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Laptop Repair or Replacement

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smalltownguy:

--- Quote from: jasonbar on July 31, 2010, 02:16:49 pm ---Now, upon power-up, I get lights across the media control buttons (play pause, FF, rewind, etc.), the power light works, the battery charging light works, & the fan blows for a couple of seconds.  Then, the BIOS screen is *supposed* to come up & the hard drive is *supposed* to kick in Windows is *supposed* to start loading.  Instead, I get nothing--the lights stay on, the fan stops blowing, & nothing at all happens.

--- End quote ---

CLASSIC symptoms of motherboard failure. I'd bet my last dollar that if you plugged that laptop drive into another desktop computer, you'd be able to access all of your files no problem. Your mobo's toast. Get this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=390222234294

With some time & patience, you can replace the motherboard in that laptop without too much trouble. In fact, I'm typing away right now on a little Gateway Solo M320 that I got for free from someone on Freecycle that was giving away a 'free laptop A/C adapter' because their laptop died. I asked them for the laptop, diagnosed almost EXACTLY the same issue as you described, and swapped the motherboard. Voila, $40 later I'm back in business with a nice little Pentium 4 mobile with a decent 15" screen.

Turns out my issue was the onboard graphics chip was beginning to fail, causing intermittent booting problems. Yours could be related to this too. Or, it could be an important diode, resistor, capacitor, pick your component. Sooner or later heat takes its toll on all laptops.

Don't be afraid to do some google searching to figure out how to disassemble it. Most laptops are the same -- pull off some kind of trim up by the power button, and that reveals some screws, which leads to more screws, which leads to more screws, etc. Just be sure to draw a diagram of your laptop (top and bottom) on a piece of paper so you can keep track of what screws came from where so you can put them all back in the correct place when you're done. Actually TAPE the screws to the paper on the diagram -- it really helps.

There are several laptop / desktop IDE adapters available, from all kinds of online sellers. If you have patience, you can get one for just a few bucks on the 'bay and wait for it to come from a slow boat from China. Otherwise check out NewEgg for some more instant gratification options.

Or, if you want to mail it to me in a USPS medium flat rate box ($11) I'll buy the motherboard, replace it, and send it back to you for a decent price. Maybe we could work out some kind of barter -- I'm always looking for more arcade goodies. Shoot me a PM if you want me to help.

****EDIT: $95 seems kinda stiff for a older lappy mobo. If you can wait (or search) you should be able to find a working donor laptop with a cracked LCD or other bad parts to rescue a mobo out of.

gryhnd:
Been there, done that. I went through every possible trick in the book, including baking the MoBo of my Acer 4420 at 400F to try and resurrect it. Jump to my jukebox thread in my .sig and you'll see the hell I went through.

ark_ader:
Bet dollars to donuts its not a mainboard issue.

Some BIOS(s) have hibernation on by default when the battery gets too low.  If the battery has been exhausted (not bad if the battery is 2 years old) and indicates that it is charging, the bios cannot determine if the battery is fully charged.  XP has a funny way of doing this pre SP2, that is why you should not use hibernation mode.  Use standby instead.  You have to clear CMOS to reset the laptop.  ASUS laptops are very similar to the HP types, and I have had this problem when I accidentally switched off the power brick and left it running.

You will need to find the replaceable battery holder and the wire that connects to the mainboard.  Most of the time it is under the keyboard, and unplug it, and the battery for 2 mins to drain CMOS.

Replace both and let the battery charge all the way up.  Or you can remove the battery and use AC after doing the above and just let it go into POST.

You should be greeted with either a cmos mismatch error or straight boot into your chosen OS.

Hope that solves your problem.

smalltownguy:
Pull the hard drive and see if the behavior persists. If you power on with no hard drive and there's no change in the behavior, you can be pretty sure the problem lies upstream from the hard drive.

mvsfan:
Don't be afraid to do some google searching to figure out how to disassemble it. Most laptops are the same -- pull off some kind of trim up by the power button, and that reveals some screws, which leads to more screws, which leads to more screws, etc. Just be sure to draw a diagram of your laptop (top and bottom) on a piece of paper so you can keep track of what screws came from where so you can put them all back in the correct place when you're done. Actually TAPE the screws to the paper on the diagram -- it really helps.

Ive always been a firm believer in good diagrams and such. I used to draw the most anal diagrams before i got a digital camera.
ill suggest just using one, printing it out and then sticking your screws through the holes. i do it every time i take anything apart these days and i always take twice as many shots as i think that i will need, whereas in the old days i would spend at least a day drawing out the most detailed diagram that i could.

just a suggestion.

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