Laptop nightmare

[RobH]

Heres the deal.About 9 months ago I installed a new harddrive in a HPze5170 laptop,and it worked great (well great for a HP).
Returned to owner and has great service out of it till now. It wouldnt come on-they asked me to find another power supply for it ,I checked the old one out and it was working fine.
I found the culprit (after a complete teardown) the Power port had broken off the motherboard ,it looks like the laptop had been plugged in ,dropped,and snapped the small plastic housing off the MB that the PWS plugs into.
3 problems:
1. the price of a new or refirb motherboard from HP is 425.00...this laptop isnt worth that much in my estimation.
2.I think there is a possiblility I can resolder the connection and use epoxy to reattach, only problem with this idea is the owners daughter uses it and I dont think it can take more abuse like that after using a 2 part epoxy-in other words-i think it will break out again.
3. I dont have a schmatic of the board and even though I know which is the ground it has what looks to be a straight solder connection to the board and a really weird blade like connection that seems to touch nothing but is connected to the board.
Any ideas will be entertained. The thing that pees me off is for some reason it is my fault they invested 150.00 for a HD and CD rom 9 months ago,and it is broke now.Kids and laptops....ughhhhhhh

[glc]

I would try to gracefully back away from this one - there is no way you can fix this properly without replacing the motherboard. MAYBE you can find a used/refurb board on Ebay for less than $425. You have to tactfully make the customer understand that your work is not guaranteed against customer abuse.

[LaptopExtreme]

Yup, not worth salvaging. They can just buy another one or even a barebone, and salvage the components of this one (nothing wrong with them).

[RobH]

Hey I noticed on ebay a dealer selling power jack replacements.they are supposed to be direct replacement.
Just wondering how hard it would be to replace the jack, soldering on the PCB might be the rub...what do you guys think?

[glc]

Why don't you e-mail the dealer and ask? If he is a decent dealer, he should give you a straightforward answer.

[RobH]

Hey GLC I got the Power Jack,installed it on the board and all works well!!!! yehaaa.
I can only imagine how much it would have cost at a repair facility.thanks for the help