Boy did I screw up ...

I should have stuck to my plan and all would have been fine ...

My sister has a Toshiba Portege Z930 that started to give her warnings about the SSD reaching end of life. After a quick search on-line and seeing a video of how easy it is to swap them out, I recommended that she just get a replacement (upgrade) and swap it out. Well ... she couldn't get one of the screws on the SSD out (why it was so tight, no one will ever know) and ended up stripping the silly thing. No one in her small town of Denver seemed to be able to get it out, so I had her send it to me. I figured that I would just mask it all off (like surgery) and then drill the head off of it on my mill ... no vibration and very little hassle. Well ... when I got it, there is this screw with a round head on it, just asking to be taken off with a pair of pliers. So before I can even stop myself, I reach in with the pliers and short something out. #(*&@#$(*&@#$!!!!!!!!!!!

DEAD. Well ... like in the Princess Bride ... almost dead. If I plug the AC power supply in, then it works fine, but it won't take power from the battery.

So, I run upstairs and grab Toshiba which is an exact copy of her Z930. I pulled the back off of it and swapped the batteries ... the problem follows the Z930, not the battery ... I expected as much, but I was willing to be surprised.

I am wondering if I likely popped the fuse that is located right by the corner of the SSD I think that it is a fuse, anyway. It is marked N in the attached picture ... inside the red circle near the SSD. It was either that component or the one just to the right of that component in the pic. I realize that the damage could be anywhere, but if anyone has any insight, I would be VERY appreciative. I am giving my sis my board as it was TOTAL negligence on my part ... and I don't have the cash to buy another one right now. So if anyone has any ideas or knowledge about that component ... like, if it is a fuse, what's the rating ... I'd be super appreciative!

Thanks,

Saands

 

Welcome to the forum!

It does sound like a blown fuse, given the battery which is not charging. If you have a multimeter, check all the fuses in the area, the blown one will give you an "open" reading.

As for the value...sorry, no idea. Mouser electronics sells fuses of this nature and once you locate the "blown" one you should be able to just solder one over it "piggy-back" style.

Good luck.

 

Shame the board isn't labelled ... that probably saved $0.02 in paint or something . And yes, measure all the fuses closest to the AC adapter, though without an "F" label than means checking about 10 smd thingies that look like fuses.

Value can be calculated back from the watts the power adapter uses; assuming the Z930's is 45W gives 45W/19V = 2.37A. So something like this 2.5A 24V DC fast acting fuse would do fine.

 

Do the ones that "LOOK like fuses" all look more or less like the one with the "N"? I'm pretty sure that one isn't a Nespresso machine ... but I'm not sure how many of the other ones would be candidates ...

Thanks guys!!

Saands

 

Grab a multimeter and do a continuity test on the fuses.The circled item is an SMD fuse. N is the Current rating (amps).

If its a fuse then it can be replaced. Although SMD components can be difficult to solder by hand, the trick is using flux

I would have thought they used polyswitches for mobos....

 

I tested the N component and the R component that looks just like it a few inches away ... both show zero resistance

Any idea of what the circular component labeled "220" in this drawing is? It looks replaceable and it also looks to me like it might have gotten hot. The "220" makes me think capacitor, but there are a couple other ones on the board that look similar but are both labeled "1R2" ... FWIW, the other two also appear to be just slightly larger in diameter.



Thanks so much for your help!

 

Test the fuse for continuity, not resistance.

220 is a power inductor/choke

Simple way to narrow in on something thats blown... smell the motherboard.

 

The inductor does appear cracked.

Hmm, since AC works, but battery doesn't; you might assemble with battery and without psu, attach power button board, press and hold power-on and proceed to test the pcb by working away from the battery plug.

ps.
Why do we call it AC? Both battery and psu are DC, after all ...

 

Good ideas ... thanks ... Currently getting over a flu, so smelling mother board will have to wait a few days ... my story is that I never would have made such a STUPID mistake to begin with if I hadn't been compromised by this flu ... well, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it ... it's pretty much all I have, other than a lesson I won't soon be forgetting ...

 

You'll be getting experience out of this and possibly othersight benefit from this mistake or failure of parts in the future that don't have the cash to take it to repair or buy new laptop. Lesson learned and hopefully served to others.

 

Well ... I'm going to see if I can find an offending part by pulling the mother board all the way out to gain visual access to the back side ... and if that doesn't work, then I may be in for a replacement mother board for ~$250. I saw one Z930 on ebay for ~$150, but it's from the Ukraine and the seller "can't remember" the BIOS password ... pretty sure that one was stolen, so I don't need that! I'd love to find a Z930 that someone sat on and broke the screen! Oh well. Hopefully the "follow the juice" approach will yield an answer.

Thanks again!

 

$250 for a mere M/B? Consider a new system instead. You'll be miles ahead, even if you have to double the budget to do it.

 

saands, that'd be the first (or is it actually second? ) time I agree with tilleroftheearth's advice.
Stop wasting your time and effort, and sell it by parts or as is describing the problem. At least give it a try.

 

Totally agree. It's a waste of money for those prices... Get a new laptop instead...

 

I'm so sorry I never followed up ... I found that I had blown a fuse on the MB and was able to figure out which one it was. I did the miniature "penny in the fuse socket" trick and just soldered a jumper over it and got it back running 100%. I then found the appropriate replacement on-line (paid more for shipping than for the fuse). I took off my shunt and just soldered the SMT fuse right on top of the old fuse. Complete repair and got myself out of the hot water that I so deftly put myself into! Lots of lessons learned here and I am very appreciative of the help I got.

Happy new year to y'all!

 

Great work! Better man than I. Any of my past experiences ended in catastrophe. I blew out something else in the process of replacing a fuse. Then again, my solder skills suck.

 

There is a reason why I haven't ever bough a soldering iron myself

 

I can do larger component soldering, but fussing with these tiny electronics just tests my patience and old man vision and steady hand. Flux or not, I can never get it to stick to just what I need and not everything else, or just globs of solder floating around my mobo.

 

Regarding soldering, about 18 years ago I had a problem with an external Sony CD reader which was suffering intermittent connectivity problems. It used a micro SCSI connector and went for repair under warranty but without fixing the problem which they couldn't find. So I pulled it apart and found that the socket's connection to the board on the drive was a set of dry joints and slight movement of the connecting cable could make/ break the connection.

Resoldering the socket was a challenge because there were about 40 contacts packed into around an inch of socket width. However, all each of the 40 contacts needed was a brief poke with the sharp end of the soldering iron sufficient to make the solder melt and form the joint but without flowing and touching the adjacent contact. How could I see what I was doing? An advantage of being short sighted is that the eyes have effectively built-in magnifying glasses at short range. The disadvantage is the limited manoeuvering space between face and the object being worked on. Anyway, I succeeded in fixing the connector without burning my nose, but I've never since needed to try such microscopic soldering since.

John

 

LOL. Soldering war stories. I remember having to replace a resistor to overclock (or something like that, been a while don't recall) all I remember is the components were so small, I was zoomed in with magnifying glass and everything then I sneezed and lost the resistor and jammed the tweezers in the mainboard and the system never worked again.

 

↑ Pardon me ... the mental image, you see ...

 

Looks like resistor to me. Ive replace many on cell phones from water damage.