Toughbook CF-30 - Odd Power Issue

So as of recently, my Toughbook CF-30 that I use for work started acting up. (Turns out the keyboard's ribbon cable had become damaged, and the internal wiring in the cable split apart, resulting in my "a" and "1" keys not working). The ironic, temporary fix turned out to be as easy as smacking the keyboard a few times until the wires made their proper connection, and all was well. No big deal, as I just ordered a new keyboard. Unfortunately this has had a side effect...

The other night I was in the middle of writing up a massive report, and the keys went out on me again. Like before, I resorted to the "caveman fix", and smacked the keyboard again. This time the Toughbook completely shut off. Upon turning it back on with the power adapter plugged in, the battery charging light started to flash orange, while everything else operated normally. According to Windows, the system was plugged in, but not charging, and the battery was at 1%. (I know this to be incorrect, as it was fully charged prior to this incident). After I started debugging it, I noticed that the Toughbook wouldn't even turn on without the power adapter plugged in, and instead would light up the battery light solid red for as long as I held the power switch in place. With the power adapter plugged in and no battery inside, it operated normally, including recognizing that no battery was hooked up.

After searching online, I came across a couple resources that all seem to say that the battery is bad. For the hell of it, I pulled a known good battery from another CF-30 I had laying around, and it is giving me the same problems. The power adapter is also good, so I know that can't be the issue. I tried opening up the Toughbook and checked all of the connections, and everything seems to be fine. I have absolutely no idea where the problem lies. (Before anyone suggests it, the system isn't overheating). Any suggestions? If need be, I can pull parts from the other system, but I'm not exactly sure where the problem lies. The battery makes a good connection to the system's metal fins, and nothing has come loose.

 

Check the connector on the inside. The connector that the battery plugs into.

 

Thanks for the quick reply! Unfortunately I've already looked this over and can't find anything wrong with it. All of the metal fins appear to be as they should, and nothing looks loose or broken on the housing or surrounding wires.

 

That connection that Shawn mentioned takes a lot of abuse. There is a critical screw in the bottom cover....keeps it from wobbling.
Do you have a parts unit?

 

I do, (although any parts I take from it I'll have to replace later).

I see the screw you mentioned. It doesn't seem to have come loose or taken any damage. The area it screws into seems to be pretty stable too, even without it in while the bottom cover is off.



Edit: After checking all of the cables and solder points, I couldn't find any damage or breaks. That being said, the lighting situation seems to have changed. Now the system is booting up just fine with the battery and power adapter plugged in, but is instead continuing to flash the orange battery light. Unplugging the power adapter results in the system hibernating itself and the battery light turning solid red, but it is not dying from power loss.

I'm still stumped on the cause of this problem.

 

So I swapped out the ENTIRE power/hard drive connector and ribbon cable module from a good CF-30, and I'm still getting the same behavior, which rules out what I was hoping was the cause. Anybody else have any ideas? I'm at a loss here, and I need to get this thing running again ASAP.

Image of the module:
http://i.imgur.com/JFdBnnDr.jpg
(I couldn't get it to resize properly so as to not break the page here, so I linked to it instead).

 

I'm stuck guessing it's a motherboard problem the easy fix is to buy a barebones unit on eBay and switch your stuff over. I know you would rather not hear that but...

 

I was afraid of that. With the luck I'm having, it would probably cost more to do that than buy a new one. It is a fully customized MK3. Finding a parts one that doesn't have a broken motherboard is like a needle in a haystack.

 

lets get to basics

Remove battery//hard drive//optical drive//wwan sled//any pcmcia cards//one memory stick at a time.

boot it with an AC adapter into the bios and listen for the noise.
Then boot it with battery and no AC adapter and listen for the noise.

 

SHEEPMAN probably has the parts you need.

 

I have a CF31 that your battery/keyboard/hard drive and caddy will fit right into.
Your current AC adapter will work with a CF31 also.

 

Interesting. Doing that seems to have triggered the high temperature mode. It was listed as normal temperature mode in BIOS before doing so. The light statuses have also changed. With the battery in or out, the battery light flashes red when the system is completely off. When the system is on, it alternates between orange and green. Considering I have my air conditioning running full blast in my apartment right now, I don't think it is actually overheating hahaha. No noises arose, though.

I appreciate that. Unfortunately I'm not in a position to switch or upgrade systems right now. I also don't want to trash this one, as I've spent a lot of time on customizing it to my liking. Sadly my spare CF-30's, (which are projects I was building for the guys at work), are only MK2's, and mine is a MK3. Otherwise I'd just pull the motherboard for a quick fix.

 

Or I can just send you a CF-30... I have a bunch. Mostly MK1s though...


The failure rate is low on there... I would almost bet you have a hidden ribbon cable somewhere that has come out of its slot. It certainly sounds like it!

EDIT... But if Shawn is offering a CF-31... I'm just chopped liver!

 

I'm offering to sell not donate..You are still in the running

 

I have a 30Mk1 here with a video problem, dim screen no matter what screen is hooked up. Perfect crash dummy, let me take it apart and try to duplicate the problem. Rick's probably right but if not the board is kaput. If you here a big bang I screwed up....

 

Your board is bad,sorry. Photos soon

 

Red is power switch to yellow in the other photos

 

As you can see, no loose cables and it still works on the bench, yellow is power switch to board, black X is the cable that if unplugged no battery seen. all other cable shown loose are not importent.

 

Nice work Kerry...reminds me of the hand grenade range at Camp Pendleton.

SugarD.........what is the board number ...should be under the ram (I probably have one).....also are you in California?

 

Apologies for the late reply. I've been incredibly busy at work lately. Yes, I am in California. I'll try to pull up that number ASAP.

As a bit of an oddity, twice now I've seen the battery level reach over 1% without charging while using my Toughbook, with it plugged in for several hours. Not sure how it read those levels, but it is normally stuck at a consistent 1%.

 

Sorry for the delay. Is this the number you were referring to?

 

I hope I didn't lose everyone here on this one lol

 

It's a mk3

 

I appreciate the response, but I pointed that out about 2 pages back.

Good to know that confirms the seller didn't rip me off, though!

I actually tried looking for one of these boards online. That particular model is extremely hard to come by for some reason.

 

do you have a service manual for it?

 

Unfortunately not. The system was purchased refurbished from a seller on eBay.

 

Link sent in PM

 

Thank you again! I'll take a look at it as soon as I get home from work in about an hour here. I'm desperate to get this thing fixed.

 

Sorry for taking so long to reply back. Unfortunately the service manual didn't help me narrow down the cause, (although it is still a very useful resource to hold onto). I also tried running the PC Diagnostic Utility for the hell of it, and nothing was flagged as bad by the system. I'm at a complete loss here on what the cause is.

 

Sorry to keep bumping this, but I'm growing desperate at this point, and I cannot seem to find replacement motherboards for this exact model anywhere online.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-Pa...591269?hash=item41ba5dea65:g:ubgAAOSwNE5YW4cb

 

Argh! The model is one character off hahaha

 

It will work fine.
A mk3 is a mk3. Exact model wont matter.

 

Any idea what the differences are between the two? I can't find anything online documenting the models of the motherboards, just the Toughbooks themselves.

 

Please post the 2 model numbers here.

 

Mine is DL31U1702AAA.

The one you linked to is DL31UP702AAA.

 

Its a typo.
Its the same board.

 

Awesome! Thank you so much! Looks like I know what my first purchase will be when I get paid in 2 days.

 

Well, I went ahead and purchased it. You were correct about the typo. It was the same, exact board, (thankfully).

Everything seems to be working so far! I really appreciate the help you guys provided. It is too bad that I never could find the actual cause of my problem with the old motherboard, but at least replacing it finally resolved my issue. You guys are all awesome!

 

I never get tired hearing this..

 

Well I may have spoken too soon! My fingerprint reader apparently doesn't want to play nice and be detected in Windows 10, however it is in BIOS. I'm trying to debug it as we speak. I remember I had issues sometimes getting it detected upon startup in Windows 10 every so often, but it would eventually show up after a restart. Unfortunately that trick isn't working this time with the new motherboard.

On a side note, does anyone know what the best place to get a new thermal pad for the CF-30's CPU is? Mine is pretty beat up and I'd like to replace it. I've only ever used thermal paste on my systems before, so thermal pads, (especially in Toughbooks), is new territory for me.

Edit: There goes the neighborhood! The diagnostic utility in BIOS is also saying my WWAN test failed, (which it passed prior). That may be my fault, though. I had to do a lot of guessing to trace some of the antenna wires back to the correct locations. I'm guessing I mixed one up...

 

Well...not sure why BIOS is unhappy about WWAN. It seems to be working fine, (other than my inability to sign up for a plan through T-Mobile still hahaha).

The fingerprint reader is driving me insane. I've tried absolutely everything I can think of, and Windows just will not detect it at all. Before it would, and I'd simply have to change the driver to a different version which allowed it to work with Windows 10. Now I'm getting nothing. Anyone have any ideas? I've checked and reseated the cable at least a dozen times, and even tried flipping it in case I had it upside down and wasn't paying attention. I'm not even getting any unknown or unreadable devices in Device Manager. It simply doesn't know it is there. Playing with the cable while Windows is booted doesn't cause it to briefly play the connect/disconnect sound either.

 

defective cable maybe

 

That's what I'm fearing, and I sure hope not. It is attached to the reader directly on one end, which means that is a $30 replacement from eBay, not to mention a ton more needless effort at pulling my CF-30 apart for the billionth time.

 

If you can see an unknown biometric device in Device Manager... Then you have a driver issue. If you don't see it at all... You have a hardware issue.

With regard to the possible driver issue... I want to say that I had to track down a driver from the manufacturer once. I did get it to work... But the look wasn't the same.

 

Unfortunately I'm not getting anything in Device Manager at all, unless it is being mislabeled as something more generic and I'm just not seeing it.
I did read somewhere in this forum that older BIOS versions had issues recognizing the Bluetooth hardware and needed updates. Any chance that can be the case with the fingerprint reader too? This new motherboard may be outdated.

 

Did you enable the FP reader in BIOS?

 

It doesn't come up for me to enable or disable it, however it does give me the option to set the fingerprint security on or off for booting up the system.

 

Then to me that tells me that your BIOS is built to recognize it but your OS doesn't see it... IE... You need to fix it! A bad reader or connection most likely.

 

I really hope the new motherboard isn't bad. The cable for the reader is physically connected to it on one end, so the other end just goes straight into the motherboard's slot. I don't see any damage, and I didn't remove the fingerprint reader when I changed out motherboards, (other than unplugging the cable, obviously).

Unfortunately I don't have a second reader laying around to test which is bad, and I'm not about to swap motherboards again for such a simple check. Looks like another $30 down the drain in repairs come payday for a new reader then.