> Could repair shops troubleshoot and repair a bad trace or capacitor on a multi-layer board?
With schematics, in certain scenarios, absolutely.
With schematics, in certain scenarios, absolutely.
a small shop can do it if they grow slowly. a component-level repair shop run by Microsoft which did not swap parts, but repaired them, can not scale quickly. there just isn't that much talent available to do this, and even when there is, it would be tight, economically.
it costs Microsoft less to build a main board than the price they sell it for. the hourly time of the repair person multiplied by the time to diagnose, repair, test, document, and clean a main board would quickly go beyond what a new one costs Microsoft.
component-level repair just is not feasible at scale.
should they make schematics available anyway? yes.
Another aspect to this is that it board repairs could be made significantly easier if companies bothered designing boards with proper test points and expected values documented in a diagnostics manual. Just take a look at how old school oscilloscopes and other test equipment was designed with not only full schematics but well defined diagnosis procedures.