Posted: 1/23/2011 2:36:22 PM EDT
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One of my laptops "pooped" the bed, from what I can tell, it's the Motherboard. It fails to power the screen up, and locks up. It will power on, but I cannot make it display
My googlefu keeps turning up bad Motherboard. Now, I am FAR from PC savvy. I can turn them on, and that's about it. I am very mechanically inclined though, and I'd like to try and do the repair myself. If I buy the correct board, what else would I need to do? I have no recovery CD's or any of that. Do I need to just swap all of my parts over? I will not pay to have a shop fix it, as the value factor isn't worth it. I'm looking for as much help as I can absorb, and appreciate any pointers ya have. Thanks, MDNIR. |
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What kind of laptop? I'm not super computer savvy but troubleshooting is in my line. Components are super cheap but finding the correct MB for an older lap top may be a little tricky. If you have an AVI port on the laptop you might try hooking up a monitor and see if it works. If it does, download UBUNTU and install it on your system on a partition to rule out OS problems. That would be my course of action, but again I'm not a computer whiz. |
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If you can figure out what you need, here's a good place to buy stuff; http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=20&name=Motherboards |
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Ebay.
You can generally find a motherboard for anywhere from $50 to $150 depending on model and age. Try hooking the laptop up to an external monitor first. There should be a keyboard shortcut to put the video to an external monitor. Check your battery too, odd things can happen if you have a bad cell in the battery. Take out the RAM, try turning it on. Take out the HD, if it's easy. If none of this works, it's most likely the MB. Replacement is easy. Go slow, check for screws hidden under stickers/rubber pads. Some replacement boards don't come with processors or wlan cards or bluetooth cards...whatever accessories you have. So some might need to be brought over. Just remember where the screws came from. I've worked on 10K+ computers....but it really is pretty simple. If you still have my number feel free to call. |
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Quoted:
What kind of laptop? I'm not super computer savvy but troubleshooting is in my line. Components are super cheap but finding the correct MB for an older lap top may be a little tricky. If you have an AVI port on the laptop you might try hooking up a monitor and see if it works. If it does, download UBUNTU and install it on your system on a partition to rule out OS problems. That would be my course of action, but again I'm not a computer whiz. It's an HP Pavillion dv6600(IIRC). I don't even know how to install on a partition  After I googled the PC Model, everything I see points to the motherboard(as descibed by the symptoms).
Jamie, I had your number till last week, when I was messing with my Droid, and deleted everything.
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if it powers up and you here fans spinning, then it may be the motherboard, but I would suspect either the video board or memory. It's also possible that the laptop just took a bump and you have a bad connection somewhere.
first thing to do is see how many memory modules it has in it. if it has 2, try removing them one at a time to see if one of them failed. make sure the module you're testing is in slot one... I'm pretty skilled with PC's and mechanically inclined, but I won't mess with laptops past a hard drive or memory in most cases. |
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if you are replacing a motherboard you wont lose any files they are stored on your hard drive. A mother board is the brains of the computer tells data where to go and how to get there. You may not want to buy a new motherboard you can probably get a used computer of the same model off ebay really cheap and use that motherboard. H?ow old is this computer? |
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I have seen other things that fit this bill also.
First you say it appears that it is powering up. Does the hard drive blink like it is loading the OS? Can you take a flash light and aim it in several different directions and maybe see what looks like the normal screen displaying the boot up and loading of the OS? I worked on someones laptop once many years ago. His florescent bulb broke. But then too, the P.S. for the florescent bulbs could have gone bad. |
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I have seen other things that fit this bill also. First you say it appears that it is powering up. Does the hard drive blink like it is loading the OS? Can you take a flash light and aim it in several different directions and maybe see what looks like the normal screen displaying the boot up and loading of the OS? I worked on someones laptop once many years ago. His florescent bulb broke. But then too, the P.S. for the florescent bulbs could have gone bad. It will try and boot, no screen at all, it will then continue it's boot loop for quite a while. I usually find I can get it to start by holding either ESC, or F10 |
| If you go with a new (to you) computer, you can then take the old hard drive out of the dead one and install it in a dedicated hard drive case and it will function as an external hard drive. I think you can get an external case for $2 on ebay. At least that is what I paid for mine. |
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If you go with a new (to you) computer, you can then take the old hard drive out of the dead one and install it in a dedicated hard drive case and it will function as an external hard drive. I think you can get an external case for $2 on ebay. At least that is what I paid for mine. What he said. As some one that worked (still do sorta) in IT for a long while I hate servicing laptops. It can be done but you need to do some more diagnostic before you jump on the mobo train. Some things I would try first (some disassembly required): Remove the battery and connect to mains only. Disconect all peripherals and anything else you can (hard drive, optical, etc.) Connect to an external display If you can try new RAM. If all that and you have the same problems ask yourself: is this computer worth repairing at 120$ or is a 500$ laptop going to be that be better. Personally I instituted a pretty basic laptop policy for me and my employer a long time ago. Buy them with a 3GS warranty at the end of 3 years if I can I buy a new one and give the old one to someone that needs it. If not then I run it until it dies. |
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A similar thing happened with my Thinkpad.....bad graphics card (which unfortunately is part of the motherboard.)
When I powered it up, it would beep a certain amount of times to say what component was bad. On some computers it's the hard drive light. There was a motherboard repair service on eBay, but I ended up buying another computer and swapping the boards instead. |
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If you can figure out what you need, here's a good place to buy stuff; http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=20&name=Motherboards WARNING **************************************************** DO NOT Buy anything from newegg for right now. I personally know of 3 people that have purchased online items from newegg using credit card as payment and within 2-3 weeks all their credit cards have been used for purchases NOT from the card holder –– identity was stolen . In all 3 cases the credit card theft was traced back to some employee in newegg and he / she has not been found yet. DO a google search for newegg credit card fraud and read all the comments that have been posted. |
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If you can figure out what you need, here's a good place to buy stuff; http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=20&name=Motherboards WARNING **************************************************** DO NOT Buy anything from newegg for right now. I personally know of 3 people that have purchased online items from newegg using credit card as payment and within 2-3 weeks all their credit cards have been used for purchases NOT from the card holder –– identity was stolen . In all 3 cases the credit card theft was traced back to some employee in newegg and he / she has not been found yet. DO a google search for newegg credit card fraud and read all the comments that have been posted. Huh, I didn't think anything of it but I had some charges I disputed about a week after I ordered something from new egg just before the first of the year. No issues since, been watching it like a hawk too. That being said I have ordered tons of components from newegg over the years. Easily pushing into the 6 digits between personal and professional orders. They ship fast are a pleasure to deal with on the phone if you ever need to and I have never had a problem they didn't handle quickly and to my satisfaction. The credit card issue is a bit of a problem, hopefully if it's an inside issue they will get it sorted soon though. |