Always seek a second opinion

A couple of months back, my laptop screen split in 4 quarters, exactly like this guy's problem here. So, I googled the problem and read in a forum that it may be a faulty graphics card or screen. So, I dropped it at HP's service center, Emitac, in Garhoud.

After 10 days and a numerous phone calls to Emitac, they emailed me an estimate stating that my screen needs replacement, along with other internal components- and it will cost me about Dhs 1800/-.

The only problem here was, I bought the laptop for Dhs 2000 and -except the split screen- everything in it is working fine. It was just a display problem. So, I paid an "inspection fee" of Dhs 200/- and took it back without the repair.

It was a personal laptop (I use an IBM ThinkPad for work), and i didn't feel like paying all that money to fix a relatively new (13 months), lightly used laptop. I'll connect it to an external monitor and use it for downloads only - it has a 160 GB hard drive.

My brother visited me and told me that he knows an IT shop that could fix it.

So, showed it to them and to my surprise, the screen didn't need replacement and was working fine - the engineer took it out and tested it on another laptop and it worked just fine. The graphics card was fine as well, it is built-in with the motherboard.

The problem was in a connection between the two that needed replacing. So, they fixed it and the laptop is working like a charm now.

Oh, and it cost me Dhs 150/- ONLY, that is including home pick up and drop off service.

Can you fucking believe these Emitac rip-offs?