Gateway MX3410 Hardware Issues

Hi All,

I have a Gateway MX3410 which after 14 months of relaible service has decided to Die. I've checked the memory and removed the drives and checked them in another laptop and know for sure the fault doesnt lie within them.

This is my problem...

I used the laptop with no problems and closed the lid letting it go into standby as i usually do. Left it charging for about 4 hours and opened the lid. When i pressed the power button i hear the CD drive turning as per usual plus see the CD activity light flashing and the blue power light shows but NOTHING else happens, no bios screen and no hard disk activity. I plugged the laptop into an external monitor to check if it was the screen dead but theres no output there either. After about 2 minutes of nothing the CPU fan starts running and this is the extent of the laptops life.

I've checked all components apart from the motherboard and CPU, Is there a way to say that its either the Motherboard or CPU thats died conclusively from the problem i am describing?? I would like to fix the laptop and from the information i have found a CPU is about $60 and the motherboard around $200 though somewhat hard to find. I think this would still make it an ecomonical repair and the spec is still reasonable as an everyday surfer/ multimedia laptop. Does anyone have any ideas as to which direction i should proceed first, cpu or mobo? and even a good cheap (maybe those words dont go together, lol) supplier in Canada or the US??

Many thanks in advance...

Mark

 

lasted only 14 months??!? that sucks! btw could be a dead battery, what could cause ur motherboard or chip to die that soon?

 

THe battery charges ok and shows a full charge as does the little self battery test meter on the battery itself so i know i have plenty of power. I tested the Power adaptor and thats working fine and even with that plugged into the laptop its the same fault.

I agree,14 months truly sucks, only thing i can think of is maybe it got a surge when charging (i plugged it into an outlet without a surge suppressor DOH!!) but i find this unlikely. Nothing else in the house suffered in any way.

Looking around i cant even find the model no for the motherboard, i thought i had but this proved to be wrongly advertised. Anyone any ideas on this? or can anyone point me in the direction of this models Parts lists?

Gateways response from technical support emails have been the usual kinda thing, press F10 for bios setup, load defaults etc etc. They dont seem to actually read the fact that i dont even get as far as a bios setup screen.

As i can turn it on and the power LED shows, the CPU fan runs after a while and also i can turn it off with the power button, could this mean that the motherboard seems to have some life? would this point to the CPU being dead over the motherboard?

Thanks for any ideas u guys and gals may have

Mark

 

if nothing else in the house was affected its highly unlikely a powersurge, usually tvs are the first to go if there was such...it seems weird for hardware to die for no apparent reason. 14 months isnt enough to kill a laptop, unless uve really been brutal with it, maybe you could open up the laptop and check for loose connections or something? might give you some picture of what went wrong

 

I agree i think the surge is very unlikely, i even have an LCD TV plugged into the same outlet the laptop was and its working fine.

Its had alot of runtime but nothing harsh has happened to it and to be honest i would of expect the mechanical parts (ie Hard Disk) to die before solid state parts. At the time of purchase it was probably the cheapest dual core laptop around and im wondering if its a case of you get what you pay for.

I have stripped it down and see no obvious problems or burning, everything smells as it should and no lingering lacquer burning smells or melted tracks. I even removed the heat sink and fan from the CPU and Video card GPU (1 unit) and apart from dust there is no obvious signs of any overheating or problems but i do realise i cant diagnose a processor with my eyes, lol.

Everything looks right and it really seems like a case of something non obvious giving up the ghost, but because i get some life from the laptop (CPU fan starting and stopping, charging and powers on and off with the power button) i am leaning maybe towards the CPU being duff??? Would this be a logical assesment. I know with destops you never see a bios screen if the CPU is duff but usually you get an error beep code, sadly this laptop never beeps, even when it worked to give me any indication of anything.

Should i take the risk and get a CPU off ebay for less than $50 to test if this is the fault and hopefully fix it? I do have another HP laptop but considering its still under warranty i wont strip that for the CPU to test it with, lol.

 

if u can spare some cash to buy cheap parts you could try replacing the processor yourself. you seem knowledgable enough with hardware and the ins and outs of it, lol i know you cant diagnose a processor with your eyes but if nothing smells burnt or out of place or anything then technically nothing should be wrong.

try getting a new cpu and say if it works. since it doesnt get past the bios and stuff, could be the cmos battery dead? lol i havent seen the insides of gateway laptops. asides from the ram bay xD

 

lol, i just wanted to be clear incase a comedian read the thread.

I dont even see the bios screen!! The cmos battery is to keep the basic settings backed up when the battery is dead or in a desktop PC the power off. It should still run fine without a battery (but i would have to set all settings everyboot)

Gateways design isnt the best inside this, they make you virtually have to strip the unit down to even see the cmos battery and its a much smaller version than most motherboards. My HP laptop has the battery accessable from a cover underneath, much better thought out.

Guess for its worth a change, worst case i can resell the CPU and look for a motherboard.

Any Ideas where i can find part numbers for motherboards for this laptop? Seaching around the net from google doesnt give me the answers?


Thanks..

Mark

 

Well i have ordered a CPU for it, new and delivered for $40 is worth a go, also found a motherboard, get this $500 bucks PLUS tax shipped, so that wont be happening. If its not the CPU at fault its going to be broken down and sold for parts. Shame really but i dont see how they justify that cost for the motherboard, thats a NEW laptop almost.

Oh and i have to say this, I would NEVER buy another gateway again, they dont seem to be able to read tech support emails and respond with nothing but standard templates and have cue card reader tech's on the phones and dont forget what seems to be short lasting products. I've owned Dell and Toshibas before that are as old as PII's and still run.

I have bought a NEW HP laptop and had a few issues with that, soon resolved by the good tech support helpline where people actually know their stuff. They even have a lab in the tech call centre that they go test things on if the problem stumps them (as mine did for 30 mins).

I will keep you posted if the CPU fixes it, fingers crossed, lol.

 

good luck

fyi Gateway is owned by Acer now. sorry to hear about your bad experience. i dont understand how it just gave up and died.

your better off with a new laptop at 500$ price.
ive got a dell 8200, its 5 years old and still working pretty good. p4 40gb and 512 ram. this thing is as tough as nails its been thorough everything!! weakness now is batt and harddrive, just a nudge and the laptop will go bluescreen ^^

 

I got one & same thing happened at ~ .. 6 mths time. Stripped it down awhile ago & did swap out the cpu but still doing the same thing.

Sorta looked into it ~ recently & it appears that the mobo is a common one (gonna look up the # again & seemed to be a bunch on e-bay) & I guess the next thing i'll do is try to swap that out.

I was playing with live cd linux OSs a bit at the time. A few times, I powered up just long enough to open & retrieve the cd that I'd left in & I'd hit the power button again to shut it off so it wouldn't boot up.

Anyway..that's the last thing i did when it started doing the same thing as the first post.

Might it be a scrambled bios? Can the bios be flashed?

Googled it abit..

http://carbondale.craigslist.org/cps/522610762.html

http://laptoprescuer.com/html/gateway_laptop_repair.htm
"Power but no boot: Bad Input/Output controller chip, or bad video chip.
Symptoms: The LED light Turing on but the computer still doesn't boot. "

Might it be this part (easy to try..)? http://www.laptopking.com/kingpartdetails.asp?ref=793&category=dcjack

Pretty sure Gateway said a new mobo was ~ 250 to 300 bucks when I checked it out..

 

I got one & same thing happened (powers on, fan spins but does not post or boot) at ~ .. 6 mths time. Stripped it down awhile ago & did swap out the cpu but still doing the same thing.

Sorta looked into it ~ recently & it appears the mobo is a ~ common one. Guess the next thing I may try is to swap it out.

I was playing with live cd linux OSs a bit at the time. A few times, I powered up just long enough to open & retrieve the cd that I'd left in & I'd hit the power button again to shut it off so it wouldn't boot up.

Anyway..that's the last thing i did when it started doing the same thing as the first post.

Might it be a scrambled bios? Can the bios be flashed?

Googled it abit..

http://carbondale.craigslist.org/cps/522610762.html

http://laptoprescuer.com/html/gateway_laptop_repair.htm
"Power but no boot: Bad Input/Output controller chip, or bad video chip.
Symptoms: The LED light Turing on but the computer still doesn't boot. "

Might it be this part? http://www.laptopking.com/kingpartdetails.asp?ref=793&category=dcjack

Bottom of the lap shows Gateway Model # W340UA & saw this on e-bay http://tinyurl.com/2vpj24

google W340UA http://tinyurl.com/333cux

mobo 4001189RMotherboard w/NVIDIA C51MV w/o 1394 (FRU)
http://tinyurl.com/34mfqd

Think this mobo is in (at lest..) these..
http://tinyurl.com/2mqucn

Applicable Part/Model Numbers
MX3000 Series:

1009049 - Gateway MX3410
1009050 - Gateway MX3414
1009086 - Gateway MX3410h
1009095 - Gateway MX3412
1009096 - Gateway MX3412h
1013920R - Gateway MX3416
1014114R - Gateway MX3417
1019145 - Gateway MX3422

Component PN:
4001189R
------------------------------------------
EDIT-
Stumbled on this.. http://en.allexperts.com/q/PC-hardware-CPU-1023/boot-post-1.htm
"ANSWER: Sounds like something is gone to ground (shorting out).

Try this:
1st - Reseat all the cards in thier slots, reseat means remove them and then put them back in. Insure they are all the way in the slots. Power up, if no chage the go to step 2.

2nd - Disconnect all power to every thing except the motehrboard and the processor fan. If it powers up then plug in each device one at a time, power down between pluging in the power for each device, until you find the device that has failed.

If with everything disconnected and it still doesn't power up you have narrowed it down to the power supply, motherboard, or the processor. I would start with the cheapest componet to replace, the power supply and work up from there. That is if the system is worth the cost."
-------------------------------------
I'll be trying the above info.

 

Markellie, were you ever able to fix your mx3414 laptop? I have one with the EXACT same symptoms. Did the processor swap do the trick?

 

Has anyone figured out what the issue is? I have the same notebook with the exact same problem. The computer boots if you try starting it enough times..
I'm starting to think its a defect... maybe a class action lawsuit is in order..

 

The exact same thing has happened to my MX3410. It lasted 34 months. I think it was due to overheating.

My cd-drive failed first and would only read audio cds. Whenever, I was browsing flash intensive sites my CPU temp would go up to 70-88C and my HDD would always be above 40C. MY hard drive failed. When I booted my laptop an error message was shown that said something about nvidia networking controller could not be accessed or something like that.

Eventually, it would not even bring up the bios screen like you guys. I probably deserve this because I gave my laptop to my siblings for the summer.

Anyway, I am not as knowledgeable as the OP about disassembling the whole thing so I looked into local tech guy rates but they charge around 70$/hour that is a rip-off.