Resolved-Trouble with CF-18 and GPS

I have a CF-18HHAMBBM that I recently purchased a stock gps on ebay.

PANASONIC TOUGHBOOK CF-18 GPS NAVIGATOR - DL3UP1281GBA - eBay (item 120630718362 end time Nov-05-10 08:33:55 PDT)

I went about installing it today. Took the back cover off, took the existing board out and added the gps chip to the existing board. So the board now has a bluetooth, cdma, and gps chip on it.

I put the cover back on, and put one screw in to hold it, then powered it on. It powered on just fine, and I was able to hit F2 and go into the bios. The gps option was shown as AUTO and everything looked ok.

I turned the laptop off, and finished putting in the rest of the screws.

Tried to turn it on again, and nothing. No lights, nothing.

Found a tip where someone mentioned to remove power and battery and hold the power switch down for 1 minute. Did that, and got a green battery light when I put the battery back in and hooked up the power.

But the power switch still does not turn anything on.

So, I removed the cover again, removed the gps and put everything back stock as it was. Still same behavior.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

Try reading this, not sure but my guess this is what you need
http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/514975-cf-18-gps-set-up-problem.html .

 

Remove the ram ,and try again, ram can cause boot issues

The gps addition should not have shorted anything out ,if you had both battery and no ac power when you added it

 

Removed power and battery, then removed the ram, then snapped it back in.

No power still.

 

I read through this, but it looks like this addresses getting the OS to see the gps.

When I installed the gps, and turned it on for the first time, it WAS seen in the bios and set to AUTO. Then when I turned it off again to finish putting it back together, the next time I tried to power it up, nothing.

 

I did notice that when I added the gps chip to the board, that when it lays down in its little slot, the gps chip is up against the sound board underneath. Could these two touching short the whole computer?

 

Its possible, take the board back out and try to boot the computer. If it works, insulate the chips and try again.

 

Ok this is really weird, when I press the cdma wireless card power button on the front of the unit, the LED's for the cdma card light up.

When I hold that same button down, the cdma lights power down.

But still, the main power switch does not power up the laptop.

 

It may not be any help but when I got my CF-18 someone had took it apart previously and trapped the leads for the bios battery between the case halfs causing it to short the motherboard, worth checking

 

Was the motherboard permanently damaged? Or were you able to get it going?

 

Motherboard was toast, I think the bios battery is kept charged from the 5v feed on the motherboard so it`s probably blown a cap or resistor somewhere, probably repairable by someone with the right knowledge but mine had other issues including previously being water damaged so I bit the bullet and bought a new board, the wrong board as it transpires but hey ho.....

 

There are no exposed wires though on the bottom that can get caught. Im sure I would have seen or felt it if something was caught inbetween the back cover and the frame.

Can you tell me where the battery is and how to get to it?

 

The bios battery on mine now resides on top of the gps assembly but the wires are quite long so it can be placed in a multitude of places, the connector is towars the rear of the laptop on the side of the motherboard that is visible when you take the bottom cover off, it`s a small 2 pin connector with red and black wires coming from it, the battery on mine is covered with yellow heat shrink. Just an idea to check as it`s an easy thing to miss.

 

You are the freakin man! As soon as I unplugged the two wire connector, and plugged it back in, the laptop fired right up!

Its completely back together now with gps in place.

Thank you again!

 

lol glad to be of help, sounds like you just reset the bios which helps with a multitude of problems but good show