I requested an appointment online and Len responded within an hour or so and was able to schedule me for 11 that morning.
The problem was that my laptop was not seeming to boot up, just the lights on and the backlight screen glowing. I dropped off the laptop at his address, which is his residence and he said that he would look at it and let me know whether he could do anything about it. The fee was $40. He was operating out of his dining room, no problem there, but he didn't seem to have any diagnostic equipment and so I was a bit apprehensive that he is more a hobbyist doing this as a sideline, and not a full time professional.
About an hour later he called and told me that both my laptop battery (less than 2 months old) and power adapter had gone bad and that was why the laptop wasn't working. I expressed surprise that the odds of both going bad at the exact same moment must be pretty high but he was confident in his diagnosis. I paid him the $40, thanked him and left.
Later that day, I took the laptop to a well established computer repair shop in Wellesley Hills and left it for them to look at. They called me an hour later and told me that the LED on the screen display had gone out but that the computer was fine as it worked beautifully when they hooked it up to an external monitor. I ordered the new screen from them and took the laptop home to use while I waited for the part to arrive in 2-3 days. I connected my laptop to my spare external monitor and confirmed that the second shop was exactly correct, it was the screen, not the battery, not the power adapter and certainly not both of them at the same time!
Len is a nice guy, was accommodating in his schedule but he completely blew the diagnosis on my laptop. read more