. Can't say that we lived wealthy any time, maybe near 10 years at the beginning of XXI century. So the culture of repairs and repair shops is widely adopted here. It is so widespread that even a special sort of frauds have been invented. First, a fake "repair shop" where you can lose money on paid "diagnosis" of broken parts or on extremely high cost of "repair". Which is just an installation of less broken parts or non-original and cheap parts ordered in China. Second is a fake repairman, who comes to fix someone's PC and charges unreasonably high price for simple things, like cleaning the case from the dust or changing the thermal paste. Or even installs viruses to convince the user of the "real problems" and takes the computer to the "repair shop" where the obviously working parts will be stolen (swapped to smth cheap chinese parts) and the user ofc gets the unreasonably large paycheck for these operations. Usually the technically illiterate people are the main target of such scammers. --- I'm still using the PC from 2013 year and the heavily modified Thinkpad X220. Yes, maybe some operations (mostly the modern Web-related operations) take more time than on the modern computer (mostly because of JavaScript). But editing text, programming, watching videos and listening to audio still works pretty well. Maybe, some day some time, the battery will be a problem. But it is detachable, so the main problem is the BMS (Battery Management System), which prevents me from just swapping the old battery cells for the new ones. But for now it has 2K screen (installed it because photo editing with 1366x768 isn't easy), new WiFi card with new WiFi revisions support and so on. Can say what this laptop have enormous repairability compared to the new laptops. One flaw — the CPU is soldered to the board, so I can't change it to something newer, like I can do with much older laptops.
rajnathani 1y ago
> “We literally make them out of scrap! We also take in second-hand laptops and e-waste from countries like Dubai and China, fix them up, and sell them at half the price of a new one,” he explains. This part is pretty surprising (maybe it's only a single source saying this so it could be non-truthful), because given China's electronics ecosystem that I would expect the repair ecosystem to be the most efficient and best there. But then maybe because the standard-of-living is higher in China that it would be cheaper to ship unrepaired electronics to India and the repair being done here, as repaired old electronics would have less value in the market in China.
msephton 1y ago
I'm guessing they still look like a normal laptop, which is why there's no photo of such a "Frankenstein" laptop?

325 points by hilux 2y ago

ggm 2y ago

If the thinkpad community gets behind this, there will be a market for upspecced thinkpads as long as supplies last. the reduce re-use re-cycle part here is nicely inserting itself into the recycle tail side.

nxobject 2y ago
It's such a pity 51nb's upgraded ThinkPad project is no longer quite as active as it was. I think the small niche market for hacker-friendly laptops is far too diluted now, especially with qualitatively unique products like the MNT Reform. https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/1dh04ud/how_do_get_51nb_thinkpad/ https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/1dh04ud/how_do_ge...
- lproven 2y ago
  There are others... https://www.tpart.net/ https://www.tpart.net/
  - nxobject 2y ago
    Wow, just about to be shipped, too! Now if only I had a cool $1299++ :(
noufalibrahim 2y ago
Abhas Abhinav of Deeproot Linux runs "Mostly Harmless" which sells refurbished Thinkpads with binary blobs removed. https://mostlyharmless.io/computers/ https://mostlyharmless.io/computers/
- HexDecOctBin 2y ago
  This is amazing, I didn't know we had people doing this kind of stuff in India. Are there any other similar services that you know of, that are doing open source/Linux-friendly hardware, etc.?
- forinti 2y ago
  That is super cool.
- balancesoggy 2y ago
  Highly recommend. Bought a ThinkPad from Abhas and it runs like tank.

aamederen 2y ago

Even though the aim here is different, sustainability through repair and reuse is uplifting. It's also a reminder that 10-year-old computers can do a lot and most of us may not need the latest shiny laptops.

chrismorgan 2y ago
It’s also good to upgrade certain components. Firstly, upgrade from HDD to SSD. For random access, these are commonly 100–500× as fast, and even for block I/O 10–30×, and that will concretely speed up startup by a large fraction of that ratio, quite apart from speeding up other things later. Once you get used to modern SSDs, as almost everyone on this site will be, I think you lose track of just how bad HDDs are, to run the OS from. My wife’s ten-year-old work laptop takes well over five minutes to boot up, log in, start a browser, load something like Gmail, and settle down so the disk is idle and it’s running as smoothly as it ever will; and sure, the aging i5-4300M CPU doesn’t help¹; but I suspect spending less than a thousand rupees replacing its HDD with even the cheapest and smallest SSD (acceptable capacity, in this case) might cut that to a minute, and spending a few thousand for a faster one would speed it up to below a minute. (One fun thing about SSDs is that, overall, bigger is faster. At some points in history, for some makes, it’s been almost as simple as “twice as large, twice as fast”. This is, of course, a gross simplification, but I think not too far off.) Secondly, if you have less than 8GB of RAM, get more. Beyond that it varies depending on what you’re using it for, but up to at least that point, it’s just an unconditional improvement. —⁂— ¹ PassMark lists single/multi scores for the Intel Core i5-4300M of around 1,700/3,000. Some units in recent generations from approximately the same segment: the Intel Core i5-1334U scoring 3,350/13,400, and the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H scoring 3,450/21,500. This basically means an absolute minimum of 2× speedup on any workload, and for most it’s more like 3–4×. There’s a lot of difference in ten years of CPU.
pjmlp 2y ago
An Amiga or PC running Windows 3.x would be quite capable to handle the word processing and spreadsheet related activities I do at home, and from the Amiga side I dare say I would still enjoy more many of those games than the 80 € AAA graphics pumped games that come out nowadays with their 60 h gameplay and 120 GB disk space.

tommica 2y ago

Honestly cool, though it really sucks that they don't have any safety from all those harmful chemicals.

nyanpasu64 2y ago
What's the chemical exposure from laptop repair? The biggest thing that comes to mind is flux smoke, which needs a fan or ideally a fume extractor to keep out of your face. Modern devices use lead-free solder, though I understand solder is mostly a concern for scrapping electronics for gold rather than repairing it (unless you don't wash your hands after soldering). I've gotten nasty effects from isopropyl/acetone vapors and super glue/epoxy too. EDIT: Are they salvaging components from e-waste, or diving in dumpsters with non-computer waste as well?
- tommica 2y ago
  Article did talk about lead

ravirajx7 2y ago

This reminded me of something that happened to a friend of mine not long ago. He’d just been laid off from a pretty good Salesforce Admin job and was already in a tight spot financially when his laptop’s motherboard fried after a voltage spike. Local shops were quoting ₹25,000–₹30,000 (roughly $300–$360), which he just couldn’t afford. Then a friend told him about Nehru Place. He sent the laptop there through someone he knew, and the repair only cost him around ₹5,000–₹10,000 ($60–$120). Way more reasonable. He was glad to get it fixed without spending a lot but it does make you wonder how reliable those reused parts are. Like, how long is it gonna hold up before something else goes wrong?

gyomu 2y ago
I could also see unscrupulous businesses swapping out original parts in machines sent for repair for cheaper ones as a way to drive their costs down. The vast majority of customers wouldn’t be able to tell/prove what happened.
- sokz 2y ago
  Spare parts are expensive in general in India. Add to the fact that there are unscrupulous repair centers, I am certain that the theft of genuine parts happen regularly.
LordGrignard 2y ago
this is all the more important since 60$ in india is enough for a meal for four in an expensive restaurant in one of the better malls ( for e.g. in Mumbai ) ... and 25k to 30k is just ludicrous for a laptop. Even 5-10k will easily hurt his pockets but it depends on what the laptop's specs were and what it was worth
sokz 2y ago
Delhi NCR in general looks like a pretty nice place to source tech in India. The Bangalore counterpart of Nehru Place, SP Road felt expensive and a bit less competent than I expected.
InfinityByTen 2y ago

solarpunk 2y ago

Hell yeah! I wanna read more about this kind of stuff.

nxobject 2y ago

I’d love to learn some of the advanced rework skills they need to work on modern motherboards - especially BGA part replacement. And how to build a workshop on the cheap! I’m always in awe at the skills they need to learn that are nonexistent in the western world.

walterbell 2y ago
Some repair shops have videos on YouTube. Search for a specific device or IC replacement. Some videos are oriented towards teaching vs. demo.
Saigonautica 2y ago
Here are some good "value for money" tool brands I use (I live in Asia): 1.Yihua combined hot air rework station + soldering station. 2.Pro's Kit multimeter, tweezers, and wire snips. 3.Uni-T hand-held oscillosope (quite optional). 4.Mechanic brand solder paste. Get the one in a plastic syringe. The tubs dry out. 5.TS100 soldering iron as a spare. Heats up so fast at 24V! I use them mainly for prototyping, but they are equally handy for repair. I don't re-ball BGA though. I've seen vendors do it with a machine that's mostly just a holder for the chip, and the hot air gun. Plus some templates and the solder balls.
- nxobject 2y ago
  Thanks for the recommendations! I have a Yihua soldering station - such a solid budget option - I’ll shell out on a hot air rework station too, maybe one with a board preheater.
- NikkiA 2y ago
  > Yihua combined hot air rework station + soldering station. I personally wouldn't recommend this. I have one, it cost just short of £100. But I much prefer my T12 based 'KSGER' soldering station that was $30 from banggood and has far better features, plus I don't have to worry about the heating element dying (since with T12 the element is part of the tip). One day when I need hot air again, I'll probably think hard about finding a stand alone hot air station from banggood or aliexpress. I see they have some for $30. Since the hot-air has all the critical parts in the hand unit, and the heating and fan often die randomly, having a 2-in-1 is just too much liability. Btw, I recommend a butane soldering iron as a true 'backup' that doesn't even need a charged powertool battery.

zkmon 2y ago

My Dell XPS-15 laptop's screen was falling off. To fix it, I drilled holes right though the border area of the screen and fitted 4 bolts so that the screen stays with the laptop. My colleagues were horrified to see large bolts at the back of the screen, but everything worked like a charm.

grishka 2y ago
My classmate at the university had a laptop that first developed lines on the screen that he fixed by strategically cramming pieces of paper between the bezel and the LCD panel, and then eventually the hinges broke so he carried a book stand to prop up the lid. He did get a new laptop eventually iirc
- noufalibrahim 2y ago
  I "fixed" broken hinge on a Dell laptop using some mseal. Sort of worked.
  - dangle1 2y ago
    Can also add a binder clip after applying the adhesive for additional strength. The handles will fold around the screen kind of out of the way.
devsda 2y ago
I would have made it needlessly complex by gluing a set of strong neodymium magnets on the exterior and a set of small flat magnets on the screen side to avoid the risks of drilling and protruding bolts. Of course gluing or taping are also viable options ?

anshumankmr 2y ago

I had an HP laptop bought in 2016, that worked like a charm and worked perfectly till 2023, when I upgraded to Windows 11, which wasn't supported on it. But in Delhi's Nehru Place, I got the damn thing repaired several times for several times, including battery repairs, a broken keyboard amongst other things, that extended its life quite well. In fact, I was open to using it for more years, though the HDD kind of sucked compared to the SSD.

zkmon 2y ago

I grew up in a village, where literally nothing goes waste. Eevrything is recycled. You can't think of anything that is junk. Animal poop and rotten bio-waste makes a great fertilizer for crops. Metal waste is melt by blacksmith, Wood in any form or shape is highly reusable. Plastics are almost absent, but they are sold in exchange for onions etc. Fabric is extremely reused. After reusing multiple time, things end up in a dump at the corner of own premises, which degrades and becomes fertilizer, in time for next crop.

blackoil 2y ago

It's simple, the labour cost for repair is lower than the replacement cost, we also have people scavenging for valuables in landfills. As/When India will become rich enough, this will become uneconomical. Long term solution is to force companies to build products with repairability in mind.

ryandrake 2y ago
Companies should have to bear the full cost of cleaning up, repairing, or disposing the products they unleash upon the world. If I have to throw away my laptop because it broke, Lenovo should pay the cost of disposing (or repairing) it and bringing the environment back to the condition it was in before the product existed. When my car dies, Toyota should have to tow it away, part it out and reuse what it can. We've somehow normalized the idea that companies can just externalize these real disposal costs onto the public and environment.
- meta_ai_x 2y ago
  what about people who don't care for the products they own. Why should it be Toyota's responsibility for lazy people who don't even do basic maintenance?
  - lompad 2y ago
    Pretty much every product becomes trash at some point, maintenance only changes the timescale. Something somewhat similar is already law in germany and works rather well. There is no reason society should have to pay for expected costs for disposing a company's products - as this would only incentivize companies to care even less about the difficulty of recycling/disposal.
- sidkshatriya 2y ago
  This is a fair and valid view of looking at things. Though the trick is to not get too heavy handed. At what point does regulation become too stifling ? The American way is to possibly put too few responsibilities on manufacturers. The European way seems to be to saddle them with just too many regulations -- possibly killing so much innovation. One way to approach this would be to put more responsibilities on large established companies and less on smaller companies. But then the problem is that larger companies will want to arbitrage this somehow by indirectly "owning" these smaller companies with less environmental responsibilities. This area is far more complex than we think it is. Also what do we do about totally new materials that are thought to be benign when introduced but then are proved to have harmful effects many years later. Does the company that introduced them now have huge open ended costs and now go bankrupt ? The solution is as always in the middle ground. Society as a whole bears some cost of cleanup (a kind of insurance policy for all companies) and companies bear some of costs.

saidinesh5 2y ago

During my middle school days, we lived in a small town for a little while (read: A place where i was allowed to take my bicycle out onto the main road). After school, I used to spend a lot of time just hanging out around some TV and radio repair shops and just watched them work. They used to be friendly and gave me parts like spare motors, lights that were lying around from broken Walkmans they wouldn't repair. I took those motors and added to my bicycle as a "dynamo light" , built "wired RC car" etc ... Fast forward to a few years ago when i got into building racing drones, soldering certain tiny wires was difficult for me. I went to a nearby mobile repair shop to get that done and he was happy to help me out. I owe a lot of my curiosity and my knowledge today to these repair shops. It's not a good thing that our electronics are becoming less and less repairable these days. No wonder these repair shops are vanishing as the time progresses. The closest thing to that we have these days are makerspaces. At our local makerspace we encourage people try to fix their broken electronics instead of throwing them away. But I feel like there should be more.

gloxkiqcza 2y ago
All tech is becoming more and more integrated and purposefully locked down. Everything from operating systems to cars. It’s truly a shame. I think many of us tinkerers/hackers have a similar story to yours - something grabs your attention when you’re a child and develops into an engineering knack later on.
- vladms 2y ago
  All tech or all physical tech? For now software managed to somehow go in the opposite direction. In the '90s many / lots of operating systems / tools / libraries were paid / hard to access, today we have lots of (open-source) stuff for people to tinker with. Tinkering with physical stuff is also good and should be encouraged / supported, but let's also be careful not to loose the software tinkering (for example by not permitting in any shape rooting mobile devices).
  - coretx 2y ago
    No, most people are stuffing everything into the application layer, or worse, a web/mobile app these days and don't know how to fix anything below it. I know many "programmers" who can neither configure a SME/Enterprise firewall or switch nor build their own PC or server from parts. Also, during the 90's everything was easy to find and access. Piracy was the norm and FOSS was booming.

userbinator 2y ago

Happens a lot in China too. https://www.hwcooling.net/en/recycling-in-china-laptop-cpus-turned-into-lga-1151-upgrades/ https://www.hwcooling.net/en/recycling-in-china-laptop-cpus-...

seanmcdirmid 2y ago
Less so now than a decade ago. You need to watch them while they repair it, I learned that the hard way.
- thenthenthen 2y ago
  EVERYTHING gets recycled in China period.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    That isn’t even close to true. But I get you are using hyperbole here.
    - thenthenthen 1y ago
      Name me one thing that not gets recycled? I have seen ppl opening manholes to scope the oil off the sewer (gutter oil). Styrofoam is the hottest commodity amongst trash collectors (plus cardboard that gets soaked before sold).
usagisushi 2y ago
Here's a somewhat cyberpunk-ish fact I learned today: Back in '98 Taiwan, unbranded, mysterious desktop CPUs called Golden Soldier ("黄金戦士") were available in the street. It turns out they were actually modded mobile Intel CPUs installed in slockets. https://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/article/980618/parts4.htm https://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/article/980618/parts4.ht... https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BB%84%E9%87%91%E6%88%A6%E5%A3%AB https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BB%84%E9%87%91%E6%88%A6%E5... BTW, speaking of repair culture, I love this idea of repurposed headless MacBooks. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Screenless-MacBooks-masquerading-as-Mac-Minis-are-selling-like-hotcakes-in-China.606913.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Screenless-MacBooks-masqueradi...

pjmlp 2y ago

I remember up to the early 1990's we had repair shops all over Portugal, we would buy devices for life, and any kind of malfunction would be rescued at one of those repair shops, unless it was really a death sentence for the device. Now in a throw away society with planned obsolence devices, most of those shops are gone and the repair knowledge gone with them. Unless goverments fix the planned obsolence culture it is almost impossible to have the repair culture back.

zoobab 2y ago
"The throw-away society is a human society strongly influenced by consumerism. The term describes a critical view of overconsumption and excessive production of short-lived or disposable items over durable goods that can be repaired." — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throw-away_society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throw-away_society
- djrj477dhsnv 2y ago
  Isn't it also a natural consequence of rapidly improving technology. Even if a laptop were built to last 20 years, who would want one when a new one is an order of magnitude better?
  - griffzhowl 2y ago
    If it's two orders of magnitude cheaper then plenty of people could want one. It's handy to have a spare laptop or two around and with a lightweight linux on there old ones can be perfectly functional
  - fitsumbelay 2y ago
    > Even if a laptop were built to last 20 years, who would want one when a new one is an order of magnitude better? Someone living in poverty whose life may be markedly improved by having one?
    - Ray20 2y ago

Sateeshm 2y ago

I used to do at-home computer troubleshooting as a part time job when was in college. Most of time it was just opening up the casing, dusting it and reattaching all the parts/reinstalling Windows that did the trick. 90% of time it was just RAM popping out a bit. But in rare cases, it was the components themselves. I used to rely of these shops in the city (Hyderabad, India) that fixed motherboards etc. really cheap and relatively quickly (less than a week most of the time). People that worked there weren't engineers or anything, more like tradesmen. It was amazing to see them work.

DeathArrow 2y ago

I remember a time when I bought an used laptop and was able to upgrade the CPU, RAM and hard drive. While I might buy now a laptop such as a MacBook without being able to replace major components, I will never buy a desktop such as a Mac Studio and accept the same shortcomings. And it's not only that I want to tinker with hardware, but buying parts and assembling the desktop myself has a much better price/performance ratio than buying of the shelf parts. Being able to upgrade is a bonus and that allows me to have cheaper upgrades than selling it and buying another one. How much more would Apple tax me for a Mac with the equivalent performance of i9 14900K, Nvidia 4090, 128 GB RAM and 8 GB SSD I assembled in a few hours. If I were much richer so the few hours spent on assembling the thing were more valuable than the price difference, I might have thought differently.

Brajeshwar 2y ago

I have a friend who runs a devices (mostly Laptops and Phones) rental business. Repairs are a key component in their business model. They have a well-established setup powered by processes automated by technology. He is a programmer, who bootstrapped his business into a successful enterprise today. If you are in India (or more specifically Bangalore), check out his team https://spurge.rentals https://spurge.rentals I remember advising him to protect his domains with a .com while using an interesting but .com domain.

DeathArrow 2y ago

I grew up in a poor Eastern European country which is not as poor anymore. We repaired anything: worn out shoes, distressed socks and clothes. Even cooking pots were patched when they developed holes. Everything had very long lifetimes and those lifetimes were extended with periodic repairs. Cars were rare and using parts of low quality made the break often. People repaired their cars in front of their houses or apartment buildings. Or on the side of the road if it broke there. Everyone carried big toolkits in their trunks and and almost any car owner or driver knew how to fix the car. If a tire ran flat, they had the tools to fix it on spot. There were electronic repair shops everywhere. There were also other kind of repair shops. If someone looked in the trash cans at the time, most of it was vegetable waste resulting from people cooking their meals. It wasn't unusual to own a 30 years old car, a 20 years washing machine, a 30 year radio or a 15 year black and white TV, all being repaired lots of times. Some mass market goods, or most of them, were handed down to the next generation as priced possessions. Now, we repair next to nothing. We still repair cars, although many people sell their old car if it breaks and buy a new one. PC, TV, washing machines, fridges, furniture get replaced in a few years even if it's in perfectly good condition. Good got cheaper, although of uncertain quality and the wages got high so it's expensive to repair something even if you find a place to do it. If you buy a new bicycle and go to the repair shop two or three times it will cost you the price of a new one. I am not nostalgic about it, and I don't think people should stick with old junk. But I do believe we need an equilibrium, goods should be of higher quality, easier and cheaper to repair. I dislike being forced to throw something away because it can't be repaired, even if such a repair should be simple and cheap in theory. We pay less for good and we don't spend for the wages of repair technicians (almost none left) but since the goods are of low quality, have planned obsolescence built in and can't be repaired, we end up buying the same good two or three times so we spend more. While that might create jobs in China or other remote country, I as a consumer, care more about my budget and my quality of life.

rockyj 2y ago

I spent many a weekends at Nehru Place, even though it was a 90 mins drive and the parking ... oh the parking, well if you want to test your patience this is this is the place to go. But for a hardware / gaming junkie this was the place to be. Not to mention (pirated / photocopied) books. Almost any book / media you could dream of. The lanes are buzzing with scamsters / pirates and geniuses who can build / repair anything - phones, TVs, PCs, laptops, watches etc. At one time Nehru Place was the "IT" hub of New Delhi. The street food was not half bad as well. I was just happy watching the men at work in dinky shops fixing anything, built a few PCs there (a tradition which continues to this day). Some happy memories (but you have to be careful or you will need to walk back home without your wallet and your shirt). Edit: 2 movies to understand this culture (a bit more) - - Rocket Singh (salesman of the year) - Mickey Virus

farhanhubble 2y ago
Nehru place was almost 100% scammers than real geniuses but definitely the place if you wanted a custom computing rig. The food was good enough, like you said but the prospect of having a 2GB RAM module made you salivate even more! The neighboring areas also had electronics importers that proved super helpful. You could find some of the most "lethal" tech with their help. I got myself some powerful FPGA kits that are normally not accessible outside defense, academia, and select licensed labs. I have great admiration for those folks who let me lay my hands over the most powerful technology of that time.

boricj 2y ago

Somewhat related, Gamers Nexus made a video about motherboards made from salvaged parts in Shenzhen a while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNje63vx73s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNje63vx73s

FilosofumRex 2y ago

In the US they're not called repair shops, they're chop shops - where all our stolen electronics wash up

h4ck_th3_pl4n3t 2y ago

There was this famous guy, which sold custom old Thinkpads, but with newer mainboards and Intel 10th gen chips in it, with custom USB-C adapters and all. At some point he kind of disappeared and rumors appeared that he is now in mandatory military service, but will come back afterwards. Well, that was pre-COVID. He also knows a friend that backports coreboot to the new mainboards. No idea how they manage to do that in a 2 person project like this. So yeah, all of the laptops they sell run coreboot in it (including the Thunderbolt EC, which is insane amount of work to implement). Nonetheless the build quality was insanely good, and lots of folks were amazed by what they essentially bet blindly on when they ordered it. The X2100 would be my dream laptop, but I didn't manage to get one in time. [1] https://www.xyte.ch/shop/x2100-pricing/ https://www.xyte.ch/shop/x2100-pricing/

accurrent 2y ago
His last post was in 2022. Singapore's national service is 2 years, he'd be out by now. Seems like he probably ran into issues. Also he mentions his university: you can't start university till you've finished your military service.
lproven 2y ago
Try: https://www.tpart.net/ https://www.tpart.net/
- h4ck_th3_pl4n3t 2y ago
  Holy shit. X210 with an Intel 7 Ultra 165H in it? Damn. I'm sold. Anyone got one of these already or are they still in pre-production?
  - lproven 2y ago
    Right? I am extremely tempted to take some cash from my savings account. I spoke with a chap called Franck Deng and he seems to be taking orders right now.

anthk 2y ago

That's the way, India. Helping the poor and avoiding waste it's the key point to improve the society.

robin_reala 2y ago

Not the same thing as this article, but I was impressed with the Chinese trend of “fixing” 2015-era MacBook Pros with broken screens by deleting the screen and installing a blanking plate, leaving the machine as a sort of C64/Amiga/ST/Acorn style keyboard-and-CPU single unit that could be plugged into an HDMI screen. https://ioshacker.com/news/people-in-china-are-using-macbook-pro-without-screen-and-now-i-want-one https://ioshacker.com/news/people-in-china-are-using-macbook...

datadrivenangel 2y ago
I did this with an old ASUS laptop. Just removed the whole screen after the hinges and LCD died. Worked fine!

fifticon 2y ago

Part of the appeal of refurbished computers is that currently, fresh new laptops and tablets have reached a horrible minimum-quality. I have chewed myself and our household through a possibly obscene number of laptops, tablets and smartphones over the last 15 years or so. One of the villains in this story is Asus. An ugly pattern emerges. In my country, there is mandatory 2year warranty on bought electronics - if it breaks before 24 months, the retailer owes you a working specimen. Well, what do you know.. I see a pattern of a lot of these items breaking before 3 years have passed. It is almost as if some hierarchy of managers have dictated "can you make this thing last for 25 months, but no further than that?" - 1 the non-replacable battery will die, leaving the device a brick. - 2 the power management IC will die, so the system refuses to light up or receive electrical current. - 3 often, when (2) happens, the motherboard will be toasted as a by-product, leaving you to pay 600 DKK to have the retailer inform you "we have looked at your device, unfortunately the motherboard died, so repairing it will cost you same price as brand new. Thank you for the 600 you paid to have us tell you that". Within the last year, I have had two separate Asus VivoBooks die on me, both after about 24 months of use - but critically, ">24", so no repair/warranty. One of them a DKK-10.000 purchase, the other a DKK-6.500 purchase. Neither of them have seen particular abuse, they were used by me, as "household pets" - so laptops that never left the couch. I have taken a long time to learn this, but my learned lesson is that I have stopped buying these "10k DKK for 24 months of laptop" devices. I am a pathological computer hoarder, and I have plenty of desktop PCs that are still alive and kicking after 10+ years (in which I may understandably have to replace PSUs). The scam/grift that suppliers like Asus are operating on comsumer devices, is that the PMIC is designed to fail, is soldered into the motherboard, and that they love whenever the failing PMIC kills the motherboard during its death throes.

lou1306 2y ago

I literally just bought a 2nd hand laptop, made by $huge_tech_conglomerate_from_pacific_northwest, with an 11-th gen i7, for less than EUR 250. The reason it was so cheap? It has a defective charging port so it only charges via USB-C. So it's not even "dead" dead. This is mind-boggling, the CPU alone almost basically makes the full price. In what world is this an efficient allocation of resources?

fn-mote 2y ago
> This is mind-boggling, the CPU alone almost basically makes the full price. In what world is this an efficient allocation of resources? The world in which diagnosis (plus risk of incorrect diagnosis) is done at $200/hour. Obviously a corporate sale, where they cannot be bothered to check it out because that's not their core business.

DrNosferatu 2y ago

Want a real solution to electronic waste, with real international knock-on effects? The EU should mandate 10-year warranties for higher-end consumer electronics and durable goods. This could work on a sliding scale: less expensive items get shorter warranties (but never below the current 2-year minimum), while pricier products require longer coverage periods. Such legislation would: 1. End the exploitation of workers in sweatshops producing deliberately short-lived products 2. Discourage planned obsolescence and reduce manufacturing waste 3. Significantly decrease the climate impact of consumer electronics 4. Create genuine incentives for a Circular Economy where durable products like quality ThinkPads become standard rather than exceptions By requiring products to last, we'd not only protect consumers and the Environment, but also the vulnerable workers currently trapped and exploited in sweatshops designed to produce disposable goods.

_7acn 2y ago

It seems to me that one (of many) factors contributing to the fact that electronics are no longer repaired as often in Western countries is the wealth of these countries and the relatively low cost of electronics. If an hour of a technician's labor costs X, and a particular piece of equipment can be bought for, say, 3X, it doesn't make much sense for most people to repair it.

sunshine-o 2y ago

Are there any good online resources for this beyond iFixit?

pramodbiligiri 2y ago
I've heard of Fixable (https://www.isfixable.com/ https://www.isfixable.com/) in India. They seem to link to a lot of resources.

intrasight 2y ago

As a suburban kid in New York in the 70s, I also got my start in tech by taking apart and sometimes repairing old radios. In my case it wasn't a repair shop but an older sibling who encouraged my interest.

preezer 2y ago

I just love it, when people repair old stuff and the things are running again for another time. I love to repair things myself, it's just a very good feeling, if you managed to repair a device. Don't ask how often it would be cheaper to buy a new device, but the feeling is priceless.

danielktdoranie 2y ago

[flagged]

danielktdoranie 2y ago

One of the events in my early life that got me interested in computers was a friend from middle school who lived near a Radio Shack and a neighbourhood computer store. He dumpster dived and got every computer he owned that way. He had a couple of Macintosh computers, this was like 1992, with cracked plastics. I enjoyed just sitting there and watching him tinker. His entire bedroom was filled with stuff he liberated from dumpster diving.

p3rls 2y ago

[flagged]

bubblethink 2y ago

This is largely a result of tariffs/duties that India imposes on everything. A typical $800 laptop is going to cost $1200-$1500 in India. Combined with the purchasing power parity, a good laptop is out of reach for most people. The repair culture works entirely due to artificial scarcity. Nostalgia for repairs notwithstanding, it is a failure for the country that people can't afford a decent laptop in 2025.

InfinityByTen 2y ago
Food for thought: if a failure (of sorts) can make the successful rethink their ways of being, is that success missing the point, maybe? A lot of ways of life in India are sustainable. In fact going the consumerist ways of West is a step in the opposite direction, given what all problems that has created for the planet. I think the motive of the piece is not the nostalgia of repairing, but how living with constraints births sustainability and how we all can learn from it (including India) and in fact foster it in a positive way :)
- gruez 2y ago
  >A lot of ways of life in India are sustainable. In fact going the consumerist ways of West is a step in the opposite direction, given what all problems that has created for the planet. I think the motive of the piece is not the nostalgia of repairing, but how living with constraints births sustainability and how we all can learn from it (including India) and in fact foster it in a positive way :) Isn't this the degrowth ideology expressed in a slightly obfuscated way? Being poor is more "sustainable", because you don't have as much resources to consume.
  - InfinityByTen 2y ago
    I didn't know there was a term to it. I wouldn't think of my stance currently as advocating of purposeful scarcity in an anticipation of better distribution. Instead I do consider it critical to "take a step back" and "evaluate the problem statement at hand". Is the end goal more consumption or better living?

spaceman_2020 2y ago

A few years ago, I wanted to add more RAM to a Lenovo laptop. I opened the thing, remove the RAM, and like a complete idiot, switched on the power without any RAM in the slot. The laptop refused to start. I took it to the Lenovo center and they said about 7-10 days and a minimum of Rs 10,000 (about $150 in those days). Since this was too much for an old laptop, I looked for alternatives. Someone suggested a repair shop in Nehru Place, New Delhi This was tucked into the back of the basement of a big tower. A tiny 10x10 room filled with laptop parts The guy at the counter looked at the laptop, opened it up, twisted some wires around, added another few wires, and the thing was working again Total time: under 10 minutes. Total cost: Rs 200 - just about $2.5 today

einpoklum 2y ago
Wait, you mean the laptop refused to start after replacing the RAM? And - was the price quote you got for adding RAM, or for fixing the laptop so that it starts again (with the old RAM SODIMM)? I couldn't quite follow the example.
- spaceman_2020 2y ago
  I never replaced the RAM. Switched off the laptop, opened it, removed the RAM, and then accidentally switched it on again without any RAM in the slot
  - glouwbug 2y ago
    It was the secret button: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26932247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26932247
gruez 2y ago
>I opened the thing, remove the RAM, and like a complete idiot, switched on the power without any RAM in the slot. >The laptop refused to start. >I took it to the Lenovo center [...] This makes no sense. Why didn't you just replace the RAM? I seriously doubt starting the laptop without RAM bricks the laptop.

nirui 2y ago

> “...For instance, we salvage parts from old laptop motherboards, such as capacitors, mouse pads, transistors, diodes, and certain ICs and use them in the newly refurbished ones,” says Prasad. This highlights the problem of parts availability, especially for older laptops (10 years old or even older). Since no one, the original manufacturer as well as the "dup(licat)ors", is going to make parts for laptops that old. During my own attempt to revive my old laptops, I had to buy three different keyboards, each costs around $8, from 2 different recycling shop, to "Frankenstein" a working and fairly new-looking one. And then the screen bezel and palm rest is another struggle. One total revival ended up costed me around $50 and 2 weeks, and give up on another one. I imagine in order for laptop/electronic repairing to work reliably, manufactures needs to create standardized parts, like what happened to desktop PCs. But that hasn't happened since ...ever?

pmontra 2y ago
I remember that my old HP nc8430 from 2006 cost only 20 Euro some 10 years later. I could have bought a couple of them for spares if I planned to keep it running. The problem was that the GPU run out of software support circa 2012 and I had to pin the Linux kernel to a 3.1x version. An open source driver apparently made it into the kernel many years later but I never checked if it actually works. I bought a new laptop in 2014 which is a kind of Frankenstein on its own nowadays. I replaced the screen (a defective hinge under warranty), the RAM (maxed it out at 32 GB), the HDD with a 2 TB SSD, the DVD burner with another SSD, the keyboard many times as it wears out and maybe that's it.
knowitnone 2y ago
It is somewhat standard. CPU, memory, drives, LCD. The only thing not standard is the motherboard. With 3d printing, you can print your own base to contain the motherboard, plug all those parts back in, screw on the LCD. Framework Computer is doing repairable laptops

schnable 2y ago

I wonder if repair culture will expand in the US if prices on consumer elections rise with tariffs.

knowitnone 2y ago
The US is unable to fix anything even if they are willing. Throw-away culture has consequences.

dartharva 2y ago

India is a classic cyberpunk dystopia. High tech penetration, extreme income inequality, prevalent hacker undergrounds (as shown in the article) and horrible quality of life.

thenthenthen 2y ago
This should be the top comment.

sharadov 2y ago

India still has a thriving repair and refurbishment culture, which was born more out of financial necessity than environmental concerns. I know someone who exports automobile tires from the US to India to be retreaded.

penguin_booze 2y ago

The repair culture exists because there's a market for it. People's disposable income--or lack thereof--forces them to make do with less shiny, older, products. As society gets richer, this repair culture, too, will fade and go extinct. "When I can easily afford, why should I settle?", the thinking will go. What I'd like to see is for society to embrace repair culture because that feels the right thing to do. A culture where it should feel immoral to chuck something out when there's still life left on the product. A culture where repairing makes economic sense--i.e., the cost of repair doesn't surpass that of a new, comparable, product by a wide margin. When deprecation is the norm and fashion, when companies are incentivized to "innovate" (read: planned obsolescence) and flood the market with cheap products, there won't be a repair culture.

srameshc 2y ago

I bought a 2016 for someone for about $150 and it was probably refurbished at such shop few months back. It had 16GB RAM and i7 processor enough to get going with design work with a nice external laptop. I wasn't sure if it will last but took a bet and it works perfectly.

silexia 2y ago

Please ask your local representatives to vote for the right to repair!

goldforever 2y ago

[dead]

evgandr 2y ago

I'm living in Russia. Can't say that we lived wealthy any time, maybe near 10 years at the beginning of XXI century. So the culture of repairs and repair shops is widely adopted here. It is so widespread that even a special sort of frauds have been invented. First, a fake "repair shop" where you can lose money on paid "diagnosis" of broken parts or on extremely high cost of "repair". Which is just an installation of less broken parts or non-original and cheap parts ordered in China. Second is a fake repairman, who comes to fix someone's PC and charges unreasonably high price for simple things, like cleaning the case from the dust or changing the thermal paste. Or even installs viruses to convince the user of the "real problems" and takes the computer to the "repair shop" where the obviously working parts will be stolen (swapped to smth cheap chinese parts) and the user ofc gets the unreasonably large paycheck for these operations. Usually the technically illiterate people are the main target of such scammers. --- I'm still using the PC from 2013 year and the heavily modified Thinkpad X220. Yes, maybe some operations (mostly the modern Web-related operations) take more time than on the modern computer (mostly because of JavaScript). But editing text, programming, watching videos and listening to audio still works pretty well. Maybe, some day some time, the battery will be a problem. But it is detachable, so the main problem is the BMS (Battery Management System), which prevents me from just swapping the old battery cells for the new ones. But for now it has 2K screen (installed it because photo editing with 1366x768 isn't easy), new WiFi card with new WiFi revisions support and so on. Can say what this laptop have enormous repairability compared to the new laptops. One flaw — the CPU is soldered to the board, so I can't change it to something newer, like I can do with much older laptops.

rajnathani 1y ago

> “We literally make them out of scrap! We also take in second-hand laptops and e-waste from countries like Dubai and China, fix them up, and sell them at half the price of a new one,” he explains. This part is pretty surprising (maybe it's only a single source saying this so it could be non-truthful), because given China's electronics ecosystem that I would expect the repair ecosystem to be the most efficient and best there. But then maybe because the standard-of-living is higher in China that it would be cheaper to ship unrepaired electronics to India and the repair being done here, as repaired old electronics would have less value in the market in China.

msephton 1y ago

I'm guessing they still look like a normal laptop, which is why there's no photo of such a "Frankenstein" laptop?