iFixit Answers is a Free Repair Q&A

Need to fix something, but not quite sure how to do it? You’ve come to the right place. iFixit Answers connects you with friendly fixers from around the world to help you with your repair questions. So ask any repair question you’d like. About your laptop, about your bicycle, about your refrigerator—seriously, ask us anything (as long as it’s repair-related)! Our community is a helpful bunch of people who care about our things (and the environment) and want to make them last as long as possible.

The Answers Forum is a community dedicated to helping each other fix our stuff. All of information on Answers is collaboratively created and the community has control over the content.

Before you ask your question, we recommend doing a quick search for your device to see if your question has already been asked. Odds are that if it has been asked, the answer is already there—so you won’t have to wait for a reply! Check out the database of repair solutions by using the search box at the top of Answers, typing the device name into the search bar.

Clicking on “Most Helpful” below the search box will display all the most popular and helpful answers we have for your device. You can also switch to the “Devices” tab, choose your device, and see all questions and answers available for your item. The device page is also home to all the repair guides, troubleshooting wikis, and additional information we have for that device. Often this is where you’ll find all info you'll need to solve your repair question.

If you come across a question or answer is very helpful (or not), make sure to click “yes” or “no” to help others with the same questions. The more an answer has had “yes” clicked, the higher up on the Answers page that suggestion gets (and the more reputation the user gains for being helpful.)

If you found your question in the forum, but it hasn’t been answered yet, click on the button “I have this problem too” next to the “Answer this question” button. (Don’t forget to save your email address in your profile in order to get an automatic notification when the question has been answered.)

Couldn’t find your answer? Time to click on Ask a Question at the top of the forum. You’ll find shortcuts to the “Ask a Question” interface not only within the Forum, but also on our device pages. Clicking on “Ask a Question” from there will auto-fill the device, so you wont need to pick it any more.

Our community wants to help answer your questions. As you fill in the other required fields, our interactive interface will guide you and give you tips. The better the question, the more answers you’ll get. We’ve set up some simple guidelines to help you ask great questions and if you’re doing this for the first time, you might want to check our guide for adding photos to a question.

It takes a village to answer a repair question. iFixit is that village. We don’t run Answers. You do. The community has control over the content on Answers. Answers is collaboratively managed by people just like you. With your help, we can show the world how to fix anything.

Hundreds of thousands of people use iFixit every single day. We’re betting some of them have had the same problem you’re having now—and maybe they figured out how to fix that problem. So, ask your repair question, and know that the entire iFixit community is working to help find you a solution. In fact, all of the information on our site is collaboratively edited by our community. If you ask an interesting question or write a useful answer, other people (who have earned a high reputation) may come along and edit the text. That's OK! In fact, we encourage making posts better over time. Our goal is to build a database of repair guides and answers that’s useful for years to come. We encourage everyone to improve posts by editing or commenting. (If you'd prefer not to let others edit your text, we recommend asking your question elsewhere.)

While you're waiting for your answer, why not have a look around to see if you know the answer to any of the questions waiting for help. Everyone's an expert on something, so it would only be fair if you’d lend your expertise to help someone out. You can go to the Answers home page, sort by “Unanswered”. You can also browse the “Devices” tab and choose a device you own or have experience repairing. To answer a question, just type your answer in the “Add your answer” field and click “Post my answer”.

It is such a great experience when other community members successfully solved their problem with your help! This is the moment when you know for sure that you’ve helped someone fix their device and prevented it from ending up in a landfill!

When you answer a question:

• You help someone.
• You help fix the planet.
• You share your knowledge with people all over the world.

There’s usually more than one way to do a repair, so most questions receive multiple answers from our community. We encourage our entire community to upvote good answers, which pushes them to the top of a thread and makes it easier for everyone to find the best information. You should also downvote unhelpful answers to push them to the bottom (this isn’t mean, it’s useful.)

An “accepted” answer indicates the asker has chosen a solution that worked for them. (Another solution on the thread might still work for you, so be sure to look through the entire thread.) An accepted answer will be marked with “chosen solution” and rise to the top of the thread with a green highlighted box around it.

Once you've received an answer to your question, make sure to select whether or not the answer was helpful and leave a comment explaining how it helped you solved your issue. Please make sure to always accept an answer you get when it solves your problem.

Remember iFixit Answers is a community. Your question and the discussion that follows could help just as many people as someone leaving an answer. Therefore, the highest number of reputation points you can earn or give to someone else in the Answers Forum is by accepting an answer as a solution.

Please don’t post your email or phone number in your question. Your personal information is not related to the repair itself, and our spam robot will have a hard time with that type of information. If you do want to invite other members to get in direct touch with you, you may add this information to your profile page but please be aware of the risk of being spammed as we can’t protect you in this case. If you’d like to read more about our Spam Policy, please head here.

We’re all here to help each other out. The overall rule here is be kind. If you’re not sure if what you have to say (or what you’re reading) is appropriate and belongs on iFixit.com, go check out our Community Guidelines. You’re also more than welcome to reach out and ask us at community@ifixit.com.

Our reputation and badge system is a metric of the community's trust in individual people, and that trust is proven through positive participation throughout the website. The goal is to create reliable, trustworthy, high-quality answers, and to recognize those who are creating and inspiring quality work. The entire purpose of the reputation and badges system is to identify and recognize trusted contributors. This helps people looking for answers know who they can trust. You should see this as an encouragement to try answering questions even if you’re not sure if that answer is 100% correct—someone may come along and help set you (and the original poster) on the right track! As high ranked members edit to make posts better over time, your answer can evolve into a great one. While you still have a low reputation, others can see that you’re still learning.

Earning reputation is easy! You get points as a reward for completing tasks that help others and more when they confirm you’ve helped them in some way. This can be by contributing to the site or to answering someone’s questions. For example, if someone says that your answer solved their problem, you get 30 points.

Your reputation can go up and down based on how others perceive you, just like it would in real life. The more reputation you have, the more people will trust the advice you share. Check out the Reputation Tab in your user profile to see how much reputation you already have and where it came from. You can earn up to 200 reputation per day from the Answers Forum.

You can always ask a question or post an answer. As your reputation increases, the system trusts you more. Here are some of the privileges you’ll earn over time:

• 100 Reputation: Vote on moderator actions
• 5,000 Reputation: Edit someone else’s question
• 50,000 Reputation: Edit someone else’s answers

Every time you use the different areas of ifixit.com, you'll also have the opportunity to get reward badges certifying you as an expert. The count of reputation points as well as the number of badges in each level are displayed under each persons Avatar.

You can also click on “Members” at the top right of the Answers landing page and view the top ranked contributors by day, week, month or all time. You can also click on individual members to see their reputation points and badges.

Of course, not every question asked or every solution suggested on the Answers Forum is perfect. Sometimes the questions aren’t related to repair, they don’t have enough information, or they’ve been answered on the site before. And sometimes, our Answers Forum gets attacked by evil spammers. 

That’s why we elect certain members of the community as moderators. Our moderators are basically repair superheroes. They help answer questions, clean up the forums, delete bad questions, and vanquish nefarious spammers.

If you think you’d make a great moderator and want to join our volunteer team, don’t hesitate to reach out to community@ifixit.com.

If you have a question about the functioning of our site itself, about our mission, or our software, we have a special place for you. Go to meta.ifixit.com.

If you have a question concerning your order, a part or tool you bought from us, please check out our customer support pages.

There’s always a catch, isn't there…

We make money by selling parts. If you want to help us feed our programmers, buy something or tell your friends about us.

Answers is totally free, and will always be that way. Our goal is to help you keep your stuff working longer. Period. You won't see any Google-baiting, ad-stuffing, or answer-cloaking here.

Learn more about getting started with Answers in our Help Documentation.