Landing this fish... huge lot of laptops and motherboards

I stopped in to a local computer repair business two to three months ago. I found out that he was selling all his scrap to a company out of the city, about 50 miles away. So I left him my contact info and we parted ways.

He called me this week and said he had some laptops and motherboards if I was interested. Not knowing what to expect, I headed over there with a hundred bucks in my pocket to see what all he's got.

Turns out he has about 150 laptops and about 130 pounds of motherboards. So I'm heading back tomorrow with more cash in hand and hoping to get it all at a reasonable price.

This should be a quick turnaround as it is all pretty much ready to be shipped out. My question is regarding the laptops. Is there any way to tell if the screens are good just by visual inspection? I think that trying to locate power supplies for each one and then powering them up individually sounds pretty time consuming. He has removed the hard drives from the whole lot. I may get some of the power supplies but I'm really not sure about that.

thanks a bunch,
Cheryl

The screens don't have to turn on, but just shouldn't be physically damaged. You can just shine a bright flashlight onto it from close up to see if there are any cracks. To make it easier on yourself, purchase them all as incomplete and you or your buyer can sort them out later.

Originally Posted by ryanw

The screens don't have to turn on, but just shouldn't be physically damaged. You can just shine a bright flashlight onto it from close up to see if there are any cracks. To make it easier on yourself, purchase them all as incomplete and you or your buyer can sort them out later.

Thanks Ryan. I remember someone mentioned a "light test" here and I had no idea what that meant.

Backlight bulbs tend to break if older pre LED laptops are dropped. The screen would look fine but would stay dark and they are a pain to repair.

You can buy a universal laptop power supply with a dozen different ends on them and a slider to set voltage.