CF 50 wont boot from any device

Hello! I purchased used cf 50 toughbook with no hdd and power adapter. I inserted 6gb hdd from sony vaio with pre-installed german version of windows 98 in panasonic and tried to boot. All i get is windows 98 startup screen and there it stops and stays that way. Nothing happens after that, so i must shutdown via power button.
Then i tried to put windows xp instalation cd and boot from cd drive. First time it showed "setup is inspecting your hardware" and it stops there, second time i tried to boot from cd drive nothing happens, i just get blinking _ in top left corner. I can hear disk spinning inside and cd drive sound but nothing happens. I also tried to boot from hirens boot cd but with same result. Then i inserted floppy with bootable program called "spinrite 6" which is for hdd recovery and i get similar result like with cd. It starts loading floppy on the screen with text showing dos booting but it stops after "initiate disk" with _ blinking. Any help on what could be the problem? I will also say that i am powering it with cooler master universal adapter rated 19v 4,5a. And the toughbook is rated 15,6v 5 a. Here is pic from bios:



Is there any way to reset cmos or something like that, like in desktop pc?

 

You MUST use a 15.6v or a 16v power supply.
The 19v one WILL burn up the Toughbook. If it hasn't already.
The CD drive is probably going bad.
You MUST use a 15.6v or a 16v power supply.

 

Thanks. You think that something is damaged from overvoltage from adapter and that is why is this happening?

 

I think you have two different issues.
First thing is get a correct power supply, then replace the CD drive.
Then try again.

 

Maybe i would if i would knew for sure that is the reason. But it wont boot from hdd or floppy. Is there instruction with pics on how to take a part this model and remove cd and other parts?

 

What country are you in?

 

If you tell me why is that important for this issue maybe i will tell you. Otherwise i dont understand the question.

 

if you do not obtain the correct voltage power supply you will without a doubt ruin the machine ...
so , it would be a rather moot point to proceed any further .

about what country you live in ... it is not *important* .
it doesn't matter to any of us here what country you are in (aka : no skulduggery happening here) . knowing this can help by allowing us to see what is available power supply wise in or close to your country .
some of the correct supplies can be had on ebay on cheaply .
(i have picked up two supples that run on 12vdc and 120vac for about 10-15 bucks each)
there are other reasons as well .

 

I am ASSUMING you are in Germany.
We have a very helpful member who is lives in Germany.
I was thinking about connecting you with him.

But if you are not willing to get the correct power supply first then the rest is a waste of time.

 

No im not in Germany. I have my reason why i wont tell my location. Keyboard is in german language. Where i live i can get cheap 16v power supply it is not a problem. Only thing is i was hoping to find out what is causing this kind of problem, because i dont want to invest in this machine if there is some serious problem with hardware like motherboard. I was hoping to get this laptop working because i really like it, but now i dont know if it has some major problem or it is something else that can be fixed easily. Thank you for your answers aniway. Any sugestions from people who know better about this sort of things would be helpful.

 

Without the correct power supply I can't make any guess about other possible motherboard issues.
99% of the time any of my units won't read optical disks it is one of 2 reasons
1 is the drive is failing..
2 is the disk is failing.
You tried several disks with the same result... Your drive is failing.
You need a 16v power supply and a CD drive.
Personally, I won't waste my time with any laptop that still uses a PATA HDD
CF 52 are very cheap and use SATA HDD's...
I'm done...

 

I will get proper ps and see what happens. Btw i opened the laptop and taken out cd drive and put it back, disconnected keyboard and cmos battery. Then i put it all together again and tried to boot from xp cd once again. This time it gone little further to blue installation screen but stopped after few seconds again. Cd just stop making work sound and installation freezes. Then i tried to boot from floppy and the same story goes, i get blue screen of program loading and then it just freezes. When i load default values in bios i get the situation from my first post. I get only blinking _ in top left and thats it. This is very strange...It would be nice if it is only something coming from wrong power supply. In any case i will try other adapter and see what will be the result. If someone has more ideas for help they are welcome.

 

"Personally, I won't waste my time with any laptop that still uses a PATA HDD"

yep ... personally speaking , myself as well .
the symptoms do point to a drive heading south , also , a bad HDD can cause the same symptoms (rare) or bad RAM (even rarer) .
however ... if it is what you have , it is what you have .
the upside is that PATA drives are cheap and relatively easy to find (this is changing though) ...
a used one (by now) has a very good chance of being bad due to age .
the trick is to get/use a known good drive (say , tested on a known good machine) .

@ shawn :
don't these cd/dvd drives fall under the same "fussiness" (for replacement) as the drives for a '30 (etc) ?

 

Yes.....It must be set to Master..through software or soldering two pins.(easy)

 

Here is an update, if someones still willing to help me. I got it powered on with ibm 16,v 4,5 a. I opened laptop and pulled out cd drive and disconnect cmos battery. Then i booted with floppy and voila! Everything worked! Then i put back cd with xp cd in it and booted and again, everything worked like a charm. Im doing all of this with no hdd inside and while laptop was still opened. Then i put everything back together and turn the laptop few times up and down while doing it, and when i tried to boot from cd it shows all old symptoms, this time with one new thing and thats shutting off by itself. I noticed that few seconds before shutdown cpu cooler starts to spin. Than i opened it again and looked at the cpu heatsink. What is strange, the upper copper part is not fixed and tightened to cpu in any way?! Is this suppose to be like this? Here are pics of what im talking about:



On last picture you can see another problem, when windows xp instalation cd needed to reboot machine it comes to "restaring computer..." and nothing happens! And i must shutdown by force using power buttom. Also on boot up im getting "System cmos checksum bad".

Im having a doubt that the problem was that when i turned laptop up and down few times that part loosed and and that could be the thing thats causing cpu not to cool off like it should? Can someone tell me how is this supposed to be fixed to the cpu? I cant find instruction or pic on internet anywhere.
Current state is that pana is siting on my desk and memtest is active for more than an hours from hirens boot cd and its working like a charm.



But i think that soon as i put it all back and tighten the screws old problem will reaper. Any thought or advice what could be the problem and what should i try to do next? Pls help me really like this laptop and i want to make it work!

 

In the past I did have a good Toshiba Hard drive that just would not work in a Toughbook...
CF 29's had issues like that with Samsung drives.
Did you post the full model number? If you did I can get you a service manual.

 

If i wasnt clear in my description everything that i just described in previous post was happening without the hird drive inside. So definitely this is not an hard drive issue, and not a power adapter issue. Something is causing this problem when laptop is reassembled (without hard drive) with screws tightened all back in place.

 

This is the best manual we have. It is not exact, but it is close enough.
It's all I can can offer in the way of help.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lcq4wx75dnjcl10/cf_50y5xxuxm.pdf?dl=0

 

Indeed this is better manual than what i have found so far. Thanks! Im still opened for sugestions and ideas how to fix this. Tomorrow i will try something else. I hope i will make it work and making it able to install and boot xp.

 

The heatsink is not correct,it has come apart. I have what appears to be a brand new CF-50 parts unit and here is the setup.

 

Thank you very much for your reply with pictures! Now i know for sure this is not right and need to be fixed. So if i understand, if you try to move the heatsink it doesn't come off easily, right? If you would want to remove it you would have to use screwdriver or something like that? Can i ask you to do just one more thing. Could you lift the upper plastic cover and post picture of that whole part, including fan. I hope i'm not asking too much.

 

Thats no problem but it will be tomorrow afternoon until I can.

 

Ok thanks man!

 

hmmm ...
it looks as if there is *something* that pushes down on the heat sink to allow intimate contact with the cpu .
those nubbins on the corners are most likely "dolly pins" (don't ask) ... these simply hold the heat sink in alignment .
you will note the "footprint" of the cpu *die* in the compound .

it is important that the heatsink "floats" ... this allows some *give* when undue pressure is applied to the case .
say , dropping it or such .
this helps prevent physical damage to *things* .

 

The screws that hold it down are spring loaded,photos in a few

 

perhaps those corners are designed to let go rather that breaking stuff ?
one might be able to peen or , using a center punch , place a few dimples around the edge of each pin/corner .
if it is aluminum it should be ok ... if it is pot metal ... ehhhh .
wish i had one in front of me .

 

safn1949 Thank you once again for your assistance I needed that image because there are two positions in which a heatsink can stand , one which is further away from the fan and the other in which the fan is closer to the fan. So I did not know which is correct , but I do know now , thanks to your pictures . And also now i know that the heatsink should be firmly connected with the base.

You're right, and you gave me an idea what to do. Because nothing keeps the CPU heatsink attached to it's base it is falling off and losing it's function and causing problems. At least i'm assuming.
As far as i'm concerned, the title of this topic should be updated to "Cf 50 wont boot up after being turned upside down", because I found out with certainty that that's what's going on.
I've made significant progress. Currently, i have a fully functional laptop with XP installed! While it was disassembled and in working order, I reassembled everything once again, and since I suspected that the problem's were caused by turning the laptop upside down, I turned it on its side and in this position, tighten all the screws, and put it back into a sitting position. While in this position I was able to install XP. Installation took less than an hour without any problems. I was turning it on and off several times, moving screen in a variety of positions to check that it is not a problem. Everything was ok. Then I turned it upside down, and when I did that I heard a sound as if something inside moved. When I returned it to the sitting position and tried to turn it on an old problem has occurred. Again I opened it and decided to fix a problem with the heatsink. Here's what I did as a temporary solution. With pliers i deformed round connections for the heatsink so it could be firmer merged with the CPU. Then I took a small round sponge that can be found in packages of blank DVD's. I cut it in half and stuck it with double sided adhesive tape on the upper metal cover that aligns the heatsink.




By doing that i disabled the fallout of heatsink if the laptop is turned upside down. At least I hope that I managed to do it. So as long as i do not turn the laptop upside down i have a fully functional laptop. I'm afraid to turn it upside down because I'm not 100% sure if the heatsink will fall off again. Because like I said it's only a temporary quick fix. To do the thing properly I need a suitable screwdriver that i currently don't have, to separate the whole area to be able to fix it. But most important is that the laptop is fully working, and I figured out what was causing those symptoms. By the way, that bad CMOS checksum that i was getting, probably had something to do with the small fact that I forgot to attach the connector for CMOS battery! So it seems to me that i am approaching something that could be called a happy ending of this storry.

 

hmmm ...
i believe that "swedging" those corner posts with a center punch (or nail set) with the heat sink in place on a hard surface , would be better ...
scoring them is not as good mechanically and will let go after a while .
one would go around the top edge of the post with the punch .
4-6 small dimples per post would suffice .
the original design has something left to be desired .

a "proper" screwchaser ?
elaborate .

 

I don't have a precision screwdriver that's small enough to remove two tiny screws that hold the base so i can lift the whole part. They are very strongly screwed and i can get them to move with the screwdriver i currently have. I am not an expert on this sort of things who is doing this kind of stuff all the time and who is equipped with all the tools needed. I have only a couple of bad quality screwdrivers, they are enough for most of the jobs that i do but not for this. Opening this panasonic was the second laptop i ever opened, first one was dell that i currently use and i was able to do it few days ago by watching detail videos on youtube.

 

A set of WiHa screw drivers is what you need but they are pricey. This little set is a quite reasonable alternative:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-8-...-and-Philips-Screwdriver-Set-71281H/204664388
Props to Mnementh for finding these.
CAP

 

They look nice and not very expensive. I do really like these from proskit:
http://www.belielektronik.rs/image/cache/data/4938-600x600.jpg

Until yesterday I had only this:


It is very frustrating to work with these, these can unscrew looser bolts, but it is useless when more power is needed for unwinding because they are thin , there is no thicker handle that you can strongly grip, so the tool is slipping in your hand. But yesterday i get by mail external hdd case lc power which in its packaging had a small screwdriver to screw the four screws:

This screwdriver has a thicker handle and maybe it will do the job.

 

The green handled one is most likely junk. Too soft in the tip. I'm not sure where you live but you should be able to find something like the Home Depot kit or WiHas. The ones you linked to are probably similar. The main thing is to not butcher the heads of the tiny screws in your Toughbook. They frequently have a form of Lok-Tite on them and once you ruin the head they are really hard to get out. Very hard screw in very soft magnesium case, really hard to fix.
CAP

 

just to add , a little trick i use on "compromised" heads or hard-to-break-loose with out stripping the head ...
a small amount of "powder" from the stuff that collects off of grinding wheels made into a paste with water and applied to the tip of the screwdriver will make extra "grip" .
one can use medium fine polishing grit mixed with toothpaste .
there is a commercially available product but it is hard to find locally (sometimes) .

i agree , that screwchaser is about one step above cast lead .

 

Yeah i know it's basic screwdriver nothing fancy. Yes the thing with ruining the heads on screws happened to me so many times, i know exactly what you're talking about. But i've learned my lesson and now if i see that screw doesn't move i stop and try different tip. In this moment i'm just very tired from dealing with this laptop. I will let him sit for now and when i get more energy to finish the job i will do it. Important thing is it's working and i know for sure what was the problem and how to fix it. All i need is a good tool and little more energy to deal with it.

 

i forgot ...
applying some heat with a soldering pencil and then quickly getting after the stubborn screw , sometimes works .
there is no set time of application of heat as there are several variables ...
"cut and try" will work the best for the learning curve .

 

Oh yes they are junk for sure. All mine went to the trash.

 

H i'm back I can't find driver for cf 50 video card that i can install. I did search and found this for driver id that i need: http://www.driveridentifier.com/sca...FD0E73F/PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4C57&SUBSYS_05301014

PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4C57&SUBSYS_05301014&REV_00
PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4C57&SUBSYS_05301014 <---- Device ID matches with our database
PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4C57&CC_030000
PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4C57&CC_0300

It is a driver for ati mobility radeon 7500 with 32mb of ram. Can anyone tell me where to download a working display driver for my laptop. I will need xp and vista version because i want to try to install windows 7 lite.

 

Try the standard VGA driver...

Search results for Vista
https://www.google.com/search?num=2....0..0.0....0...1c..64.serp..0.0.0.hHtsVxHvBOg

Search results for Win7
https://www.google.com/search?num=2....0..0.0....0...1c..64.serp..0.0.0.zPWU0EvWI3E

 

www.ebay.com/itm/Wiha-26194-Screwdriver-Set-Phillips-With-Precision-Handles-4-Piece-/180964209748?hash=item2a224eb454
Whese are a very good set of screw drivers..I have 2 sets of these. And they ship to where you live.

 

I will have to find my link to some of those drivers I used for my 9000 cards on windows 7. The trick is not to install the whole package including catalyst control panel. You just load the driver though device manager. There is some compatible problems in windows 7 with the older drivers and control panel.

 

I found a perfect working driver for ati 7500 for xp, you can install driver itself and then after reboot ati controll panel as well. Here is direct download link: http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/ATIPOWPL.zip

But i installed windows 7 superlite so i didn't even need to install special driver because windows 7 installs its own display driver.