Showerthought: I keep seeing techs skip the basic voltage check on power supplies
Had a client bring in a gaming rig from a shop in Austin that said the whole board was dead, but their meter showed 0.0V on the 12V rail before they even started. How many times have you seen a simple power check get missed, leading to a wrong diagnosis?
It's wild how often that happens. I've even seen techs swap out a motherboard before checking if the wall outlet had power. Maybe some people just want to jump to the more interesting fix, but you gotta follow the steps.
My buddy Mike in Dallas had a shop send him a "dead" laptop last month. The other place said it needed a whole new motherboard, which would have been a huge cost. He plugged in his own power brick first, just on a hunch, and the thing booted right up. They never even checked the original charger, which had a broken wire inside. It's crazy how skipping that first, free check can send a repair down such a wrong path.