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gateway M320 bad motherboard?

post #1 of 13
8/8/06 at 8:20am
Thread Starter 
I've had this Gateway M320 for a while now and for some reason or another if you bump it or sometimes even pick it up, it will shut off. Although it doesn't really shut off. Everything is gone but the power lights are still on. You have to hold the power button for a few seconds to shut it off and then turn it back on. I've pulled everything apart. I took out the motherboard, reseated the processor, reseated RAM, I even switched RAM slots, swapped out hard drives, swapped out wireless cards, checked for any shorts or grounding, broken wires etc, and still can't get it fixed. I'll admit, it's not AS sensitive as it was but it's still driving me crazy. I also grabbed a Linux disc and ran MemTest86+ for a couple hours and couldn't really find anything bad with RAM. I've searched over the surface of the entire motherboard with a magnifying glass to see if I could find any breaks anywhere and nothing. Any ideas? I'm going coo coo.


Thanks in advance.
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post #2 of 13
8/8/06 at 10:14am
I take it that the notebook is out of warranty, so sending it back to Gateway is not an option? They are the ones best equipped to figure this type of problem out.

I sympathize, but I have never heard of this happening before. Hopefully someone else can provide you with some clues.
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post #3 of 13
8/8/06 at 11:24am
Thread Starter 
Yes unfortunatly it is out of warranty. I've literally tried everything short of a big hammer to fix this thing. Although I have been thumbing through here and have found some interesting things I'll be trying out tonight.
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post #4 of 13
8/8/06 at 11:29am
if u r on xp, i suggest that u just do a scandisk (automatic repair) at next start, at least one elimination step

cheers ...
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post #5 of 13
8/8/06 at 11:53am
Thread Starter 
Yeah I tried scandisk too. Like I say I put in another hard drive from a working M320 and it did the exact same thing. One thing I DID try was to put basically a wedge into the hard drive area to push the drive into the IDE connector(because the hard drive was my first suspect) a little more snug and that seemed to help a little but it still does the same thing.
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post #6 of 13
8/8/06 at 12:17pm
There is a thread on the other Gateway forum on this website about a notebook with a high-end NVidia GPU (a 6800?) that is having random restart problems. I assume you have seen that thread. See the last post. Link:

http://www.notebookforums.com/thread141998.html

So I guess a faulty GPU is another possibility. I was surprised to see that GPU's could be swapped out, at least on his particular model.
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post #7 of 13
8/8/06 at 1:23pm
Thread Starter 
Yeah I did see that and that was one issue I was looking into as well. My GPU is soldered into the board but has a thin aluminum plate over it as a heatsink I assume. It's held on with a sticky thermal pad. At first that plate was part of my issue. From the top of the keyboard you could push down right above that plate and it would make contact with the board and shut off. I slipped a small piece of paper in between the plate and the board and problem solved there. But it still randomly just shuts off if bumped or twisted at all. It's driving me nuts.
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post #8 of 13
8/15/06 at 11:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Escape311
Yes unfortunatly it is out of warranty. I've literally tried everything short of a big hammer to fix this thing. Although I have been thumbing through here and have found some interesting things I'll be trying out tonight.

There was another guy a few months ago whose laptop would reboot spontaneously or maybe powerdown if he tapped on it. He was thinking for a while it was maybe something around the pcmcia for some reason. It sounds like you've changed out enough hardware on it by now to have bought another board and just rebuilt it.
You might try a local shop that specializes in laptops, and see if they can at least narrow it down.....by telling them everything you know it isn't.
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post #9 of 13
8/16/06 at 8:23am
Thread Starter 
Well, luckily all the parts I swapped out were spares from another laptop. I didn't want to try just buying stuff only to end up with the same problem. I may tinker around with PCMCIA area and see if I can find any issues there. I also may just take it to a shop and see if they can atleast narrow it down a little more for me. Thanks for the reply. I'll fix this thing even if I have to buy a new laptop!
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post #10 of 13
10/2/06 at 2:19am
Is your battery still good on this system? I was having a similar problem, and found that the plug-in for my AC adapter was loose. Since my battery no longer holds a charge, the plug in would wiggle around and it would lose power. My solution was to buy a new chassis with motherboard/processor from a used system on eBay. I swapped in all of my other components: hard drive, CD drive, memory, and connected my LCD screen. Pretty simple and, at $50, cheaper than Gateway's service charge to resolder the adapter plugin!

Just a thought...
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post #11 of 13
10/2/06 at 8:38am
Thread Starter 
Yeah my battery is fine. Holds a nice strong charge. I've checked E-bay before and all I could come up with was a $600 motherboard/processor combo. You can obviously buy a new laptop for that. I wish I could find a deal like you did. Even if it was just a motherboard. I would drop the cash right away. Thanks for the tip though.
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post #12 of 13
11/6/06 at 7:01pm
I'm having similar problems. How do you get the case apart? I've removed all screws but it won't come apart at the rear. Thanks for any help.
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post #13 of 13
11/6/06 at 9:08pm
Thread Starter 
Ok so I think I have found that it definitely IS the graphics chip. I took the case apart and made some shims to fit between the case and the graphics chip so it puts pressure on it when you screw it back together. This helped dramatically but it's still kind of sensitive. I got the tip from some people who have the white G3 iBooks. They have a similar problem with the solder joints and they have been able to fix it this way.
Quote:
How do you get the case apart?
Well, there are lots of screws on the bottom, 4 on the backside near the VGA connecter, and also, there is a small "filler" strip in between the keyboard and the panel that says "Gateway" and has the power button. If you pry up on this small black plastic piece it will pop out. Then there are more screws under the keyboard too. Also, you have to remove the processor heatsink and fan as well. It's connected to both sides there. It's hard to see but if you pull out those 4 screws, it should come apart. Let me know if this helps you.
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