u/SyriusBB

This one came in looking like exactly what it was. Screen caved in, back glass completely shattered, frame bent. Fell apart in my hands when I picked it up.

Honestly wasn't sure it was worth starting but the customer really wanted to try.

Stripped it right down. Replaced the screen, back glass, battery and the housing. Basically rebuilt the whole thing from the inside out.

Booted straight up. Everything working, cameras fine, touch fine. Pink leopard wallpaper and all.

Customer couldn't believe it was the same phone.

Key fob came in with no power, no signal, nothing. Owner had already been quoted over £150 for a replacement plus programming at the dealer.

Opened it up. Faulty RF coil, the tiny component that actually sends the signal to the car. Swapped it out, job done.

Works perfectly now and the guy saved himself a small fortune.

Dealers won't even look at the old one. They'll just sell you a new key. Half the time it's one tiny part that costs next to nothing and takes 20 minutes to fix. Worth knowing before you hand over £200. 🔧

Someone knocked this off a table. No lights, no sound, nothing at all.

Opened it up and found the power jack pad had lifted clean off the board. Tiny repair honestly. Scraped back the trace, ran a hair thin wire bridge and a dab of UV solder mask to protect it.

Plugged it in and everything came back. LEDs, demo mode, all 100 tones working.

Three minutes of work from completely dead to fully functional

Someone knocked this off a table. No lights, no sound, nothing at all.

Opened it up and found the power jack pad had lifted clean off the board. Tiny repair honestly. Scraped back the trace, ran a hair thin wire bridge and a dab of UV solder mask to protect it.

Plugged it in and everything came back. LEDs, demo mode, all 100 tones working.

Three minutes of work from completely dead to fully functional

Picked this Trust speaker up as faulty. Powered on fine, lights worked, but completely silent.

Opened it up and found a dead NS4250 amplifier chip on the board. SOP-16 package, straightforward enough to replace once you know what you're looking for.

Swapped it out and it sounds exactly like it should.

People throw these away thinking the whole thing is gone

Been giving away repaired devices for a while. Am I doing it right?

Based in Scotland and I fix electronics as a hobby. Phones, laptops, consoles, whatever comes my way. Anything I can't sell I fix up and give away locally rather than let it sit in a box.

This week it was an Xbox One that went to a little girl and her dad. Last month a phone, before that a laptop.

Been thinking about doing this more formally. Volunteering my time and skills somewhere it could actually make a consistent difference rather than just giving stuff to whoever happens to ask.

If anyone knows of volunteer opportunities, shelters, schools or community groups that could use working electronics or someone who can fix things, I'd love to hear about it.

Open to any suggestions.

Customer came to me with an S20 FE. Dropped it, cracked the screen. Took it to another shop, they swapped the display and the phone still didn't work. Shop told him it was beyond repair and to bin it.

He came to me as a last resort.

First thing I found was a damaged FPC connector on the motherboard. Doesn't matter how good the replacement screen is, if the connector is gone it's not going anywhere. On top of that the charging port was damaged too, and so was the flex cable connecting it to the motherboard. All from the same drop most likely.

Replaced the FPC connector, the charging port, the flex cable and fitted a new screen.

Phone came straight back to life.

What made this one stick with me was the photos. Customer had pictures on that phone he thought were gone forever. When it booted up and he saw them still there he was genuinely relieved. Said he'd nearly given up hope.

Customer's PC was completely dead - turned out to be the GPU

Customer came to me with a PC that just stopped working one day. No warning, no error, just dead. Wouldn't POST, no display, nothing at all.

First thing - pulled the GPU and tried booting without it. PC came straight up. So the card was killing the whole system.

Grabbed the multimeter and started poking around. Found the short, traced it back to a blown MOSFET and a damaged resistor. Swapped both out, resoldered. Card fired straight up. Back in the customer's system - full POST, display back, stable.

GTX 980Ti - not the newest card but still worth saving i think

Picked up a pair with dead batteries recently. Sony wants you to bin them or pay nearly as much as a new pair to service them. Decided to have a go myself.

These are not fun to open.

The shells are glued down properly and the internals are packed tighter than they have any right to be for something this small. Heat, patience, and a very thin pick - same approach as a smartwatch, just less forgiving. One wrong move and you're into the driver or the antenna flex.

The batteries are held in with adhesive rather than soldered, which is actually the easy part once you're in. The hard part is getting there without wrecking the shell or slicing a cable.

New cells are cheap - the labour is where people give up. Took me a while but both earbuds are back to full capacity, ANC working perfectly, case charging fine.

Worth it? If you know what you're doing or know someone who does - absolutely. These sound too good to throw away over a £6 battery.

Happy to answer questions on the process. 🎧

Picked up a pair with dead batteries recently. Sony wants you to bin them or pay nearly as much as a new pair to service them.

Decided to have a go myself.

These are not fun to open. The shells are glued down properly and the internals are packed tighter than they have any right to be for something this small. Heat, patience, and a very thin pick - same approach as a smartwatch, just less forgiving. One wrong move and you're into the driver or the antenna flex.

The batteries are held in with adhesive rather than soldered, which is actually the easy part once you're in. The hard part is getting there without wrecking the shell or slicing a cable.

New cells are cheap - the labour is where people give up. Took me a while but both earbuds are back to full capacity, ANC working perfectly, case charging fine.

Worth it? If you know what you're doing or know someone who does - absolutely. These sound too good to throw away over a £6 battery.

Happy to answer questions on the process.

Picked this up to test a 3DS I was repairing since I didn’t have any games on hand. Console wouldn’t detect it at all, so I figured the card reader might be dead.

Opened the cartridge out of curiosity… and yeah, no wonder it didn’t work.

Not even sure how this happens, but I’ve definitely seen some things .. this is up there.

So my 3DS kept failing to read this cart I picked up from Facebook Marketplace. Thought it might be a dirty reader, tried isopropyl, tried cleaning the contacts - nothing worked.

Decided to crack it open and... the ROM chip is literally broken. Not just corroded, physically cracked/chipped, on top of heavy rust and corrosion all over the PCB. The shell looked rough on the outside but I had no idea it was this bad inside.

Seller listed it as "working, just a bit used." Sure mate.

I do electronics repair so I was hoping to maybe save it, but a physically broken chip is pretty much game over. No coming back from that.

Moral of the story: always test before handing over cash on Marketplace. And maybe bring a screwdriver 😅

Anyone else been burned like this? Drop your Marketplace horror stories below.

Had an Xbox Elite Series 2 come in with a really common fault - the RB button was only registering about 50% of presses. Felt fine physically, no obvious damage, but in-game it was basically unusable.

Opened it up and tested the tactile switch directly - it was worn out and had lost its actuation reliability. Swapped it out with a new switch under the microscope and it's been working perfectly since.

This is actually one of the more common faults on the Elite 2. The switches wear out long before the rest of the controller, especially on heavily used units. Totally repairable if you've got the right tools - no need to spend £150+ on a replacement.

Happy to answer any questions if yours has the same issue. Photos in the comments.

Just wanted to share my modded Switch setup - been really enjoying it lately. It completely changed how I use the console and gave it a second life.

Right now I’m mainly playing Crysis 2 Remastered and Quake II, and honestly I’m loving it. Performance has been solid and it’s just fun having everything in one place.

Definitely a setup I can recommend if you’re into tinkering and want to get more out of the hardware you already own.

Asking partly for myself, partly because I might be able to help some of you out.

I've been doing electronics repair for a while now - phones, laptops, gaming controllers, power supplies, scooters, you name it. Honestly there's not much I won't have a go at. I do microsoldering too so even board-level repairs aren't off the table.

Just wondering if there's much demand around the Coatbridge / Glasgow area, or if people usually just bin stuff or send it off somewhere expensive.

If anyone's got something sitting broken that they've been putting off - feel free to DM me. Happy to take a look and give an honest opinion on whether it's worth fixing.