Read this before you book
No power is the one fault we cannot price from a symptom. A fuse, a charging circuit, a mainboard and a processor failure all look identical from the outside — the console is simply dead. Publishing a floor price for that would mean quoting the good outcome to people who are mostly going to get the expensive one, so we publish a ceiling instead.
- C$180 is the most you can be charged, whatever the fault turns out to be
- The assessment is free and includes the board inspection
- If it cannot be repaired you pay nothing, so the worst case is C$0
- You get the one number before any work starts, not after
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Up to C$180
The most you will pay
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Free assessment
Including the board inspection
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3 business days
Typical turnaround
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No Fix, No Fee
You only pay if we fix it
What it usually turns out to be
Three outcomes, in order of how often we see them. Two are worth repairing; the third usually is not, and we will say so.
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A failed fuse or power rail
The cheapest outcome by a long way. A surge through the charger blows the protection on the board, and the repair is a component swap. The console and everything on it survive.
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A dead battery or charging circuit
The console behaves as if it is unplugged even when it is charging. Replaceable and cheaper than board work — but only worth doing if the board around it is healthy, which is what the assessment is for.
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Mainboard or processor failure
The expensive one, and the one where we will usually tell you not to bother. Impact and liquid damage land here. A replacement console is often the better spend, and we will say so rather than take the job.
Why there is no "from" price
A floor price here would have to be the price of the good outcome, and most people with this symptom do not get the good outcome. A ceiling tells you the worst case, which is the number that actually decides whether it is worth bringing the console in. If the fault turns out to be a fuse, you pay the fuse price — the ceiling is a limit, not a quote.
- A cheap outcome is charged as a cheap outcome, never as the ceiling
- The ceiling is the limit we will not exceed, not an estimate we round up to
- Nothing is charged at all if the console cannot be saved
What happens when you bring it in
Four steps, and the third one is where most consoles are saved — or not.
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Step 1:Strip and inspect
The console is opened and the board examined under magnification for corrosion, impact damage and any sign of a previous repair.
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Step 2:Measure the rails
We check the voltages the board should be producing. Rails that are missing or wrong point straight at the section that has failed.
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Step 3:Find the actual fault
Component-level testing narrows it to a fuse, a power circuit or the mainboard. This is the step that decides the price, and therefore whether we go ahead.
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Step 4:Tell you straight
You get one of three answers: fixable at this price, fixable but not worth it, or not fixable. Only the first one costs you anything.
No power questions
How much will it cost?
Somewhere between nothing and C$180. The ceiling is the most you can be charged whatever we find, and if the console cannot be repaired you are charged nothing at all. You get the actual number before any work starts.
Is the price really capped at C$180?
Yes. If the repair turns out to be more involved than that, we stop and tell you rather than carrying on and billing you for it. A ceiling that we quietly exceeded would be worse than publishing no price at all.
Can you recover my save data?
Usually yes, because no power is normally a board fault and the storage chip is untouched. But the console has to boot before anything can be copied off it, so if it cannot be saved, the data on it cannot either. Cloud saves only help if they were already switched on.
Liquid got inside it. Is it worth bringing in?
Bring it in, but expect the honest answer. Corrosion keeps working after the liquid has gone, so a console that powers on after a clean can fail again weeks later. We will tell you which side of that line yours is on.
It worked yesterday. Could it just be the battery?
It could. A battery that has failed internally can take the whole console down rather than simply holding less charge. That is one of the cheaper outcomes, and the meter test finds it quickly.
Will you charge me if it cannot be fixed?
No. If the console is not repairable you pay nothing, including the assessment and the board inspection. We would rather give you a straight no than a bill.
Bring it in and we will tell you what it is
A dead Switch can be a blown fuse or a dead mainboard, and there is no way to know from the outside. The assessment is free, the answer comes with a price attached, and if the honest answer is that it is not worth repairing, you will hear that instead.
No Fix, No Fee. Walk in at our Oakville workshop during opening hours, or send it to us.