Repairing old X83V ? Worth it?

I'm thinking of picking up a dormant X83V - the non-techie owner said "it overheated". Checking around, its possible it blew a cap - not a frequent problem but it happens.

can any of you comment on the doability of repairs for this unit?

 

Does it power on at all? Even for a second?

 

the owner said it would, but I have not yet seen it. if I get a chance I'll find out today.
I'm just thinking that if the mboard is fried from a spike or something, any price is too much. but if there was a common reason for overheating, and which does not necessarily mean replacing the mboard, then I'm all ears.

 

Overheating is generally caused by:
-Degraded thermal interface
-Clogged exhaust vent(s)
-A dead or dying fan
or some combination of those.

Overheating generally will not prevent a machine from powering on unless it was a chronic problem where the system consistently powered itself off due to temps and then a component became damaged. This is less likely than a random hardware problem such as a bad RAM module (which will prevent the machine from initializing but not from turning on briefly), faulty SATA interface or disk, GPU, mother/daughter board or AC adapter problems, etc.

Buying a system in a non-working state is almost always a gamble, unless you can identify the symptoms with near certainty and the cost of repair or part replacement is considered a good value. So whether it is worth it or not cannot be answered by anyone except you... good luck!

 

nope its a piece of crap, unless it costs $50 then go for it

 

update: got it running well now with windows 8 cp
the graphics on this little throwaway is pretty impressive.
I finally removed the keyboard and have a replacement on the way. we'll see if that one works... hard to imagine why a keyboard itself would just die altogether to the point not a single key would register... I'm suspicious of another issue somewhere.

if anyone here has expertise with this one or its near-kin, I could use some help deciphering one device, sitting on the PCI bus, which win 8 could not identify and thus is left with no drivers. all the big things are working...

 

Go into device manager and get the PCI ID from the properties. Then you can figure out from that number the vendor: PCI Vendor and Device Lists

 

thanks much for that tip.
it appears to be the memory card reader - a ricoh device:

PCI\VEN_1180&DEV_0592&SUBSYS_19C71043

but the only near-miss driver on asus site for this model & that device is a 64 bit vista driver and win8 won't install it.
I'll go poking around for a ricoh sd card reader win7 driver and cross fingers

 

I'd try that one: http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/Drivers/Cardreader/CardReader_Ricoh_Win7_32_64_61016.zip

 

thanks!
but... so weird...
"You don't have permission to access "http://dlm3cdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/Drivers/Cardreader/CardReader_Ricoh_Win7_32_64_61016.zip" on this server.

Reference #24.1e260e6b.1338259971.59d22552 "

why do they hate me???

ah... googled the exact and found elsewhere. giving it a shot.

 

Fixed the link, should work now, see my previous post. I guess Asus issues a temporary dl link when you go through their support site and you need to modify the URL if you want to be able to access their dl servers permanently.

 

thx T
gave it a shot but no go - not sure what's up. tried the safe way first, by going to dev mgr and updating the driver from the x64 folder - no driver found it says. tried to run the setup program and it won't run - tried troubleshooting compatibility and still no go.

the device that is still errant has these flags:

PCI\VEN_1180&DEV_0592&SUBSYS_19C71043&REV_12
PCI\VEN_1180&DEV_0592&SUBSYS_19C71043
PCI\VEN_1180&DEV_0592&CC_088000
PCI\VEN_1180&DEV_0592&CC_0880


PCI\VEN_1180&DEV_0592&REV_12
PCI\VEN_1180&DEV_0592
PCI\VEN_1180&CC_088000
PCI\VEN_1180&CC_0880
PCI\VEN_1180
PCI\CC_088000
PCI\CC_0880

parent device: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2448&SUBSYS_19C71043&REV_93\3&11583659&0&F0

 

I've used that one successfully in the past for my N50Vn: http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/Drivers/Cardreader/CardReader_Ricoh_WIN7_32_WIN7_64_36202.zip I won't guarantee that it'll work though.

 

are any of you using win7 x64 on this, and if so, what did you go through to get sata ahci?
so annoying - same deal all over again in windows 8 also....

 

My asus still work fine.