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Dropped my baby in water

Grumpy2

Member
There are different types of warranty available for the SP(3)?
I have the serial number of the SP3 and when I check the warranty status I can only see this:

Is there a way to see what is covered in this warranty?

This is the warranty description from the MS site:


Does this means that the SP3 just has the standard limited warranty because otherwise both dates should be the same? (technical and hardware)
Or is there still the possibility the device has the warranty against drops and spills? :)
Sorry Markos but you do not have a clue what you are talking about. Technical support is only for 90 days whereas warranty is for 12 months. Therefore the dates mentioned would be correct. I think you would be mad to buy this device. But it is your money. Are you aware that these units are unrepairable?. Perhaps a bit of research on your part is required.
 

Markos

New Member
Don't get me wrong but I don't really understand your reaction?

I know about the warranty, thats why I quoted the text from Microsoft. Everything appears to be the standard warranty if you look to the two dates. It is definitely not the complete warranty. I was just asking and wondering if there might be another warranty option that wasn't listed on the MS site. But I already know now there isn't.

And yes I knop these units are "unrepairable", at least not through standard methods. There are roughly only two main parts in this SP3. The mainboard including soldered CPU, memory, etc. and a detachable SSD. And these parts are only reachable by removing the screen what is almost not removable without breaking it. Still, it is still possible to do it, but very very very difficult. So this makes it repairable :)

Despite knowing better and my good sense saying I shouldn't buy it. I just bought this puppy :D
The water damage must be quite severe. The water entered the top left part through the ventilation and the power connection on the right has corrosion. So the whole device has been swimming in the water. But I was still to curious about it so I bought it anyway.

It does start when powered and I get the screen I showed a few posts back. This are the things I think are faulty about the device:
- SSD doesn't work. See image below. It only shows my USB drive when I start the recovery usb. I also can't do a factory reset because he can't find the drive.
- Screen is affected. Touch does work but you can also see on the image below there are all kind of spots on it. It does work however. Haven't tried the pen interface because I don't have a pen yet.
- Battery doesn't charge. At least I think, I just had the device plugged into the power for a few minutes and it doesn't start without being powered. I don't want to try to charge it yet, I first want to figure some stuff out before I charge it. Maybe I want to opened, and if I do, I don't want it to be charged.

This is my first plan of approach. I'm going to install Windows 10 to a microsd card (or usb) and boot the device from there and see what it does. Then I can get more information about the hardware status.

FXlVZpp.jpg
 

Markos

New Member
I'm figuring out how I can make a "portable" Windows installation to the an USB stick or MicroSD card. The drive needs to GPT FAT32 right? I can only find methods to make this with NTFS. I can't find a topic here either with people installing Windows (8 or 10) to an USB drive or MicroSD card. Can someone help me with this?
 

Grumpy2

Member
Don't get me wrong but I don't really understand your reaction?

I know about the warranty, thats why I quoted the text from Microsoft. Everything appears to be the standard warranty if you look to the two dates. It is definitely not the complete warranty. I was just asking and wondering if there might be another warranty option that wasn't listed on the MS site. But I already know now there isn't.

And yes I knop these units are "unrepairable", at least not through standard methods. There are roughly only two main parts in this SP3. The mainboard including soldered CPU, memory, etc. and a detachable SSD. And these parts are only reachable by removing the screen what is almost not removable without breaking it. Still, it is still possible to do it, but very very very difficult. So this makes it repairable :)

Despite knowing better and my good sense saying I shouldn't buy it. I just bought this puppy :D
The water damage must be quite severe. The water entered the top left part through the ventilation and the power connection on the right has corrosion. So the whole device has been swimming in the water. But I was still to curious about it so I bought it anyway.

It does start when powered and I get the screen I showed a few posts back. This are the things I think are faulty about the device:
- SSD doesn't work. See image below. It only shows my USB drive when I start the recovery usb. I also can't do a factory reset because he can't find the drive.
- Screen is affected. Touch does work but you can also see on the image below there are all kind of spots on it. It does work however. Haven't tried the pen interface because I don't have a pen yet.
- Battery doesn't charge. At least I think, I just had the device plugged into the power for a few minutes and it doesn't start without being powered. I don't want to try to charge it yet, I first want to figure some stuff out before I charge it. Maybe I want to opened, and if I do, I don't want it to be charged.

This is my first plan of approach. I'm going to install Windows 10 to a microsd card (or usb) and boot the device from there and see what it does. Then I can get more information about the hardware status.

FXlVZpp.jpg
It seems to me that you have more money than you have common sense. Imo no one in their right mine would buy a water damaged device like that. To quote an old saying "A fool and his money are soon parted".
 

Markos

New Member
Well my idea was, even though the device might be unusable, I thought (/hoped) the SSD would be okay. So even if everything wouldn't work, I would still have a working 512GB SSD, because I wanted to buy an (256GB) SSD anyway. But it seems the SSD is broken haha

But the rest of the device is working I guess. Battery is charging and I can run Ubuntu (see image below) I'm installing it to the SD now, hopefully it will be able to boot.

PIjKzb4.jpg
 

Markos

New Member
It isn't a standard SSD so it wouldn't have done much for you. Hope your Ubuntu works
It's a mSATA right? That's the SSD I was planning to buy anyhow.

Ubuntu is installed and it does boot, but I get this screen (see image below). So booting MicroSD does work. But I don't know what the error is
X7VHwBU.jpg


However something strange is happening when I'm installing Ubuntu. The SP3 is making noise (I think it's the vibrating unit inside) but I don't know why..

edit: it works haha
XB2nGOJ.jpg
 
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ScottyS

Active Member
It seems to me that you have more money than you have common sense. Imo no one in their right mine would buy a water damaged device like that. To quote an old saying "A fool and his money are soon parted".

It seems to me @Markos is getting his money's worth.;)
 

Markos

New Member
Haha yeah, I'm not disappointed. But I wonder how I can get Windows 8/10 installed to the SD card. How can I get the SD card recognized by the Windows installer?
 

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
Haha yeah, I'm not disappointed. But I wonder how I can get Windows 8/10 installed to the SD card. How can I get the SD card recognized by the Windows installer?
Basically it doesn't. There's a Windows-To-Go feature of Enterprise edition that will install to a specially manufactured USB although most of them are pretty expensive there are a couple lesser known brands in the reasonable range and a WD Passport Enterprise USB HDD that supports it.

AFAIK it's not a case of couldn't support it but doesn't by design. There was a 3rd party product that allowed you to do it but that was purchased by MS and turned into W-T-G... so maybe someone else has figured out the magic but I've not heard of it.
 
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Markos

New Member
I thought it would be better to start my own dedicated topic, but it's preferred to continue in this one.

I made a overview of my situation:

The water entered the device at point 1) in the image below. I don't know how much water, but according to the last owner is was quite a lot. The power connector at 2) has signs of corrosion, so that indicates the whole device was covered in water. And when I run Ubuntu, the SP3 gets hot at 3) (not that strange as that's the place where the mainboard is) but it also gets hot when I'm just browsing in Ubuntu (running on a microsd card). I don't know if this heat is caused by Ubuntu (in combination with the MicroSD card) or is caused by the internal damage.
yWENyQv.jpg


The screen also has suffered from the water, it has a lot of spots on the bottom left part.
This can be seen in my photos in the posts above

So what I've figured out so far:
- The SSD isn't recognized and I assume it will be broken
- The battery does charge
- I can boot the recovery stick but I can't do anything like a factory reset because the drive can't be found
- I can boot Ubuntu from the MicroSD slot and it works. The SP3 does get hot however. And at random moments, the SP3 will start vibrating. Most of the time softly, sometimes stronger. I don't recognize any pattern with this. I guess it's caused by the water damage, but I hope its just a bug of stock installation of Ubuntu.

There are two things I want to do:
Short run:
First thing is to somehow install Windows 8/10 to the microsd card. I can't install it to the SD card the regular way when I'm booting the Windows installer USB because the setup menu won't show the microsd drive in the setup part where you chose the installation location. Like the image below, this one shows one drive, mine shows nothing. So I hope someone knows a trick or hack to be able to install Windows to a microsd drive.
ximg_542c296992937.png.pagespeed.ic.8ipfYbXjgX.png


An other option would be to create a Windows To Go stick. But I can't make this stick. Somehow I'm getting an error with Rufus that my drive isn't fixed or it has an error with opening the Windows ISO (I've downloaded the ISO again, also in other versions. Nothing works)
And I don't have the regular option on my Windows 10 pro (dutch) laptop to make a Windows To Go medium.

Long run:
On the long run I want to open my SP3 by lifting the screen of. I know this is very difficult and I will most likely destroy the screen. But instead of using prying tools, I want to open it by using suction cups.
Something like this:
vSwBAAf.jpg


So lose the mounting part and use the opening through the red dotted line (yes it's paint haha) to make some sort of connection to attach to a plate. Place 4 of these suckers on the screen and maybe one or two on the bottom. The bottom suction cups keep the device in place while the 4 suction cups on top are stressed straight upwards (not to much). Keeping the screen under constant traction I want to heat up the glue hoping it while release slowly without any cracks
 
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