That moment a GE oven board lit up like a Christmas tree

I was out in El Paso last Thursday working on a 2019 GE range. The customer said the display was flickering and making a buzzing noise. I pulled the back panel and saw a burn mark right near the relay on the control board. I ended up replacing the whole assembly for $320 plus labor, but I still wonder if I could have just swapped the relay itself. Has anyone here tried board-level repair on those newer GE models with the sealed boards?

3 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

3 Comments

dakotawood5mo ago

Bet that burnt spot was tiny but they still sold you a whole new board, classic. Honestly for $320 plus labor you probably saved yourself a headache trying to mess with those potted boards.

4

felixlee4mo ago

Ugh yeah but blake is right though. $320 for a whole board when it was probably just a toasted capacitor hurts my soul.

5

blake6915mo ago

That $320 could've been like half the cost of a whole new unit depending on the model though. I fixed a 2017 MacBook Pro logic board myself for $40 with a heat gun and some flux, just reflowed a cracked solder joint under the SSD controller. The repair shops push whole board swaps because they don't wanna spend time diagnosing or they don't have the tools for microsoldering. If the burnt spot was just a blown capacitor or a melted connector, that's a 20 minute fix with basic soldering skills. Plus you lose all your data or pay extra for data recovery with a board swap, while a board repair keeps everything intact. Not saying everyone should crack open their laptop, but for that price premium I'd at least get a second opinion from a shop that does component level repair.

3