How to replace a PB Easynote MZ36Laptop motherboard

Hi All

Does anyone know how to replace a Packard Bell Easynote MZ36-U-024-UK Laptop motherboard ?

Unfortunately it looks like I have a motherboard problem. Power on lights the 3 LED's, keeps the fan running and there is an initial sound of the HDD on power on, however the screen shows nothing. No bios details, not even a flicker. I have tried an external monitor but nothing shows on that either so unless anyone can suggest anything else it really looks like a board problem.

I've tried taking all the screws out from under the laptop but there is only the slightest of loostening, so there must be something I'm missing.

I would be very grateful if you could help or point me to some PB documentation for disassembly.

Thanks in advance

Regards
Osprey1

 

Welcome to notebookreview,

In order to replace the motherboard, you will need to completely disassemble your laptop.
The problem you have may be something short of a motherboard failure.
Remove all of the memory cards from your laptop. Try each memory card in each slot and see if the situation changes. A dead or corrupt memory card will give black screens as you mention. Memory is a cheap replacement part. Hopefully that is the problem, as it is cheaper and easier to replace than a motherboard.

You may also want to check all of the connections inside your laptop to be sure that everything is connected properly. A loose ribbon cable, or unclosed connection can prevent a system from starting

As for taking your laptop apart - laptops are usually connected by two means, plastic snaps and screws. In order to release the plastic snaps. you can run a plastic piece down the seem to pop them out. A pen cap is great for this.
The bezel above the keyboard usually comes off revealing inner screws.

Good luck,

K-TRON

 

Thanks K-TRON

I am really hoping it is something other than the motherboard, a loose cable would be great. If it was the RAM I would have expected to see something on the screen even if just a flicker (of course I could be wrong about expecting to see this)

The laptop failed about a month after the guarentee ran out so there is nothing to lose by opening it.

I finally found the disassembly instructions at ftp://ftp.packardbell.com/pub/itemnr/7602080000/ this might be useful to anyone else with similar problems.

Thanks for replying

Regards
Osprey1

 

Hmm could be the GPU?

 

Have what seems to be the same issue, so far :

- power was still there, after pressing the power button the fan starts running at max (which is normal the first second or so) and stays that way, HD spins up and DVD gets juice as well.
- screen remains black, no BIOS text, no beeps, nothing; no external VGA signal either
- AC or battery same results

What I tried so far was :
- removing all unnecessary components, HD / DVD / RAM (tested per slot, per module to minimize chance that both slots / both modules were cause)
- removing battery
- FN / screen key, to see if perhaps signal was sent external instead of LCD; but since HD was not continuing to boot I thought this may not be the case anyway

I today installed a new (second hand) CPU, to see if that perhaps had died. No new results, all the same. (by the way, excellent PDF from PB to fully take apart every bit of the laptop !!)

My parents reported, that after leaving the laptop for a bit, they came back and Windows had frozen (mouse pointed not moving, no keyboard response, but Windows desktop shown). Dad also mentioned over the last few days it seemed the monitor had dimmed a bit, but I am not sure about this as it could also mean they accidentally hit the fn key to dim, or as the laptop does generally, had not seen the brightness improve after recovering from standby (takes about half a minute to reach full brightness).

So now what would you recommend ? Someone already mentioned to me, that if all devices get power, it probably is not a dead mainboard, is this true ? Of course there still is an option that both CPU's are dead, but I prefer to think this is not the case.

Oh, I also ordered such a mini PCI diagnostic card for just a few euros, anyone tried those ?

Well, I still hope to get the thing working, having 250 Gb, 3 Gb RAM and a dual core CPU at 1.7 Ghz the machine is still very very well usable even if around 3 years old.

All your comments are extremely welcome, you can speak nerd language (have been screwing around with computers long enough to know most of my way

cheers,
Henk-Jan