Z1 mobo sick ? see photo

Hi ,

Still on a quest to revive a Z1 , pressing the power button it won't power just blink green once , I already got faster laptops but like the design .

So I got to the motherboard level for close inspection and found several things ( other then that Sony builds laptops using lots of sponges , tape and spit ) .

1. Found one really tiny solder "bead" , could be just sloppy work or that it came off , yet I've yet to see a missing solder . Also found a tiny U shaped wire sitting on the bottom .

2. One of the memory dimms looks like it over heated because it has some residue from the thermal pad , same with part of the GPU . Maybe its just external but then the other dimms share the same pad and they look clean .

Any ideas ?

Gilo

 

well my company bought about 20-30 of s1 laptop. I can see the motherboard is similar to urs. It took me a week to find out what is wrong. We got about a dozen of them not powering on. The green light comes up but nothing on screen and windows isn't loading.

Then found out that its the video card is busted, sony knows about this problem. But they don't admit its a manufacturing fault. Basically after 1 yr your ati chips gets too hot and its sort of unsolder itself from the board. It uses ball grid bearing therefore you won't be able to solder it back to the board unless u got like a very expensive tools.

I found out that only ATI chips have this problem, we have exact same specs but nvidia chip and they are perfectly fine.

Warning (not recommended): You can revive your laptop video card, just apply pressure when u power on. U will see the screen come up etc, but once u let it go the computer will crash. BUT this will damage your laptop even further. I've tried this on 5-6 laptops they all work like that. But problem is now a few of them is completly dead no matter how much force I use. It seems to require more force each time.

No point to fix it, cos the video chip is soldered to the board. So if you really like the laptop just purchase a new board from sony. I really like the s1 series too. I prefer them than all the current new ones we got.

 

Thanks for the info ,

But weren't the Vaio Z1 only with ATI gpus ?

Anyway , I think I narrowed down the porblem to the inverter area :

1. when the inverter is plugged in the power button will only blink once , then die .

2. when the inverter is out the power will stay on and the CD will start spinning , could it be its shorting out the laptop ? or maybe it could also be the screen ? ( tough I tried with the lcd plugged out as well ) .

Thanks,
Gilo

 

yup they are with ATI gpu. But they released another identical specification and same design laptop with nvidia gpu. Everything is same apart from the gpu and gave it a different model number. Think it was sxp or something cant remember now.

They must have known there was a problem with the ati over heating with the original one.

 

I'm wondering if I dont have the same problem as you?

I've had my VAIO Z1 since 2004 ( ~ 2.8 years ). The bluetooth stopped working and was replaced under the extended warranty twice. Now that the warranty has run out and the bluetooth stopped working again (Bluespace NE says "Bluetooth power is off. Please turn it on."

I decided to open up my expensive $2000+ laptop and see what was wrong myself because Sony support is terrible.

Long story short - my vaio z1 wont power on. The light remains green as long as I have it's pressed (blinks/flashes if the battery is charging) but the system never turns on. I'm going to go back in later.

(I don't recommend buying VAIO laptops by the way)

 

Hi K2007 ,

So you mean it stopped working after you opened it ?

Welcome to the forum ,

Gilo

 

No, actually the bluetooth hadn't been working for about 1 1/2 years so I opened it to try and locate the problem. I must've missed a connection when I was re-assembling it so it wouldn't turn on after I closed it.

Since then, I've opened it back and checked all connections and now it powers on, however I'm wondering if the fan is spinning because I dont hear it.

Does sony have software to check fan speed?

BTW the reason I dont recommend VAIOs is mainly because of service. They ARE (to me) the most attractive laptops by far - by style and weight, but they're ridiculously over-priced - especially for the lousy service. One has to consider that you will DEFINITELY need an extended warranty with such poor customer service. That alone should knock a few hundred off of the price. One reason the service is poor because Sony will "fix" your laptop under warranty repairs, with parts that aren't new - even if your laptop is only a week old when it breaks.

 

Ineteresting , do you know which connection it was ? it might give me a clue as to whats wrong with mine .

 

Maybe the on/off cable? I took it apart too many times and they got damaged. Although no physical damage but I'm unable to power it on. Its the white one that is full of wires on it that looks like tape.

I changed to another cable and I was able to power it on straight away.

 

Actually, as for s series, Sony accepted their responsibility for the soldering problem; Sony extended their warranty up to one year for this problem, but sometimes they fixed it even for free after the warranty expired. However, I do not know about Z1.

Contact this company at http://www.aqstech.com/vaio3.html. They are the only company which might fix this problem except for Sony. Actually, they were the first company which found that this problem is common to s series (S1 and S2)

 

If the keyboard were facing you (the way we normally use the laptop) and you were about to replace the top half, the power cable would be the second from the top left. It's a white tape-like cable. The first from the left is the memory stick cable, then the next one is the cable that comes from the power button. That's the one I believe was the problem.

BTW the fan is working.