Athena

Thanks so much, really kind of u to take the time to do that. Think I'll give some of them a call. Was kind of wondering whether to do it myself after watching the video in that link but knowing me I'll just cause more damage! It's really helped me the advice I've received on here and given me a few options to think about so thanks guys! :)

I'm in Sheffield if anyone can recommend anyone??? Sorry for the delay in posting back, having no laptop is rubbish :( If all else fails I'll try describing it on the phone to someone as suggested and see what they say, sounds like a pretty good idea. Just want to say a big thanks for the responses and advice on here too! Really has been very helpful.

Plugged the mouse in and it works so at least I was able to turn it off. I'm not very pleased that the one on my laptop doesn't work now though, it worked perfectly before I took it to the second man >:(

Yeah it's not a great advert! And I do feel bad saying anything bad cos he actually seemed like a really nice guy but the fact is that one of them at the very least either doesn't know what they are doing or is being dishonest, as they have both diagnosed a different problem to each other. Either way it's not good, you should be able trust people. I'm going to try the mouse when I get in and I'll post back. The computer needs fixing whatever tho and it doesn't seem like a very good idea to use either of these so can anyone recommend anywhere, like is pc world any good, or is it mega expensive?

Hey guys thanks so much for the replies. The laptop is an acer aspire about 4 years old. Not got exact model details on me as I'm at work. Yeah to be honest I didn't trust either of these guys diagnosis and that's why I thought I'd post on here, not saying they've done it on purpose but I still felt they wanted to quote problems that would be expensive and worth their while. The problem I've got now is that I havent got a clue how to do it myself and don't know where else to take it. Most places charge to diagnose and after 2 places I'm not getting very far :( maybe somewhere like pc world will be a little more honest?? The other thing that has bothered me is that since taking to the last guy i can't use it all since the cursor doesn't move, although I havent yet tried plugging a mouse in but will do later. I may be being paranoid but Im worried the last guy I took it to did something as don't think he was very pleased I didn't want him to carry out the work when he'd looked at it. Obviously not got any proof of this and I'm probably just being paranoid but it's not great when your laptop comes back from the repair man in a worse state than when you took it in!!

Hi I'm new to here so hello and thanks in advance for any help which i would be really grateful for. The screen on my laptop recently started flickering and making a low buzzing noise and then sometimes go black altogether. Although if you shone a torch on it you could see all the icons and move the cursor to turn it off. Anyway, I took it to a repair shop and they said it needed a new screen and quoted a reasonable sounding price but I decided to get a second opinion and took it somewhere else. The second man said it was the graphics card. I don't know much about computers but aren't these two separate issues? How come they're saying different things? The second issue now is that since I picked the laptop up from the second man the problem is worse and there's now a new problem where the cursor will not move at all. I've tried enabling the mouse but nothing happens. Has anyone got any idea what the initial flickering screen problem could be and also why the cursor may suddenly stop working?