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General Laptop Motherboard Power Issues

l8ncb

Apr 16, 2010
3
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Apr 16, 2010
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Hi all, new to this forum but notice there is a lot of helpful information here to be tapped into!

I have a large number of faulty laptop motherboards, a lot of which are graphics problems which I can fix by reballing the GPU. Apart from the obvious ones that show evidence of liquid damage, I have some that show no life at all. The motherboards are all from the same model of laptop so I am using all the correct components (RAM/CPU/power) to get them individually tested so this fault lies in the motherboard itself (guaranteed).

I was wondering if there was a common generic problem that may prevent the laptop from showing ANY signs of life at all (i.e. no LED's light when the power button is pressed)?

There are voltages present at certain points on the motherboard, so power is getting through in one way or another and as the power button is a connectable item which is common in the working/non-working laptops, the fault can not lie with this either.

If there are a series of tests that can be done to highlight a certain component (capacitor/diode/IC), I would be grateful to gather this information from you guys ;)

If there is any additional information that you need to help, please let me know and I will post it straight away.

Thanks ...... and heres hoping!! :)
 

(*steve*)

¡sǝpodᴉʇuɐ ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥd
Moderator
Jan 21, 2010
25,510
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Jan 21, 2010
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25,510
Do these motherboards suffer from bad capacitors? Generally such faults tend to still show some sort of life from the motherboard though.
 

l8ncb

Apr 16, 2010
3
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Apr 16, 2010
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Hi Steve,

I have no idea in all honesty. They are Sony Vaio FS series but can not find any info on the net that would suggest that this is a common fixable problem.

Chris
 

55pilot

Feb 23, 2010
434
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Feb 23, 2010
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What chip-set are these boards using? The symptoms could be a host of things. You could have a bad: Pentium, memory controller chip (former called "north bridge"), master clock generator, BIOS chip. Are you in a position to fix any of them?

---55p
 

l8ncb

Apr 16, 2010
3
Joined
Apr 16, 2010
Messages
3
What chip-set are these boards using? The symptoms could be a host of things. You could have a bad: Pentium, memory controller chip (former called "north bridge"), master clock generator, BIOS chip. Are you in a position to fix any of them?

---55p

Yes, I can fix these if I were top know which was faulty ... but are all these typical of no power inside the laptop at all .... I would have thought that there would be some evidence of life if the items you listed had failed and the power button was pressed.
 

(*steve*)

¡sǝpodᴉʇuɐ ǝɥʇ ɹɐǝɥd
Moderator
Jan 21, 2010
25,510
Joined
Jan 21, 2010
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25,510
Well, start with the power supply and compare a known working unit to one that shows no signs of life.
 

55pilot

Feb 23, 2010
434
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Feb 23, 2010
Messages
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I would have thought that there would be some evidence of life if the items you listed had failed and the power button was pressed.
That is a very troubling answer. That would be acceptable from someone who is trying to figure out what to do with their broken motherboard. But you claim to be someone who is repairing motherboards for others. What are you doing with the boards you are repairing? Selling them as used or refurbished?

If you are repairing motherboards, at a minimum you should know how the motherboard works, how the various pieces interact and how you can know when each step in the boot process is taking place. Have you looked at the Intel reference schematics for the chip in question?

---55p
 
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