SVT13125CDS Unable to Boot. Powers on, Hard drive beeps, powers down ... Tries Endlessly

Product ID SVT13125CDS - Model SVT131A11L

Wife and daughter turned their laptop over to me and said "Doesn't work" ... Sigh.
Last operations was by daughter and ended with closing the lid and leaving the laptop plugged in and charging.

When I got it:
Laptop tries to power on.
Power button starts dim, goes bright.
HDD starts spin up ... then beeps once and stops.
Power button goes dark.
Nothing appears onscreen at any time.
8-10 seconds later it tries again.

So far have tried:
Assist button instead of power button gets same results so there goes thought of recovery.
Have removed battery and ran on just AC adapter ... no change. So don't think battery is the issue.
Have disconnected battery, and AC, and fully discharged computer (waited 5 minutes, and tried holding power button down to get rid of any remaining charge), and powered back up with AC... no change.
Have opened it up and removed RAM, power back up on AC ... no change.
Reseated RAM, powered back up on AC... no change.
Removed HDD and checked connections, reseated HDD, powered up on AC ... no change.
Removed HDD and reseated a SSD Drive I had sitting and knew it works , powered up on AC ... no change except no beep from the SSD drive but same cycle of activity as above.

Not sure where to go from here.

Don't want to spend on replacing a HDD if that isn't the issue and there is something else (MB, BIOS) that is causing the issue.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Kevin.

 

Can you get hold of another AC adapter? This could well be a fried adapter. I don't think it is the HDD - that 'beep' you speak of is the HDD unexpectedly being deprived of power. You don't hear it normally because it is supposed to be powered down gracefully. Let's hope you are lucky and that's all it is.

 

Funny enough I did have a second adapter here ... I have tried it but it fares no better ... same symptoms.
I have completely exposed the internals, and there was one MB ribbon pulled out from its connector on the motherboard ... was hopeful that was it. Nope and for that matter may have got pulled when separating the case.
right now the battery charging light is on so it looks like it is getting power. Going to see if I can pull input jack and test what current is getting to the MB ... also lets me check its connection and reseat it.
I do hear that these are a common component that fails in the Vaio laptops.

Fingers crossed.

 

This is looking like something is overloading the power supply. This behaviour is the classic hiccup mode that power supplies with overload protection exhibit. Disconnect everything that you can, including the RAM, and see if that fixes the problem.

A couple of other things to look into:

Perhaps the thermal paste for the CPU has become dry, and the CPU is shutting down due to overheating. Does it stay alive longer the first time you try after a few hours?

Is the fan rotating? The embedded controller triggers a shutdown if the fan doesn't give a rotational speed signal back to the motherboard.

 

I had tried the disconnect before -- RAM and HDD at least and no change. Are we wanting to just isolate to the motherboard alone so all ribbons for video, touch pad, keyboard, etc are disconnected?

I will check the thermal paste when I get home today.

Well, the fan rotating ... I don't recall you know.
Now, when I was checking the DC plug yesterday I went to unseat and hopefully reseat it. Unfortunately, the unseat didn't go according to plan ... the plug itself was reluctant to move (look almost like there was blue gunk holding it in place) and when I required it to move it did ... unfortunately causing damage to the plug. I am awaiting a new DC plugs arrival -- local sources just scoffed at me when I inquired if they had one. Sigh.

Now, I did test the AC Adapters and they were putting out the 19.5v AC, but on the other side of the plug (DC) what voltage should one expect on the wires to the motherboard. Not that it matters now as a new one is on the way, but it would confirm if there were plug issues. There are 4 wires --- 2 reds and 2 blacks at opposite ends of the plug and 2 empty slots in the middle.

So unfortunately, any power up testing will have to wait unless I can re-rig the plug but looking at it last night it did not look promising -- and I would need smaller fingers I think to do the operation.

Will get back at it one plug arrives -- thankfully they are relatively inexpensive.
Kevin.