M1330: Onboard Power & Charging Circuit R.I.P.

Hi2all,

this is round 2 for me & my 1330.

Round 1 was the GPU and thanks to that ordeal I made my share of posts in the venerable "Vertical Lines on Reboot & Crash & Vertical Lines" thread.

To insure I wouldn't have to go through a mobo swap again, I also did the infamous Cu Mod - which, btw, worked flawlessly and I still support the concept, regardless of which revision nVidia GPU you may have.

So talk about my astonishment when my 1330 just powered off instantly last night while I was doing some 3D work (*and* charging the battery...). At first I thought it was an OS glitch but after noting that I couldn't power the 1330 back on, I realized I was dealing with another issue.

Round 2: Symptom, diagnosis & prognosis:

>1330 will not power on and the external PS's blue LED is not lit.

>Connecting the 1330's PS (adapter) with the 1330 causes the PS to immediately switch off (fail-safe circuit).

This is easy to determine because the infamous blue LED goes out and stays out until you unplug and replug the adapter to the AC outlet (mains). Reconnecting the 1330 with the PS causes the PS to once again switch off. And so on.

>Hence, my second Mobo replacement is on order... sigh.

There's the slight chance that it's only the so-called "charger Board" which is actually connected to the mobo (see my pics - link in my sig. below) but the last time they replaced my mobo, they replaced the charger board along with it.

I'm not the first to 1330 owner to experience this, but there is no well-defined thread on the problem so I thought I would start one

cheers

p.s. That reminds me... I'd better swap out my copper shim with that silly periwinkle crud-pad before Monday...

 

Thanks for the post. My mom's 1330 is doing the same thing. She had hers plugged in to an outlet overnight about a week ago, and there was a pretty bad thunderstorm that night. The next morning she went to turn her computer on, and it would not turn on (imagine that). Of course she did not have it plugged into a UPS or surge protector. Now when I plug her ac adapter into an outlet, the blue light immediately comes on. When I then plug the adapter into her computer, the light immediately goes off. My big dilemma is that I hate to spend the money on a new motherboard, if an electrical surge may have fried other components in her computer (especially processor, hd, wireless, etc). Did you get your issue resolved?

 

Sometimes surges are covered by home insurance.

 

Hi, yes, but it does mean swapping out the Mobo.

I don't believe my issue had anything to do with a power surge, I believe the 1330's power rails just shorted out. Fwiw, I was doing 3D benchmarks while charging the battery and who knows, maybe it was a bit too much for the power rails.

In any event, seeing as the PS (bricks) survived, I really would be surprised it was a surge-related issue...

Finally, the CPU was fine. The GPU is part of the mobo & has to be swapped out along with the mobo.

 

Just for curiosity: Clearly there are VRM circuits and DC/DC converters for many different purposes like CPU VCore, GPU, battery charge, ... But is there really such thing as a seperate charger board? I neither see that from your pictures nor from the disassembly instructions of Dell:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xpsM1330/en/sm/sysboard.htm#wp1000473

 

No, I just wrote that for the hell of it...

No seriously, I had access to the "Dell Certified Systems Expert" Manual (but that official link was since long locked out). I do have pics of it (IMG_3799, 3800, 4298 & 4298) - it's the long & thin PCB extension jutting out from the mobo. The thin PCB not only has the battery connectors but also the USB port on the 1330's right-hand side.

 

Thanks for the tips guys. I think that I will go ahead and order one of the new motherboards that I see on ebay. Hopefully that will take care of it. I warned my mother on several occasions not to leave her laptop plugged in all of the time. Maybe this will be enough to make her change her ways.

I'm glad that these forums are out there.

 

no worries, our pleasure
I've also gotten a lot of help from the members of this community and it's one of my favorite boards

 

Yup, same thing happened to me last night. A slight chirping sound and the thing shut off right away and wouldn't turn on again. Although my laptop is out of warranty, Dell is covering the repair anyways. When I called them, they seemed to know right away what the problem was. This leads me to believe that this is a widespread problem.

This is the third time it has gone to repair in 1 year and 2 months. Twice for the GPU and now the charger board. This laptop is a ticking time bomb. As soon as i get it back from repair, i'm am ebaying it. I will never buy Dell again!

 

Is the "charger board" included with a new motherboard? I hope so because I just ordered a new motherboard from ebay.

 

i'm not sure. Although the technician I was speaking to did mention that i will be receiving a "revised" motherboard, whatever that means. Perhaps it's part of the motherboard afterall.

 

Both my replacement mobos came with the charger board attached as well as the PCIe cage, but they came directly from Dell.

Who on ebay's selling Dell mobos...?

 

The user that I purchased from is "RepairDell". He states that it is a brand new motherboard.

 

Hi

I was wondering if this problem is sorted out by replacing the chargerboard because i really cannot afford to replace the motherboard and dell wont do anyting about it anymore because i am out of warrenty and already had the motherboard replaced once out of warrenty.

Any help here woud be great.

Thanks for you time guys

 

Similar problem here.

Did the new motherboards solve the problem? Did they come with the charger board?

Can I get away with only replacing the chargerboard?

 

Dell WILL replace the entire mobo+charger board. Mine is still kickin'

If you need to do this out-of-warranty, I cannot promise you that the charger-board is the only part of the "power rail"... :-/

Good luck in any event

 

I almost have the same problem - had the GPU replaced, then when running OS for the first time it started to power off - seems when writing to HDD, not sure though - but it will power back on again and run for another while before shutting down with no warning/blue screen or safe mode options on restart.

Anybody know if this is another issue or the same as above - hoping it might be just a faulty HDD or something dont want to replace mother board - Any help would be appreciated.

 

That could be due to a whole number of reasons, including another faulty GPU... . I doubt it's the power rail though, 'cause when it goes, it's gone.

Btw, what do you mean by "when running the OS for the first time"??? Did you do a new OS installation, or do you mean that the Notebook crashes during "startup"...

In any case, I'd call it in. Maybe the Svc Rep didn't connect something good enough and so you have a "loose" contact?

 

I meant first time after new gpu install. I've since done a format and didn't make it through the new OS install before it shutdown again. It sat a day or so until I decided to install ubuntu over windows but the crashes keep happening. Got a new hdd to try before I call them again. Thanks for replying