I need some serious help with my D900K - videos inside, please watch and give opinions

Basically my laptop is dead, and now I am out of warranty so I tried to fix the board myself.

The board has died during normal use and the culprit seems to be a broken wire on the motherboard and a somehow related popping from the inner right speaker. The popping has caused the system to freeze and the system not to post anymore.

After this problem occured, the system would not turn on and nothing happened. The lights did not come on, and nothing happened when i pressed the power button.

I did do some work on the board which has allowed me to get the system lights to come on, and the battery to charge. The system did turn on with the fix and it ran for 15 minutes.
During use it shut off by itself. so I tried to power up and it worked for 5 minutes and then shut off, and then I powered up and it got to XP and then restarted and then it started to continually restart itself during the boot of the Bios. It would reach the scanning drives part and then restart continually.
Then it just shut off altogether and did nothing.
I did get one solitary beep a few times, but it went away, and now it just does what you can see in the videos below.

I have spent a few more hours trying to figure this whole thing out, and it seems like the temporary fix I have made has caused something else on the motherboard to stop working.

here is a picture of the surgery I had to do to the motherboard to get it to at least partly power up.

I had to bridge two connectors, cause it looks like the wore was shorted in that spot, and you could see the break in the wire under a magnifying glass. The connector is bridged right now, and it allowed the system to work for about 15 minutes, but now it only just gets to the power on self test, and it continually reboots.




I know this is hard to diagnose over nbr chat, so I took a few videos of what happens.

This is the normal routine which happens when I try to power my laptop up:
http://s207.photobucket.com/albums/bb109/bigdogtrucker/?action=view&current=SL739384.flv

The fans do come on, and they do in this video:
http://s207.photobucket.com/albums/bb109/bigdogtrucker/?action=view&current=SL739385.flv

The front audio DJ works and it plays music:
http://s207.photobucket.com/albums/bb109/bigdogtrucker/?action=view&current=SL739386.flv

What happens when I use an external screen:
http://s207.photobucket.com/albums/bb109/bigdogtrucker/?action=view&current=SL739387.flv

Does this look like a dead motherboard to you?

I had the machine working earlier, so I am pretty sure the gpu still works fine.
What is strange is that the backlight for the screen does not come on,
do you guys have any thoughts on this one?

It looks like I will be buying that new motherboard if I cannot get it to work.

K-TRON

 

wow..that mobo looks really screwed up..!!
is that solder in the pic above..??
have you tried that 'drain all the power' thing by pressing the power button..!!

 

Oh yes I have. I have let my system discharge for about 12 hours, and still nothing.

I have talked to a guy at Clevo and he has helped me much more than the useless Voodoo tech support. They tell me well the motherboard is dead, and the only thing to do is give us $500 plus shipping for a new board.
Absolutely useless, so I emailed Clevo, and surprisingly I had answers, which I have yet to test.
Its hard soldering a PCB, it really is, and yes I did try to fix my board. I have no warranty, so I have nothing to loose.
I was so excited when I got it to work, but then it died again, and now I think something else has also failed.

I will try some suggestions, and see what comes of this.

K-TRON

 

Why dont you try out one of the motherboard repair guys on ebay..!! They charge something like $90 to change any chip, board, etc that has gone bad....and nothing if unable to repair....

 

I really cant ship my laptop anywhere, the chassis is worth quite a bit and I cant risk it getting scratched.
I am probably going to have to get a new board, but I wanna just try some other things to see if I can get her working again.
I really miss using the thing, and I am quite frankly very disappointed in the performance of the machine (already had dead quadro and now a dead board) and the zero help I am getting from the company.

K-TRON

 

Those guys just need the mobo....so you can remove it from the laptop and send it out..!!

 

hmm, well I might check it out, but I dont have an ebay account.
If you could PM me the contacts to one, that may be extremely helpful.

K-TRON

 

K-tron,

First - traces on mobo's don't just break. You have a power issue, probably over current. Due to the extremely small size of the traces and limited current capability I would look at some of the resistors and/or capacitors in the near area. Resisters are marked with an R followed by a number and capacitors a C and number. If you have a magnifying glass try (it will be difficult) to follow the trace and check them with a multimeter that has a capacitance setting.

Second - Those look like cold solder joints, which won't help you in the least. Get some solder wick (copper braid) at Radio Shack and clean the solder off and redo. Heat the board/component and apply the solder. It should be shiney with little flux (yellow/brown looking stuff). Watch the temp and don't hold the iron on the components for very long. Component level repair isn't easy, even for an expert with the proper equipment. Be patient and take your time.

 

K-Tron I've enjoyed reading your posts about your Voodoo since I became a member here and I want to give you my condolences. I don't have the knowledge to help you but I sincerely hope you get your computer up and running again.

 

Helllllllllllllllllllllllllllls yeah, I got it working again.


I am so awesome, I jump started the cmos with an external power source and I shorted the voltage pins on the chipset, to drain its power, and I power up, I get a ton of continuous beeps, I pwoer down, restart and bam it is running again.
I hope the fix is permanent, now time to cancel that motherboard purchase.


I am so damn happy right now,

K-TRON

 

Congrats man.. Just keep your fingers crossed, that it doesn't get screwed up again..!!