Motherboard Repair in Rosebank, Johannesburg

Board-Level Repair, Not a Parts Swap

A dead device is the hardest fault to price over the phone, because "it will not turn on" describes a dozen different problems. It can be a failed charger, a battery that has gone open circuit, a shorted charging circuit, a blown fuse on the board, a failed power management chip, or a graphics chip that has lost contact with the board. Until someone puts the board on a bench with a power supply and a meter, nobody can honestly tell you which one it is.

Most repair shops stop at the point where the fault is on the motherboard. The board is declared faulty, you are quoted for a whole replacement board, and if no board is available for your model the device is written off. Asetos works at component level: we trace the fault to the actual part that failed, whether that is a fuse, a capacitor, a MOSFET, a charging controller or a socket, and we replace that part. That is often the difference between a repair and a write-off.

We have been doing this from the same workshop in Rosebank since 2008, rated 4.7 stars across 449 Google reviews. We are an independent repair shop, not a manufacturer's authorised service centre, which means we will open and repair a board that an authorised centre would only replace as a whole unit.

Board Faults We See Most Often

No power at all. No lights, no fan, nothing when you press the button. On the bench we measure what the board draws from a controlled power supply. A board pulling zero current usually points to a blown fuse or a broken charging path; a board pulling a dead short points to a failed component on a power rail, which we then isolate.

Charges intermittently, or not at all. Often the charging port itself rather than the board, and that is a cheaper fix at R690 to R1,380. Where the port is sound, the fault sits in the charging circuit on the board. On modern USB-C laptops and MacBooks this is usually a power delivery controller.

Powers on but no display. The first job is to separate a screen fault from a board fault. If an external monitor shows a picture, the problem is the panel, the cable or the backlight circuit, and you want our screen replacement page. If nothing appears anywhere, it is graphics or board.

Liquid damage. Coffee, water and cooldrink leave corrosion that keeps eating the board for weeks after the spill. These boards need full disassembly, ultrasonic cleaning, then component repair where tracks have already been eaten away. Bring a liquid-damaged device in immediately and do not try to charge it, that is the single thing that turns a repairable board into a dead one.

Graphics chip failure. Random shutdowns, artefacts on screen, or a laptop that runs for two minutes and dies. Common on gaming laptops that have run hot for years.

Surge and load-shedding damage. Grid switching and lightning take out charging circuits on laptops and power sections on desktop boards. See our load-shedding page for what actually prevents this.

Phone and tablet boards. Water damage, no-charge faults and boot loops on phones are board work too, done under a microscope. Details on the phone repair page.

What Motherboard Repair Costs

Service	Price	Turnaround
Assessment and diagnosis	R345, waived if you proceed	Same day on most devices
Component-level board repair	Quoted after assessment	2 to 3 days
Board replacement, where a board is available	Quoted after assessment	Subject to parts supply
Charging port or DC jack replacement	R690 to R1,380	Same day to 2 days
Battery replacement, generic	From R1,380 plus R200 install	Same day
Battery replacement, MacBook	R1,610 to R3,450 plus R920 install	Same day to 2 days
Operating system reinstall after board repair	R460 to R1,380	Same day
Data recovery from a device that will not power on	R2,500 to R15,000	Quoted after assessment

Why We Will Not Quote a Board Repair Over the Phone

Any shop that gives you a firm motherboard price before seeing the device is guessing, and that guess protects them, not you. Two laptops of the same model with the same symptom can turn out to be a small component fix on one and an unrepairable board on the other. So we do it the other way round: R345 to diagnose, a written quote once we know the actual fault, and the R345 falls away entirely if you approve the repair.

If the board turns out not to be economically repairable, we tell you that plainly and you have paid R345 to find out, rather than a repair bill for a device you still cannot use. At that point we can usually still get your files off the drive, and we will recycle the old machine free of charge through our e-waste recycling service. Note that Asetos does not buy used equipment, so there is no trade-in, purchase or consignment offer on a dead device.

How the Repair Runs

What to Bring and What to Expect

• Bring the charger with the device, a large share of no-power faults turn out to be the charger.
• Tell us about any spill, drop or power surge, even if it was months ago.
• Back up your data first if the device still powers on at all, board work carries risk on a machine that is already faulty.
• Expect the R345 assessment fee, waived the moment you approve the repair.
• Expect 2 to 3 days for board-level work, not the same-day turnaround we manage on screens, batteries and software jobs.
• Expect an honest answer if the board is not worth repairing, including what can still be salvaged from the device.
• Warranty is 6 months on replacement parts and refurbished devices, 3 months on repair work.

MacBook Logic Boards, Desktops and Upgrades

MacBook logic boards are a large part of this work. Liquid damage, USB-C charging controllers and backlight circuits are the three faults we see most, and the manufacturer route for these is a full board replacement at a price that often exceeds the value of the machine. Component repair is frequently the only sensible option on an older MacBook. See MacBook repair for model-specific detail.

Desktop motherboards are more often replaced than repaired, simply because standard boards are available and inexpensive compared to the labour of a board-level fix. We still diagnose the same way, because a dead desktop is just as often a power supply or memory fault as a board fault. More on the desktop repair page.

Once a board is working again, that is the sensible moment to fit an SSD or extra memory while the machine is already apart. A 256GB SSD is R1,150 plus R920 for the operating system install, and 8GB of DDR4 memory is R1,150 plus R150 to fit. See SSD and RAM upgrades. General laptop faults that are not board related are covered on our laptop repair page.

Areas We Serve

Our workshop is Shop G15 on the ground floor of The Zone @ Rosebank, 177 Oxford Road, 2196, below the Museum of Illusions at the end of the passage between Clicks and Hamleys. We are a short walk from the Gautrain station, which makes us convenient for customers across Rosebank, Parktown North, Killarney, Melrose, Houghton, Illovo, Sandton, Bryanston, Randburg, Fourways and the wider Johannesburg area.

If you are outside Johannesburg, we repair boards for customers nationwide by courier. Pack the device securely, send it to us, and we run the same R345 assessment and quote the repair before any work begins. Phone us on +27 11 057 5709 or message us on WhatsApp to arrange it. We are open Monday to Friday 08:30 to 17:30 and Saturday 09:00 to 16:00, closed Sunday and public holidays.

Frequently Asked Questions

My laptop will not turn on at all. Is that always the motherboard?

No, and it is worth knowing that before you assume the worst. A dead laptop is frequently a failed charger, a battery that has gone open circuit, or a charging port that has broken away from the board. Those are all cheaper fixes; a charging port is R690 to R1,380 and a generic battery starts at R1,380 plus R200 to fit.

The R345 assessment exists precisely to tell those apart from a genuine board fault. Bring the charger in with the device, it is part of the test.

How much does a motherboard repair cost?

We do not quote board work before diagnosis, and you should be wary of any shop that does. A blown fuse and a failed graphics chip look identical from the outside and are completely different jobs on the bench. You pay R345 for the assessment, you get a written quote with the actual fault and the actual price, and the R345 is waived if you approve the repair.

As a guide, a component-level fix is usually a fraction of the cost of a replacement board, which is the main reason we do this work at all.

How long does board-level repair take?

Two to three days for most board work. That is longer than the same-day turnaround we manage on screens, batteries and software jobs, and the reason is that board repair involves diagnosis, microscope work and then several hours of load testing before we hand it back.

If a specific component has to be ordered in, we tell you the expected wait when we quote, before you commit to anything.

Can you get my files off if the board cannot be repaired?

In most cases, yes. On laptops and desktops with a removable drive we read the drive on separate equipment and copy your data across. Tell us upfront if the data matters more than the machine, because that changes the order we work in.

Where the storage is soldered to the board, as it is on newer MacBooks and on phones, recovery is harder and depends on the condition of the storage chips. See our data recovery page. Recovery work runs from R2,500 to R15,000 depending on complexity, quoted after assessment.

Is a repaired motherboard reliable, or will it fail again?

A properly repaired board is a repaired board, not a temporary patch. We replace the components that failed rather than reflowing a joint and hoping, and every board runs under load for several hours before we call you. Replacement parts carry a 6-month warranty and the repair work carries 3 months.

Where a board has liquid damage or a fault we consider likely to recur, we say so in the quote so you can decide with the full picture rather than after the fact.

Are you an Apple or Dell authorised repair centre?

No. Asetos is an independent repair shop and we say so plainly. It matters here more than anywhere else on the site, because an authorised centre generally replaces a faulty board as a whole unit at a set price. We repair the board at component level, which is usually cheaper and is sometimes the only option at all when no replacement board is available for an older model.

The trade-off is that work done here does not go through a manufacturer's warranty channel, so if your device is still under manufacturer warranty, use that first.