Sager 9860 - Random restat issue

Sager 9860 (Clevo D9T)

I recently had the MB replaced as the machine had ceased to function (wouldn't boot at all, though some various lights would come on, and maybe after 5-10 minutes it would boot up, but then restart after a few minutes if it did manage to boot).

I sent it in, after 3 tries they installed a refurbished MB that "worked," the first two had issues (got from 3rd party, the D9T MBs are out of stock). I got the machine back, but its not right.

At first it would boot all the way to Windows XP, but soon as it was powered on it would cyclicly make 2 popping sounds from the speakers. The first would be muted, and the front speakers would cut out, the second would be louder and the speakers would cut back in. After a minute or two the machine randomly restarted.

Over the course of a couple days I contacted CS again to see what they could determine. But most of the stuff they are recommending relates to software. After a couple times, the machines doesn't even make it to the operating system, it reboots before it finishes booting up. Its definately hardware issue.

If I can make it to the BIOS, the machine will stay running while in the BIOS menu, though the popping noises still continue. The time between restarts is now very short, and often after first restart, it just goes dark on screen and does not reboot till powered off.

If I had to guess, I'd say power supply. But thats what I thought the first time, and they told me it was the motherboard. Anyone seen this before or know what may be the cause?

 

Is anyone able to shed some light on this issue?

 

I would come to the same conclusion as you based on what you wrote. Unfortunately, I have not troubleshot a Clevo machine before, so all I can offer is general advice:

At this point, I would say start running hardware tests, either from the BIOS itself, or from a USB stick toolset. If the system managed to get into the OS a couple of times, and then proceeds to fail, it may even be a harddrive issue (not all systems inform you of a dead harddrive, again, not sure what a Clevo does). Have you tried reformatting? Sometimes that reveals the raccoon in the hardware, and should eleviate software concerns.

 

I haven't messed with the drives at this point. Given the problem arises prior to POST I figured it was before anything on the drives themselves entered the picture. If it was a case of the drive not coming online to register on the initial BIOS page normally does that not mean the drive doesn't load? I have other desktop PCs that have had drives go bad, or cables etc, and normally that results in the drive not being seen but the machine will still boot if any bootable device was registered by the BIOS.

When the initial failure occurred, it was in the form of partial power up. Some lights would come on, but the case clock did not and when it did not, the machine wouldn't POST & boot. After a few attempts over several minutes, the machine would finally come on. It did start to crash & restart then, but without the regular popping noises now coming out of it.

It was sent to Sager, they said it was a bad motherboard and the saga is detailed above. The boards were obtained from Ztronics (Alienware seller) and are common to that model Clevo (D9T) no matter which brand makes the final machine (Alienware, Sager etc). First board wouldn't POST (the original wasn't either), second had a bad keyboard controller, and this one they thought was good but apparently its not.

One thing that lobbies against reformatting just yet is I have data I'd like to retrieve off that machine. There were a few crashes on the machine as the original problem arose, and if I recall correctly a couple instances of files becoming corrupted. So there may be a bad drive hiding there. Would that cause the apparent power issue though?