VPC-Z11 Dead - possible motherboard failure

My VPC-Z11 died last week and I'm fairly certain the motherboard is fried. Initially, I thought it was the SSD (Vertex) was the culprit since that was completely fried as well, but after installing a new HDD, the Z11 is still having power/boot issues.

Some of its intermittent issues are:
- Z11 is plugged in and immediately the power lights goes on but nothing actually shows up on the screen, even if the power button is pressed.
- Nothing happens when the power button is pressed.
- Powers on but nothing shows up on the screen.
- Powers on and boot screen appears but just freezes at boot screen

I tried resetting CMOS by unplugging the battery but this did not do anything. I'm out of ideas and I'm out of warranty window. Sending this thing in will cost me a initial fee of $130 and a replacement motherboard can be anywhere from $450-$550 according to Sony.

What are my options here? Did I overlook something here and maybe the problem is the CPU or different hardware issue altogether? How hard is it to replace the motherboard myself and where can I purchase one?

I have a $2300 3lb paper weight next to me...

 

Have you already checked the RAM as well?

 

Not yet, was going to do that next. I'll report back.

 

I've tried switching the RAM around and even tried booting with just one but the problems persist. It's like it doesn't want to power on all the way. The green light goes on but nothing happens with or without RAM installed. Every once in a while, the display will light up and the boot screen pops up but that's about the end of it. It usually just freezes and I have to hard power down. I made it to the BIOS once but it froze there also.

I don't think RAM is the problem here from what I can tell. I'm going to install RAM from VPCZ and run it on the notebook I'm on now to see if they are still ok.

 

Yep, memory is fine. They are running in the notebook I'm typing this from now.

Either the motherboard is hosed or maybe power connection somewhere?

 

I was wondering wether this procedure resets CMOS. Does it really?

Usually it's more like take out the battery, press the power button for 30s or something.

Can someone confirm that his CMOS was reset?

 

That sounds very strange. I would have thought with no battery and no AC connected, the power button would do nothing. Unless it's somehow connected to the lithium CMOS battery in some way, how does the system know you've been holding it down for 30 secs?

 

I think holding down the power button is supposed to drain any residual current that might be in the system.

 

Yes, I've tried resetting the CMOS by holding down the power button after unplugging the battery (to drain leftover current). I've also tried just keeping it unplugged for a while and then plugging it back. Same issues persist - power button goes green and stays green but nothing shows up on display. The computer doesn't respond to any inputs at this point and eventually I have to hard power down by holding down the power button for several seconds.

 

Have you tried it with the HDD disconnected? Given the HDD failed at the same time as the rest of the PC, it sounds like it's related. The system should boot to Bios without the HDD.

 

I've tried pretty much everything I can try, including turning it on with and without the HDD. Results are the same.

At this point, I may just have to send it back to Sony. I'm hoping that the repair cost is not too outrageous.

Does anyone know where the BIOS chip is sitting on the motherboard? Some desktop boards have replaceable BIOS chip and I'm wondering if the Sony's does as well. Perhaps resitting it or replacing it, if possible, might fix the problem.

 

Sony will just replace your entire motherboard and this will cost (guesstimated) 600+ bucks. If you want to save some money, rather buy a used motherboard from ebay and replace it yourself (not too hard to do if you already fiddled around with your CMOS battery).

BIOS chip you are talking about is a flash chip. It is soldered to the motherboard. I believe that changing it would have no effect on your issue. Another approach I would suggest to try is disconnect all possible devices like WiFi card, WWAN card, SSD/HDD/ODD to narrow your issue down to the motherboard. If there is something wrong with the SSDs/ODD, the Z1 BIOS keeps trying to access the broken device forever and does not boot up. If that all does not help, it might be worth to check the CPU/GPU heatsink assembly, too.

Good luck!

 

Thanks for your feedback pyr0. I just checked out some ads on ebay for vpc-z boards and I came up on this:

Sony Vaio VPC Z11 Z12 Z13 Z14 Z21 Laptop Motherboard Repair | eBay

Has anyone tried repair service such as this? They have good ratings so I'm tempted to try it.

Used Z11 boards on ebay are still fetching mid to upper $300 range and the repair service is half that.

 

Did you read the repair policy? If I were you, I'd rather get a complete motherboard.

 

Yeah, having read their repair policy, I'm a little hesitant to use their service. What's this BGA they keep referring to? Anyway, I'll go with your advice and replace the entire motherboard myself. I've done numerous desktop builds from scratch so I figure this would be the same except much smaller connectors.

I have a few questions about the Z11 motherboard.

1) Is the Z11 mobo model number MBX-206?
2) There are many listing for MBX-206 but they have various different part numbers. I'm guessing this is due to different processors that they came with. Is this correct?
3)My current board has i7 620m CPU installed. Most boards I see on ebay have i5 varients. Will I be able to swap out the CPU's on these boards without issue?

 

1) yes
2) yes
3) no, cpus are bga (ball grid array) and soldered to the motherboard. you can't change it unless you have professional reflow equipment worth a couple grands.

 

Taking the motherboard out of the Z wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be.

I found a mbx-206 i7 board for $400 over by Aliexpress.com. Hopefully, replacing the board will fix the problem.

And pyr0, thanks for all your help.

 

Best of luck. Waiting to hear how you got on.