I posted this before, but it's worth a mention.
Some 12 years ago. When my pal got the insurance money he gave the (vandalized) lap top to me.
It had been all the way to Brussels, only for the insurers to be told that it needed a new mother board. Some 1300 quid. They wrote it off.
I tried to get the board from Sony in my computer company's name. The dry sounding Sony man told me that they finger print test for interlopers before doing any work. Even though the computer was 995 new, they still wanted to stick to the price. And that was with me doing the work. Oh, and if I'd wanted a new BIOS chip, that was 40 odd quid more. It had simply fallen out, and there was no way to tell which way round it went. I took in few clues and tried it with slightly better than a 50/50 chance of not blowing it.
I did a little micro-surgery on the print'd circuit near the bios chip and away it went. Used it ever since.
I was using it until last summer in the UK, and as far as I know, it's still functional. What I do know is that its keyboard is sooooooo much nicer than the new one. So poor is the new one that I intend carrying my full-size Logitech (flat) keyb with me, tedious as that may be. (I got a box of 5 OEM for $90) so cost-wise it's practical.