Bad Motherboard??

[anth]

Got a Sony VAIO VGN-NR385E, that does not boot, you can here it very faintly power on and there are LED lights on the front of the laptop indicating that the hard drive is spinning, though it is very difficult to hear.

Tested the the power adapter, it should show 19.5 but my meter shows 19.7, swapped memory still the same, remove both memory modules still made no difference to the laptop wither or not memory was installed or not..or at-least it seemed that way.

Would a bad power jack display these symptoms...maybe a cold solder?

The hard drive is enclosed in the bottom casing it self so I have not pulled that out..and even if I did I don't think that will make a difference.

I'm thinking about disassembling it and resetting the processor and clean out some dust and dirt in hopes to get it to boot, but I think that is a long shot.

These motherboards are expensive, plus the customer also says that the CDRom is bad. However if I did replace the motherboard and CDrom (if it is actually bad) he would practically get a new laptop back for about $350 parts and labor.

Any suggested further trouble shooting for the MB?

 

[Martyn]

Are you getting the bios screen?

 

[anth]

Nope no Bios screen, even tried a external monitor..

 

[Martyn]

I had one recently doing the same if I remember correctly. I found that if I removed one of the memory modules it would work ok. Either memory module was fine on its own(they were a matched pair) and it turned out one of the slots on the mb was faulty. The client was happy to go with the one slot and the 2gb module in it. As I also did a tune up he was pleased with the performance.

 

[Scales]

I just had a Spny Vaio VGN-CS110D doing something similar. It would not boot light on etc... I removed the battery, ram and HD. Then reseated everything and it booted into windows with 380 trojans, backdoors, and rootkits NO AV!

 

[anth]

I had one recently doing the same if I remember correctly. I found that if I removed one of the memory modules it would work ok. Either memory module was fine on its own(they were a matched pair) and it turned out one of the slots on the mb was faulty. The client was happy to go with the one slot and the 2gb module in it. As I also did a tune up he was pleased with the performance.

I read about that on a forum, I did try that got the same results..no boot with memory in either slot..

I just had a Spny Vaio VGN-CS110D doing something similar. It would not boot light on etc... I removed the battery, ram and HD. Then reseated everything and it booted into windows with 380 trojans, backdoors, and rootkits NO AV!

I did remove the memory and battery..have not removed the hard drive yet..

 

[rusty.nells]

Have you tried booting with minimal hardware?

 

[anth]

Have you tried booting with minimal hardware?

It's a laptop, nothing left to remove..

 

[rusty.nells]

It's a laptop, nothing left to remove..

Did you remove anything other than RAM and battery? If so, it wasn't mentioned.

 

[anth]

The only other thing I think of to remove is wireless module and hard drive..CDrom maybe? What would you suggest?

 

[Paul Rodgers]

The only other thing I think of to remove is wireless module and hard drive..CDrom maybe? What would you suggest?

I could see the CD drive being a possible problem if the customer said it didn't work. My suggestion is to remove everything that is not essential to get the computer to POST. If you have a universal power adapter try using it. Try known good RAM if possible.

 

[VashEXE]

Aside from what has been said before this, it kind of worries me that you're having the hard drive LED coming on before it even POSTs since you aren't even using your hard drive yet. Although it is probably going to be a huge pain I would remove the CD-ROM, wireless card, and the hard drive, as well as reseating the processor. After you have it all cracked open to reseat the processor I'd also look for any signs of anything being spilled in it. If none of that works there isn't too much you can do after that.

 

[anth]

Aside from what has been said before this, it kind of worries me that you're having the hard drive LED coming on before it even POSTs since you aren't even using your hard drive yet. Although it is probably going to be a huge pain I would remove the CD-ROM, wireless card, and the hard drive, as well as reseating the processor. After you have it all cracked open to reseat the processor I'd also look for any signs of anything being spilled in it. If none of that works there isn't too much you can do after that.

I agree, I think once I have done those things and still can't get it to boot it's most likely a bad MB.