Open every day · 24 hours / No fix · no fee / Free UK collection · DPD / 5.0☆ · Only 5-star Google reviews / 56 Tavistock Pl · WC1H 9RG / 0800 211 8284 / Open every day · 24 hours / No fix · no fee / Free UK collection · DPD / 5.0☆ · Only 5-star Google reviews / 56 Tavistock Pl · WC1H 9RG / 0800 211 8284 / Open every day · 24 hours / No fix · no fee / Free UK collection · DPD / 5.0☆ · Only 5-star Google reviews / 56 Tavistock Pl · WC1H 9RG / 0800 211 8284 / Open every day · 24 hours / No fix · no fee / Free UK collection · DPD / 5.0☆ · Only 5-star Google reviews / 56 Tavistock Pl · WC1H 9RG / 0800 211 8284 /
The complete guide · 22 years on the bench · updated 2026

The complete London laptop repair guide.

Every common laptop repair we do on the Bloomsbury bench — what the fault looks like, what we actually do to fix it, how long it takes, and what it costs. Written by the same team that’s been doing board-level work since 2004. No SEO fluff, no upsell pressure — just the facts.

Google
5.0/5
Only 5-star reviews
★ Est. 2004
22+
Years on Tavistock Place
✓ No fix, no fee
14,000+
Repairs completed
★ Specialist
99%
Liquid-damage recovery rate

Why this guide exists.

If your laptop won’t turn on, the screen’s cracked, the battery’s dead or it took a glass of wine to the keyboard, the internet will tell you forty different things to try. Most of it is wrong, or worse, designed to sell you a £40 toolkit you’ll use once. We wrote this so anyone in London can read one page and know what the actual repair involves, how long it takes, and roughly what it costs — before they decide whether to bring it in to us, send it off to Apple, or attempt a fix at home.

We’ve done 14,000+ repairs since 2004. The patterns are stable: most laptops fail in one of about a dozen ways, and the fix for each one is well-understood. Below, we’ve broken every common repair into four blocks — the symptoms, what we do on the bench, the cost / turnaround, and a "next step" link if you want to book.

A few rules apply to every repair we list:

  • Free written diagnostic. We tell you what’s wrong before we quote. If you don’t want to proceed, no charge.
  • Fixed-price quote. The number we give you is the number you pay. No creep, no “we found more” surprises — if a second issue turns up underneath the first, we ring you before doing anything.
  • No fix, no fee. If we can’t deliver what we quoted, you don’t pay.
  • 12-month warranty on parts and labour (except liquid damage / motherboard work, where insurance reality means 90 days and 6 months respectively — we explain why in those sections).
  • Your data is never touched. We work on the hardware, not the drive. If we need to remove the drive for testing, we tell you and never image it without written consent.
Service deep dive

Screen Replacement

Cracked, flickering, dead pixels or backlight.

How to know you need this.

  • Cracked or shattered LCD / OLED panel
  • Vertical or horizontal lines across the display
  • Dead pixels, dark patches, or backlight bleed
  • Flickering when you move the lid
  • Image visible only under torchlight (backlight failure)

What we actually do on the bench.

We open the lid carefully (the bezel and hinges are usually plastic-clipped or magnetically held), disconnect the LVDS / eDP cable, remove the failed panel, and replace it with an OEM or OEM-equivalent assembly. Most modern Apple, Dell and Lenovo screens come as a full top-cover assembly which is faster and more reliable than swapping just the panel. We calibrate, test at full brightness for an hour, then test multi-touch / pen input if your model has it.

Next step.

Find your model on the device picker and we’ll quote the exact part within 24 hours.

Service deep dive

Battery Replacement

Swollen, not charging, poor cycle life.

How to know you need this.

  • Battery health below 80% in system reports
  • Drops from 90% to 20% in minutes
  • Won’t hold a charge unplugged
  • Visible swelling under the keyboard or trackpad
  • Laptop runs hot even on light load (often a battery thermal issue)

What we actually do on the bench.

We test the battery’s actual capacity and cycle count first — sometimes a "bad battery" is really a charging-circuit fault, which is cheaper to fix. If the cells are genuinely worn or swollen we remove them (Apple uses adhesive strips, Dell / Lenovo are usually screwed-in), fit a new OEM or grade-A equivalent battery, recalibrate the gauge, and full-cycle test before you collect.

Next step.

Swollen batteries are a fire risk — don’t leave the machine on charge overnight. WhatsApp us a photo and we’ll prioritise it.

Service deep dive

Liquid Damage Recovery

Tea, coffee, wine, water — we strip and ultrasonic-clean.

How to know you need this.

  • Spilled tea / coffee / wine / water on the keyboard
  • Machine works for a few minutes then dies
  • Sticky keys or non-responsive trackpad
  • Strange smells from the chassis
  • Won’t turn on after a spill, even hours later

What we actually do on the bench.

Liquid damage is the fastest-deteriorating fault we handle, so we strip the machine within hours of arrival. The board comes out, every connector is disconnected, the whole logic board goes into an ultrasonic cleaning bath with isopropyl alcohol to dissolve the corrosion, we test under a microscope for damaged traces, then reassemble and test. Honest expectation: about 80% of liquid-damage jobs we save fully; the other 20% need targeted board-level component replacement which we quote separately after diagnostic.

Next step.

Time matters. Don’t turn it on, don’t rice it — bring it in. The faster we strip it, the more we save.

Service deep dive

Motherboard Repair

Board-level chip, trace and BGA rework.

How to know you need this.

  • Won’t turn on at all (no fan spin, no LED)
  • Powers on but no display, no boot logo
  • Random shutdowns under load
  • Specific ports dead (USB, HDMI, audio)
  • Liquid damage that’s caused trace corrosion

What we actually do on the bench.

This is the work most "high-street" shops won’t touch. We use a hot-air station and microscope to do BGA reflow, component-level replacement (caps, MOSFETs, resistors, ICs), and trace repair on the logic board itself. We carry a stocked library of common Apple, Dell and Lenovo board parts and can order specialist chips within 48 hours. Where it’s genuinely uneconomic to repair (very rare on modern laptops), we’ll tell you that up front rather than waste your money.

Next step.

Send us the model + a description of the symptom and we’ll tell you whether it’s a £180 fix or a write-off before you even bring it in.

Service deep dive

Power Jack / DC-In

Bent pins, loose charging, board-side damage.

How to know you need this.

  • Have to wiggle the charger to keep it connected
  • Doesn’t charge unless held at a certain angle
  • Visible damage to the DC-in port
  • Sparks or burning smell when plugging in
  • Bent USB-C charging port (modern Apple / Dell / Lenovo)

What we actually do on the bench.

Older laptops have a discrete DC-in jack soldered to a daughterboard — we replace the jack and resolder. Modern laptops charge through USB-C ports which are surface-mounted directly to the logic board; replacing those takes a hot-air station, the right stencil and patient microscope work. Either way the part itself is cheap (£8–£40), but the labour and skill is where the cost sits.

Next step.

If the port’s only loose, sometimes the fix is one stress-fracture solder joint — quick, cheap. Bring it in for a free diagnostic.

Service deep dive

Data Recovery

SSD, HDD, NVMe, dead boot drives, bad sectors.

How to know you need this.

  • "Drive not detected" at boot
  • Stuck on "preparing automatic repair" forever
  • Clicking sound from an old HDD
  • Accidentally deleted files / formatted partition
  • Dead laptop, drive still potentially intact

What we actually do on the bench.

First step is always to clone the failing drive sector-by-sector to a safe target — we never work on the original. From there it’s a tiered approach: logical recovery (file system damage) is straightforward; bad-sector recovery uses imager hardware like DDI; for physically dead drives we open in a cleanroom-equivalent environment and swap heads / PCBs from donor units. NVMe / SSD recovery is harder than HDD because of encryption and controller firmware; we’re honest about success rates before charging diagnostic.

Next step.

If it’s urgent (irreplaceable photos, work files, dissertations), tell us — we triage time-sensitive recoveries above queue.

Service deep dive

Mac Repairs

MacBook, iMac, Mac mini — logic board specialists.

How to know you need this.

  • Touch Bar / Touch ID failure
  • Flexgate display issues (T-pattern, stage light)
  • Butterfly keyboard sticky / non-responsive keys
  • Stuck on Apple logo at boot
  • Anything labelled "Vintage" or "Obsolete" by Apple Store

What we actually do on the bench.

Mac work is our oldest specialism — we’ve seen every common MacBook fault from the white plastic models onwards. We stock common iPad / iPhone / MacBook flex cables, hinges, batteries, screens and keyboards; for board-level work we have schematics and boardview files for every model back to 2012. Crucially, we fix machines Apple themselves will refuse to touch (anything older than 7 years from their channel).

Next step.

Apple quoted you £600+? WhatsApp us a photo of the diagnostic. There’s a 50/50 chance we can do the same fix for half.

Service deep dive

Desktop PC Repair

PSU, thermals, GPU, drive replacements, builds.

How to know you need this.

  • Won’t POST (no display)
  • Random shutdowns / thermal throttling
  • Failing PSU (won’t turn on, occasional shutdowns)
  • Failed boot drive, OS install gone wrong
  • GPU artefacts or driver errors

What we actually do on the bench.

Desktops are easier than laptops — mostly modular swaps with standardised parts. We diagnose with a known-good PSU and bench loop, swap suspect components in sequence, repaste CPUs / GPUs that have thermal issues, run 24-hour stability + memory tests, and ship back ready-to-use. If you brought a system in for an upgrade rather than a fault, we’ll usually do it the same day.

Next step.

See our custom build configurator if you want a fresh machine bench-built rather than the current one repaired.

Service deep dive

Gaming Console Service

PS5, Xbox, Switch — HDMI port, thermal paste, drive.

How to know you need this.

  • HDMI port pulled out / damaged (PS5, Xbox)
  • Disc drive eats discs / won’t accept them
  • Overheating / loud fan / shutting down mid-game
  • Joycon drift (Switch)
  • PS5 / Xbox storage errors

What we actually do on the bench.

Consoles are dense single-board hardware. HDMI port replacement on PS5 / Xbox is a 90-minute reflow job. Disc drives we either repair (laser-assembly swaps) or replace. Thermal issues almost always come down to repaste + dust-out — we use liquid metal on the APU only when the user wants it and understands the warranty trade-off. Switch joycon drift is a £25 module swap.

Next step.

Drop it in. Console fixes are usually quoted same-day.

Service deep dive

Software & Virus Removal

OS reinstall, malware removal, driver hell.

How to know you need this.

  • Slow Windows / macOS, takes minutes to boot
  • Persistent malware / browser hijack / popups
  • Driver conflicts after Windows update
  • Want to reset / wipe before selling
  • Account locked out, password reset needed

What we actually do on the bench.

Honest software work, not the fake "PC tune-up" rubbish. We’ll boot from a clean USB, image off any data you want to keep, do a full malware sweep with multiple engines if needed, then either fix the existing install or do a clean reinstall + driver setup. We also do OS migration (Windows 10 → Windows 11, Intel Mac → Apple Silicon transition setup).

Next step.

If you’re not sure whether the slowness is software or hardware, bring it in — diagnostic is free, and we’ll tell you straight.

Service deep dive

Hardware Upgrades

RAM, SSD, thermal paste, battery refresh.

How to know you need this.

  • Out of disk space, want a bigger SSD
  • Running out of RAM (slow when multitasking)
  • Old laptop running hot (needs repaste)
  • Want a bigger / replacement battery
  • Want to add USB-C, Thunderbolt or eGPU support

What we actually do on the bench.

Most laptops support SSD and RAM upgrades up to a model-specific limit — we check the spec, source the right parts (DDR4 vs DDR5, NVMe vs SATA, capacity ceilings), and do the swap with a fresh data migration if required. Repaste jobs use Arctic MX-6 by default or Kryonaut on request. We carry spare batteries for every common model in stock.

Next step.

Tell us your model and what you want to add — we’ll send back a fixed price within an hour.

Two ways to get it fixed.

Walk in · or post it — both 12-month warranty
Option 1 · Drop in

Bloomsbury walk-in.

56 Tavistock Place, 60 seconds from Russell Square Tube. Open 24 hours, every day. Quick diagnostics done while you wait; longer jobs we’ll WhatsApp you progress photos.

How to find us
Option 2 · UK-wide post

Free DPD collection.

Book online, we send a DPD label, you drop the laptop at a Pickup point or have it collected. We fix and ship back free of charge. Same 12-month warranty regardless of how it arrived.

Book a collection

Questions about repairs.

Q.01 What does “no fix, no fee” actually mean? +
You pay £0 if we can't repair your device. No diagnostic fee, no inspection fee, no return-shipping fee. If you accept our quote and we can't finish the job, you owe nothing. We've honoured this on 14,000+ repairs since 2004.
Q.02 How does the free DPD collection work? +
Book online, print a prepaid label (or we send one by post), DPD picks up from any UK address next working day. We diagnose within 24 hours and send a fixed-price quote by WhatsApp or email. Approve it — or don't — and we ship back, also free.
Q.03 Why does your 12-month warranty matter? +
Because we source panels and parts directly and stock 800+ at a time, we can afford to stand behind every repair for a full year. Coverage includes every mode of failure we've historically seen: backlight, digitiser, pressure marks, delamination, BMS, charging IC.
Q.04 Do you use genuine parts? +
Where possible, yes. For Apple and premium-brand screens we use OEM or OEM-equivalent panels from the same Foxconn/LG lines. For batteries we use manufacturer-spec cells. We'll always tell you on the quote what grade the part is, and the price reflects it.
Q.05 Can you fix water damage on a MacBook that won't turn on? +
Usually. Liquid damage is a board-level job — we strip the machine to components, ultrasonic-clean in an industrial bath, inspect under microscope, and replace any corroded ICs. Success rate runs about 99% if the device has been powered down within 6 hours of the spill.
Q.06 Is the 30% student discount on everything? +
Yes — labour and parts. Valid NUS, TOTUM, or university email. Stackable with our price-match guarantee. Average student save is £62.
Q.07 Do I need to back up my data before bringing it in? +
Ideally yes, but we mirror drives before any invasive work whenever they're readable. If your drive is dead and you need the data, we have a separate data-recovery lab with clean-room facilities.
Q.08 What if I just want a diagnosis? +
Diagnostics are free, in-shop or by post. You get a written quote within 24 hours. You owe nothing to walk away. Most customers approve the quote on the spot.
Ready when you are

Free diagnostic.
Free collection.
Honest answer in 24 hours.

Book online 0800 211 8284
Or walk in · 24 hours · 7 days
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