Help with non-boot CF-50

Hi all,
During my last outstation, my kid brought the CF-50 to his school camp and negligently exposed it to a light drizzle.

According to him, the LCD lid was closed, as are the CDD door and other panels. However, the issue now is that the unit powers up but the screen draws a blank, no bios, no beep codes, nothing. I fear a shorted mainboard but what else can cause such symptoms?

I like the 50's larger 15" screen, stereo speakers and having an extra *working* laptop to use at home. Question is, is it advisable/feasible to buy a barebone 50 from ePay and rebuild from there (I see a few listings now but...). Although fairly confident of a rebuild, should I just scrap that idea and strip it up as a parts machine? Toasted board aside, the battery, RAM, HDD, LCD *should* be fine, I think, but it's such a d@mn waste!

I'm also wondering if the 50's keyboard is 'spill-resistant' as those non-rubberized/chicklet-type found in the 28s.

Any suggestions or opinions will be most appreciated. Thanks!

 

strange, if it actually powered up then thers probably a short in between the power supply and what it connects to
the keys ahve to connect to something inside the laptop, and there are holes where they water could get it, if any did get in there may have been a static discharge which would fry any components it came in contact with
you could probably get a new notebook for about a hundred more than what that goes for right now, one of the cheapy ones that is still quite functional but cant game
if its under warranty then its fin, but if its not then you should get a new one unless youre really bent on having that laptop again, there are better ones for roughly the same price
if its awesomely cheap to rebuild it then just do so, you could use the RAM and stuff if theyre not fried
yea, it si a waste isnt it? sucks, but these things happen

 

Do you get external video?

I'm out of ideas pretty fast on that puppy since I only had one for a week... But when my head warms up (It's cold outside!), and I think of anything I'll chime in.

Sadly I think that getting a stripped down 50 on eBay might be the best route to go, and transfer all the goodies over... which on that will just be the hard drive, it's caddy, CD drive, and the battery... wireless card too possibly.

 

Hi all,
I had a little time on my hands and decided to give the 50 another go before deciding what to do with it.

To minimize the possibility of other faulty components that might be causing the no-post, I removed the Intel 11b minipci, RAM, CD drive, HDD and a little extreme, even the keyboard. Popped in a fully charged batt, pressed power... no go.

The NumLock, ScrollLock and CapLock lights came on momentarily but the Power light remains lit. The screen is still blank and no post error codes. I don't really know what else.

Could it be a blown mainboard fuse? Whereabout might this be located in a CF-50JAKUJKE? Any suggestions? Thanks!
Ron in SG

 

As Modly suggested, check on the external monitor. If the laptop LCD lighted up its just not giving you a video output. Most probably your LCD cable has 1-2..cable snap or broken or shorted.


Ohlip

 

Forgot to mention this but I did connect external monitor after Modly's post. Nothing. On the 50, no HDD activity, no error beeps. Only the power light is up. Other than that, nothing. It's late & I just shelved the 50. Thanks anyway.
Ron in SG

 

This seems to be a common occurance on the CF-50 I have two units on my shelf that I long ago abandoned unable to find the cause. It is a serious problem for sure and I doubt you will find an easy fix for it. The screen on the CF-50 will work on the CF-51 so a good CF-51 with a broken screen should give you a good upgrade path. Good luck

 

Tough, I'm sold on TBs for both work and home. The 50 is a nice unit and a pity if I were to abandon without trying again.

If this happened while it's in my hands, I probably can figure out the cause but since the 50 was with my kid.... oh well, what can I say, except that he really need to take care of the 73 I just gave him.

I see another unit much to my liking but the seller won't ship and after what you said, I'm having second thoughts with regards to reliability. Maybe I should look into another 28 or perhaps, 29?
Ron in SG

Edit: How much of a difference, or similarity, is there between the 50 & 51? Besides the screen, what about other parts compatibility?

 

I hear you I am the same way and believe me I tried to get mine going and no luck . Once a computer does not post and is getting power it is difficult to troubleshoot because you have really nothing to go by. You may want to try and reseating the CPU as this problem is a symptom of a bad or fried CPU it could just be a bad connection. The CF-50 and 51 can share the screen, hard drive, AC adapter but not much else that I can think of. The CF-50 shares batteries with the CF-28 while the CF-51 uses the same battery as the CF-29.

I like the CF-51 a little better as it has a better video card is Wireless and just seems a lot speedier and more responsive than the CF-50 but your mileage may vary because I don't know which version of CF-50 you have. I have the P4 2.0 ghz non Centrino model and I upgraded to the Pentium m 1.8GHZ Centrino CF51 and it is a lot faster. Plus the CF-51 uses DDR2 ram with 2 open slots so your RAM upgradeability is much higher. But hope you get yours fixed and please let me know if you are succesful and I may try again with mine.