Weekly Laptop Repair Requests in Manchester (With Real Prices)

Curious what a laptop repair actually costs in Manchester? Each week we handle a wide range of repair requests, and here is a real breakdown of a week's cases, complete with our diagnosis and transparent prices. It shows both how varied laptop faults are and how we approach each one honestly, with no hidden costs. Below the real cases we have added the most common jobs we see week in, week out, what causes them, what you can safely check yourself first, and roughly what each one tends to cost.

How we quote a laptop repair

It helps to know how a quote is built. A typical Manchester PC repair has two parts: the part, if one is needed, and a service fee of £75 that covers collection, the repair, full testing, a general service (cleaning, updates, health checks) and return delivery. So a screen that costs £60 to buy is not a £60 repair, it is roughly £135 once skilled fitting and collection are included, and we tell you that figure up front.

Where the cause is not obvious from your description, such as random shutdowns, frame drops or a laptop that will not power on, we run a diagnostic first (often £25, redeemable against the repair). That stops anyone paying for the wrong part. For the bigger picture, our guide on how much it costs to fix a laptop breaks the typical jobs down further.

Why the model number matters so much

The single most useful thing you can give us is the exact model number, not just the brand. "An HP laptop" could be one of hundreds of machines, and the screen, battery, keyboard and charger differ between them. The HP 15s in the first case below takes a completely different panel to an HP Victus or an HP Pavilion, even though all three are "15-inch HP laptops". Getting the model right first time means we order the correct part once, quote you accurately, and turn the repair around faster.

You will usually find the model number on a sticker on the underside of the laptop, in Settings, System, About on Windows, or by typing wmic csproduct get name into Command Prompt. On a Mac, click the Apple menu and choose About This Mac. We explain exactly where to look, brand by brand, in our guide to finding your laptop model number. Have that ready when you ask for a quote and the whole process gets quicker.

HP laptop: cracked screen (Manchester City Centre)

A customer in the city centre had an HP 15s-FR5007TU with a cracked screen, vertical lines down the left-hand side, a non-touch HD panel. Our process: verify the model and screen type, carefully remove the damaged screen (glued to the LCD back cover), fit and test a replacement, then return the laptop fully serviced.

It is worth understanding what we are actually replacing here. The visible glass and the LCD on most non-touch laptops are a single bonded unit, so even if only the glass looks cracked, the panel is replaced as one part. Those vertical lines are a telltale sign the LCD layer itself is damaged, not just the outer surface, so no amount of cleaning or pressing will bring it back. What you can check yourself: plug the laptop into an external monitor or TV with an HDMI cable. If the external display is perfect, the fault is in the screen assembly (good news, a clean fix); if the external screen shows the same lines, the problem is deeper, in the graphics chip or motherboard, and needs a different repair.

Price: screen £60.99, service fee £75 (collection, replacement, testing and servicing), total £135.99, with a 90-day parts and labour warranty. Looking for an HP screen replacement in Manchester? We can help.

Acer Nitro: gaming frame drops (Salford)

A customer in Salford reported frame drops and freezing on their Acer Nitro N50-640 gaming PC (i5 12th Gen, RTX 3060), lasting from a second to a minute. Possible causes: GPU overheating from dust or dried thermal paste, an SSD performance issue (we have seen failing SSDs cause frame drops), or software and driver conflicts. Our diagnostic plan: check cooling and GPU temperatures, swap in a test GPU, and monitor the SSD.

Frame drops are a classic case where the symptom points at several possible causes, which is exactly why we diagnose rather than guess. When a graphics chip gets too hot it deliberately slows itself down to protect itself, a behaviour called thermal throttling, and the result is the exact stutter this customer described. That heat ceiling is set by the cooling system's design, what engineers call the thermal design power; once dust or dried paste stops the cooler keeping up, the chip throttles. What you can check yourself: run a free monitoring tool such as HWMonitor while gaming and watch the GPU and CPU temperatures. If they climb past roughly 90 to 95C just before the stutter starts, heat is your prime suspect and a clean plus fresh thermal paste is likely the cure. If temperatures stay sensible but the game still hitches, we look at the drive and drivers instead.

Diagnostic fee: £25, redeemable against the final repair. Need Acer repair in Manchester? Get a quote.

Dell Inspiron: touchscreen replacement (Fallowfield)

A Dell Inspiron 5410 2-in-1 from Fallowfield needed a touchscreen replacement. Touchscreens are trickier, as they are glued to the LCD back cover and removal often causes further cracking, so they need careful handling.

A touchscreen panel is really three layers bonded together: the display, the touch digitiser and the glass. Because the part is dearer and the removal is more delicate (heat is used to soften the adhesive without cracking the surrounding glass further), a touchscreen replacement always costs more than the equivalent non-touch panel. That is why getting the model right matters so much; a 2-in-1 like this must take a touch panel, and fitting a cheaper non-touch screen would break the very feature that makes it a 2-in-1. What you can check yourself: if the display is fine but touch has stopped responding in one area or registers phantom taps, the digitiser layer is failing even if nothing looks broken, and that still points to a panel replacement.

Price: screen £149.99, service fee £75, total £224.99, including a 90-day warranty and full servicing. More on laptop screen repair.

MacBook Air M1: screen replacement (Ancoats)

A MacBook Air 13″ M1 (2020) owner in Ancoats had pixelated bars after a drop. Unlike some competitors, we only ever fit genuine Apple screens, not third-party alternatives, for guaranteed quality. Options: a brand-new genuine Apple screen at £399.99, or a refurbished genuine Apple screen (where available) with minor cosmetic marks for less.

MacBook displays are among the best in any laptop, with True Tone colour and tight brightness control, and a third-party panel simply cannot match them; colours look off, brightness is uneven and the part often fails early. Apple's own guidance on Mac parts and service history explains why genuine, properly calibrated components matter for performance and reliability, which is exactly why we will not cut that corner. What you can check yourself: pixelated bars, coloured lines or a permanent dark patch after a knock are display damage, not a software glitch, so a restart will not help. If the image is fine but the backlight is dim or dead (you can see a faint picture with a torch held close), that can be a different, sometimes cheaper, repair, which is why we always confirm before quoting.

Price: service fee £75 (installation, calibration and servicing), total £474.99 for a new screen, or less refurbished. See our MacBook repair page.

HP Victus 15: charging and shutdown fault (Rusholme)

This HP Victus 15-FA1000NX drained to 0% even when plugged in. HP support suggested a motherboard issue, while diagnostics indicated a battery problem. Possible causes: a faulty charging circuit (power not reaching the battery), a failing battery, or a motherboard fault (which would explain random shutdowns). Our plan: a deep diagnostic to confirm the fault, testing with a known-good battery and charger, and inspecting the motherboard for damage.

"Plugged in, not charging" is one of the most over-diagnosed faults out there, and it is rarely worth replacing a motherboard before you have ruled out the cheaper culprits. A gaming laptop like this draws a lot of power, so the very first thing to confirm is whether the correct high-wattage charger is being used; an underpowered charger can let the battery drain even while plugged in. From there we test with a known-good battery and charger, because if the machine charges and holds power with those, the fault is the original battery or charger, not the board. What you can check yourself: make sure you are using the laptop's own charger (not a lower-watt USB-C one), check the charging port for fluff or a wobble, and look at Battery health in Windows (generate a report by running powercfg /batteryreport) to see whether the battery's real capacity has collapsed. Our guide on a battery not charging walks through this in detail. Need HP laptop repair in Manchester? Get in touch.

HP 14: water-damaged screen (Ardwick)

A very Manchester problem: a leaking water bottle in a bag soaked an HP 14-8 G, causing liquid damage inside the screen. The laptop still worked, but the display had a visible water stain. Our fix: a screen replacement with fresh adhesive, testing and servicing.

This one was lucky. The liquid reached the display layers (that cloudy stain is moisture trapped between them) but had not got into the motherboard, so a screen swap sorted it. Liquid near electronics is always a gamble, though, because corrosion can keep spreading for days after the spill even when everything still seems to work. What you can check yourself: if liquid only touched the screen and the laptop runs normally otherwise, you are usually in screen-replacement territory. If liquid went into the keyboard or the body of the machine, stop using it and read the full liquid-damage case further down this page, because the right first move there can be the difference between a clean and a destroyed laptop.

Price: screen £59.99, service fee £75, total £134.99. Need a fast screen replacement in Manchester?

Lenovo IdeaPad: no power at all (Didsbury)

A common one to round out a typical week: a Lenovo IdeaPad from Didsbury that was completely dead, no lights, no fan, nothing when the power button was pressed. "No power" feels like the worst news, but it is often one of the cheaper faults, because the cause is frequently a stuck power state, a tired battery interfering with start-up, or a charging fault rather than a dead motherboard. Our plan: confirm the charger delivers power, perform a power drain, then test with a known-good battery and charger before opening the machine.

What you can check yourself before booking anything (this fixes a surprising number of "dead" laptops): unplug the charger, take the battery out if it is removable, then hold the power button down for 30 seconds to drain residual power. Plug just the charger back in (no battery) and try to switch on. Check the charger's little LED is lit and try a different wall socket. If a light flickers for a second and dies, or you hear a single fan twitch, that is useful information that points us toward the power circuit rather than the screen. If none of that wakes it, a £25 diagnostic tells us whether it is a charging port (often an affordable fix from around £85 to £130 fitted), a battery, or something on the board. Many no-power jobs land well under £150 all in. We cover Lenovo repair across Didsbury and South Manchester.

ASUS TUF: overheating and loud fans (Chorlton)

A representative case we see most weeks, especially with gaming and creative machines: an ASUS TUF laptop from Chorlton running scorching hot, fans roaring constantly, and shutting itself off during longer sessions. The owner had done nothing wrong; most laptops simply collect dust over 12 to 24 months of use, and on fabric surfaces like a bed or sofa the vents get blocked even faster. Inside, we typically find the fans and heatsink fins clogged with a felt of dust, and thermal paste (the compound that carries heat from the chips to the cooler) dried hard and cracked.

The shutdowns are not a fault as such, they are the laptop protecting itself: when a chip hits its temperature limit it throttles, and if it keeps climbing it cuts the power to avoid damage. What you can check yourself: use the machine on a hard, flat surface so the underside vents are clear, check the exhaust grille is not pumping out hot air against a wall, and monitor temperatures with a free tool. If you hit the high 90s in Celsius and then it dies, you almost certainly need an internal clean and fresh paste rather than a new part. A strip-down clean and re-paste service is typically around £75 to £110 depending on how far the machine has to come apart, and it usually buys back both the lost performance and a quieter laptop. See our notes on thermal paste in Manchester and book ASUS repair if your machine is from Chorlton or nearby.

Dell laptop: failing SSD and random freezes (Stretford)

A Dell laptop from Stretford that had started freezing for 10 to 30 seconds at a time, taking a minute to boot when it used to take ten seconds, and occasionally showing "no boot device" before springing back to life on a restart. Those three symptoms together are the classic signature of a drive on its way out. Modern drives carry built-in health monitoring called S.M.A.R.T., and on inspection this drive was reporting reallocated sectors and read errors, meaning it was quietly running out of healthy storage to use.

What you can check yourself: install a free tool like CrystalDiskInfo, which reads that S.M.A.R.T. data and shows a plain "Good", "Caution" or "Bad" status. Anything other than "Good" means you should back up immediately, because a failing drive can go from flaky to fully dead with little warning. This is the single most important thing to act on quickly: the data is usually recoverable while the drive still spins up, but waiting until it dies turns an easy job into a data recovery one. Our fix is to clone the old drive to a healthy new SSD where possible (so Windows and all your files come across intact), then fit and test it. A drive replacement with a quality SSD usually runs from around £120 to £180 fitted depending on capacity, and the machine often feels faster than new. More on why this matters in our guide on why you should upgrade to an SSD and why backing up your data is critical. We serve Stretford and across the city.

HP Pavilion: memory upgrade for a sluggish machine (Withington)

Not everything is a fault. A student in Withington brought in an HP Pavilion that felt painfully slow with lots of browser tabs and a couple of apps open, but was otherwise healthy. It had 8GB of RAM, which a few years ago was plenty and today is the bare minimum for comfortable multitasking. Adding memory is one of the best-value upgrades there is, because it lets the machine keep more open at once without slowing to a crawl.

The catch, and the reason the model number matters again, is compatibility. You cannot mix memory types: a laptop built for DDR4 cannot take DDR5, and vice versa, because the modules are physically keyed differently. Every machine also has a maximum it will accept. What you can check yourself: press Ctrl, Shift, Esc to open Task Manager, click the Performance tab and select Memory; it shows how much you have, the type (for example DDR4), the speed, and how many slots are in use. If you are regularly near 100% memory use, an upgrade will help far more than any "speed-up" software. We confirm the exact supported type and maximum for your model, then fit it; a typical 8GB to 16GB upgrade is often around £40 to £70 for the memory plus fitting. Our guide on whether you need extra memory goes deeper, and the same logic applies to any general slow laptop. Pop-ups and a slow machine, though, can also mean malware, which is the next case.

HP laptop: malware, pop-ups and a slow machine (Cheetham Hill)

A customer in Cheetham Hill brought in an HP laptop drowning in pop-ups, with the browser homepage hijacked, frequent crashes and everything running at a crawl. This is one of the most common non-hardware jobs we see, and an important warning sits inside it: many of the scariest "your PC is infected, call this number" pop-ups are themselves the scam. Genuine Microsoft Defender alerts only appear inside the Windows Security app or the taskbar, never as a browser page demanding you ring a number, as Microsoft sets out in its Windows Security guidance.

What you can check yourself (and what to avoid): never call a number in a pop-up and never let an unsolicited "support" caller take remote control of your machine. Close the browser, and if a full-screen pop-up traps you, close it with Task Manager. Then run a full scan with the built-in Microsoft Defender. For stubborn infections that hide while Windows is running, an offline scan run before Windows loads is far more effective, which is part of what we do on a professional clean-up. The UK National Cyber Security Centre's advice on securing your devices is a sensible plain-English read for prevention. Our virus removal service does a thorough clean, removes the junk, checks nothing has been left behind, and gets the machine back to full speed; it is typically a fixed fee in the region of the standard service. If you spot fake shops or scam links while browsing, our guide on spotting fake online stores is worth a read.

Acer Aspire: stuck in a repair loop (Eccles)

An Acer Aspire from Eccles that would not get past the "Preparing automatic repair" screen, restarting endlessly. Windows is designed to launch its own repair tool after two failed boots, but when the underlying problem is not something that tool can fix, it gets stuck in a loop. The usual culprits are corrupted system files, damaged boot records (sometimes after a power cut mid-update), a failing drive, or occasionally malware.

Because a failing drive is one possible cause, we never just force a wipe and reinstall, which is the lazy fix that loses your data. We diagnose first: test the drive's health, attempt to repair the boot records and system files, and roll back a bad update if that is what triggered it, all while protecting your files. What you can check yourself: a careful force-restart sequence sometimes reaches the recovery menu where a System Restore can roll Windows back to a working point, but if the loop keeps returning the machine genuinely needs servicing rather than another reboot. If the underlying issue turns out to be hardware, it overlaps with the SSD case above; if it is purely software, it is usually a same-day fix. This kind of fault and its cousins are covered in our guide on random crashes and restarts, and you may also be weighing up Windows 11. We cover Eccles and the west of the city.

MacBook Air: full liquid spill (Prestwich)

Different from the HP water-stained screen earlier, this MacBook Air from Prestwich took a full coffee spill across the keyboard. The owner did exactly the right thing, and it is worth repeating because it genuinely changes the outcome: they turned it off straight away, unplugged it, did not try to dry it with heat or rice, and brought it in rather than switching it back on to "check it still works".

What to do the moment it happens (this is the bit that saves laptops): power it off immediately, disconnect the charger, turn it upside down like an open tent to let liquid drain away from the board, and do not turn it back on. Powering on a wet machine is the number one way to destroy it, because liquid plus electricity causes shorts, and corrosion begins within hours and keeps spreading for days even if everything still seems fine. A laptop saved by a careful clean on day one can need a board replacement by day three. Our process is to open the machine, remove the battery and components, and clean the board with isopropyl alcohol to lift corrosion before it spreads. Liquid jobs are quoted after inspection because the damage varies hugely; a clean-up alone can be modest, while a soaked logic board is a bigger job, and we are always honest about when a machine is not worth saving. Our MacBook repair and data recovery pages have more, and we collect from Prestwich and the north of the city.

Common faults at a glance: cause, check and cost

To pull the week together, here is how the typical jobs compare. Prices are guides; the part, the model and the labour involved all move the final figure, which is why we confirm a fixed quote before any work.

Symptom	Likely cause	What you can check first	Typical cost guide
Cracked or lined non-touch screen	Damaged LCD panel	Test on an external monitor	From around £135 fitted
Touchscreen broken or unresponsive	Bonded touch panel	Does touch fail but display work?	From around £225 fitted
MacBook display damage	Genuine Apple panel	Faint image with a torch = backlight	Up to around £475 (new genuine)
Stutter and frame drops	Heat, drive or drivers	Watch temperatures while gaming	£25 diagnostic, then varies
Hot, loud, sudden shutdowns	Dust and dried thermal paste	Use on a hard surface, check temps	Around £75 to £110 clean and re-paste
Freezes, slow boot, drive errors	Failing SSD or hard drive	Run CrystalDiskInfo, back up now	Around £120 to £180 fitted
Slow with many tabs open	Not enough RAM	Check memory use in Task Manager	Around £40 to £70 for 8GB to 16GB
Pop-ups, crashes, browser hijack	Malware	Never call a pop-up number; run Defender	Typically a fixed clean-up fee
Won't turn on at all	Power state, port or battery	Power drain, try charger only	Often under £150 all in
Plugged in, not charging	Charger, port or battery	Use correct charger, run battery report	£25 diagnostic, then varies
Liquid spill	Shorts and corrosion	Power off, do not turn back on	Quoted after inspection

What to try first before you call us

Plenty of "faults" turn out to be quick fixes, and we would always rather you saved a call-out than paid for something you did not need. Before booking a repair, it is worth working through this safe checklist:

• Do a full restart, not just close the lid. A genuine shutdown and restart clears a huge number of temporary glitches, freezes and slow-downs.
• Try a power drain for no-power or frozen machines. Unplug, remove the battery if you can, hold the power button for 30 seconds, then power on with just the charger.
• Rule the screen in or out with an external monitor. If an HDMI-connected TV or monitor looks perfect, the laptop is fine and the screen is the fault.
• Use the correct charger and check the port. Make sure it is the laptop's own adapter, the wall socket works and the port has no fluff or wobble.
• Check temperatures and memory. Free tools show whether heat or a lack of RAM is the real reason a machine is hot, loud or slow.
• Back up before anything else if you see drive errors. Slow boots, freezes and "no boot device" messages mean you should copy your important files off straight away.
• Never trust a pop-up that demands a phone call. Close the browser, run a Defender scan, and do not let unsolicited callers onto your machine.

If you have tried the relevant steps and the problem is still there, that is the point to get in touch; you will have already saved time by narrowing it down. Looking after the basics also prevents a lot of trips to us, and our laptop care guide covers the habits that keep a machine healthy for longer.

The 90-day guarantee, explained

Every repair we carry out comes with a 90-day parts and labour warranty, and it is worth being clear about what that actually means, because vague guarantees are where customers get caught out elsewhere. If a part we fitted, or the workmanship of the repair we did, fails within 90 days, we put it right at no further cost. That covers, for example, a replacement screen developing a fault or a fitted drive failing within the window. What it does not cover is fresh accidental damage (a new drop or spill) or a completely different, unrelated fault, because those are new problems rather than a failure of our work. We would always rather over-explain this up front than surprise anyone later, which is the same reason we quote a fixed price before starting and never add charges along the way.

The common thread: honest diagnosis and clear prices

This week's cases show just how varied laptop repairs are, from a simple cracked screen to a complex charging fault that needs a deep diagnostic. Whatever the issue, we give every repair a thorough diagnosis and a clear, upfront price, and back it with a 90-day parts and labour warranty. The pattern across all of them is the same: a few minutes of sensible checking narrows the fault, the model number lets us quote accurately, and a proper diagnosis beats an expensive guess every time. For more on common laptop issues, see our guides on Windows 11, why laptops run slow and backing up your data.

How Manchester PC can help

Wherever you are in Greater Manchester, we make repairs easy. We offer free local collection and return across Manchester, so your laptop never has to leave your hands at a shop counter and queue for weeks; we come to you, diagnose the fault, quote a clear fixed price before any work, and bring the machine back fully serviced and tested with its 90-day parts and labour warranty. From the city centre to Didsbury, Chorlton, Salford, Stretford, Eccles and beyond, we fix the same faults you have read about here every week. If you need a reliable laptop repair in Manchester, get a free, no-obligation quote or call us on 0161 820 1992.