Mobo surgery

captain zed

captain zed

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Hi folk,

My project of the day is dissecting my gf's broken laptop.
Things so far are pointing to the motherboard and i was wondering what should i be looking for in a frazzled motherboard, apart from obvious burn marks etc.

Any help would be great.....i have the screwdriver at the ready lol :D
 
Pop-top caps and scorch marks are about the only clues you'll get on a motherboard, needle in a haystack.

Caps are replaceable, literally hundreds of surface mount components are not.

I used to repair electronic equipment for a living and I wouldn't even attempt a laptop motherboard repair, I'd just bin it.

I have replaced power sockets and ribbon cables on laptops, that's about it.

And I didn't enjoy that at all, horrible, fiddly little buggers they are.

Good luck Zed but I think you're on a hiding to nothing.
 
If nothing else i get to see the insides and maybe some more insight into what you geezers talk about all the time.

Experience at no cost, always good.
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Dust, if you see lots of it that may be the cause of the problem. Or try taking the cpu of and cleaning the old thermal paste of and re-applying as it can dry out and cause problems.

If you got hte thing to bits you done well. I gave up trying to take a laptop apart the nice way, might have another go though. If an Irishman can do it so can I.
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but I might have to use less subtle tools than a screwdriver.
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Hi folks,
I have the optical drive out and all the screws i can see out but i can't seem to split the casing.
I'm afraid of breaking it in half...any suggestions for me??
 
You often need to get inside a laptop by popping the keyboard out - there are sometimes little catches at the very front of the keyboard either side of the space bar. Tuck these in with a flat head screwdriver and it should pop out :)

What makes you think it's the motherboard that's broken? If you let us know the symptoms then maybe we can help pinpoint the trouble :thumb:
 
Also look for screws where you wouldn't expect them, under labels and sticky feet are favourite hidey places.
 
Ian Cunningham said:
You often need to get inside a laptop by popping the keyboard out - there are sometimes little catches at the very front of the keyboard either side of the space bar. Tuck these in with a flat head screwdriver and it should pop out :)

What makes you think it's the motherboard that's broken? If you let us know the symptoms then maybe we can help pinpoint the trouble :thumb:
Click to expand...

Hi Ian,:)
It stopped working while my Fiancee(i have one too) was using it. It just went absolutely dead.
I checked it and there was no life in it all. No lights, nada.
I took the HDD out and then tried to start the laptop. Nada.
I bought a HDD hot dock station and the HDD is fine and i recovered all her photo's and data etc.
So today i took the optical drive and all the screws i could find, out. A small part of the cover lifted off showing some cables and what i think is a heatsink. There is also what looks like some copper piping(??) in there too. halfway under the cover i spotted a battery, like a digital watch battery only bigger.
I was wondering what this is for....could it be that simple. I doubt it, me being a murphy n all.(murphy's law)
At present the cover is half open but as i said, i'm afraid it will crack down the middle and it will be game over.
I am still hoping to fix it
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Whaddya think so far?:)
 
Left some pix although they aint great. They didnt come out as expected.Sigh

Check the adhoc stuff on my flickr linky
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If it went in the middle of using it then it does sound like it's the motherboard (or possibly something to do with the power end of things)... but getting a new motherboard for the laptop is going to be pretty hard to source and fit (without a guarentee it will work). What spec was the laptop, as if it's old enough to be out of warranty you can probably pick one up that is more powerful very cheaply.

From those photos it looks like you can access most of the motherboard. The slots on the left are for the RAM, the little coin battery is to keep the internal clock ticking over (wouldn't cause this problem), the copper pipe is a heatpipe for your CPU/chipset. :)
 
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