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98X0 motherboard repair service (anyone interested)

post #1 of 29
6/8/07 at 2:39am
Thread Starter 
I do component level repair for a living and have had the opportunity to fix quite a few of these boards. From what I have found they have 2 common faults. 1 of the 2 is correctable reliably...

Faults are...

1) Upon powering up you get the blue power light but the system simply will not post. Sometimes you can get the computer to boot by pressing hard around the F10 key. The root cause of the problem is due to thermal expansion and contraction of the CPU socket. This fatigues the solder connections underneath the socket causing them to break resulting in an open or high Z connection. Unfortunately the only way to correct this problem would be to reflow the CPU socket. Due to the material of the socket, amount of metal around the socket and surrounding components this would not be very cost effective and would be a hit or miss on reliability. I feel this is part of the reason we are seeing this problem in the first place.

2) Battery wont charge. Might have smelled burnt electronics. Might have had your laptop on during the night only to find it powered off the next morning and will not respond. The problem is due to the under rated reverse polarity protection diodes at the power supply feed next to the power jack on the mainboard. You can see them if you remove the CPU heat sink. Fortunately this is almost always repairable and will save you having to purchase a new mainboard for $500 or more.


Since I have repaired a quite a few in the past I figured I would offer my services on here and see if anyone would like to have theirs repaired.

I charge $75 + return shipping if the motherboard has to be removed and reinstalled back into the case. If you are only sending the bare mainboard I charge $50 + return shipping. You will save quite a bit due to the weight if you only send the board for repair. This repair only applies to the 2nd type of failure listed above.

You can email me at xgenmods@gmail.com if you are interested or have question regarding my services.
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post #2 of 29
6/9/07 at 9:29am
how about bad hdd controller?
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post #3 of 29
6/9/07 at 2:26pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by denn_76 View Post
how about bad hdd controller?
Does the cd-rom drive stll work?
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post #4 of 29
6/10/07 at 10:21am
yes, but i am pretty sure the promise controller is toast.
after the bios it usually goes to the promise hdd detection screen, it doesn't anymore.
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post #5 of 29
6/10/07 at 2:53pm
Thread Starter 
The only way I would know for sure if it can be fixed is if I had it here in front of me to run some tests. This can be caused by a number of problems such as a corrupt bios and or firmware, burnt out raid controller, raid chip not getting power or correct pci signaling, bad southbridge, etc. Lots of possibilities. What version motherboard do you have?
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post #6 of 29
6/10/07 at 8:01pm
i gonna check the version, but it did work when i messed with the bios by moving it up and down inthe boot order. but everytime i rebooted with a cd in the cdrom it would not detect anymore, then it went altogether.
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post #7 of 29
6/10/07 at 8:45pm
Thread Starter 
Have you tried removing the cd-rom drive out of the computer? How about reflashing the bios via a floppy or usb stick? Sounds like a bios/firmware issue or a power problem on the mainboard. The weird part is that the the cd-rom is on a seperate bus than the hard drives. Hard drives ate connected to the Promise PDC20378 chip and the cd-roms are tied to the southbridge ata. Does the audio dj still work fine?
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post #8 of 29
6/10/07 at 9:44pm
Hey DaTwo, just sent you a PM about the service your offering... What I really need help with is parts.
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post #9 of 29
6/11/07 at 1:23pm
i tried looking for a bios upgrade, this is a hypersonic ex7 which is a 9890. i looked on sager, hypersonic and clevo but no bios upgrade. and for the cdrom thing the promise controller does turn on when i switched the boot order form pci scsi to cd rom to boot first. i bought this laptop like this, figure i can use it for parts but figure i would try and resurrect it one way or another.
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post #10 of 29
6/11/07 at 1:32pm
Thread Starter 
Bios...

http://www.eurocom.com/support/drive...D900t_bios.htm

Would you be interested in selling the video card if you cant get it working?
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post #11 of 29
6/11/07 at 2:16pm
i'll think about it but i am pretty dedicated on getting it to work, i kinda got iworking off a usd hdd right now.
thanks for the link
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post #12 of 29
6/11/07 at 4:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaTwo View Post
The weird part is that the the cd-rom is on a seperate bus than the hard drives. Hard drives ate connected to the Promise PDC20378 chip and the cd-roms are tied to the southbridge ata. Does the audio dj still work fine?
Why did you ask him if his CD drive was still working if as you say, the CD drive and HDD are controlled by different chips and on different busses? Why would you expect removing the CD drive to effect the HDD?
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post #13 of 29
6/11/07 at 4:53pm
Thread Starter 
The reason I asked this is because of the way the bios is handling them. Also the both get power from the same rail. Say the power rail is weak and the cd drive attempts to spin up. It will pull all available power off the rail and cause the controller to error out.
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post #14 of 29
6/11/07 at 5:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by denn_76 View Post
i gonna check the version, but it did work when i messed with the bios by moving it up and down inthe boot order. but everytime i rebooted with a cd in the cdrom it would not detect anymore, then it went altogether.
I've had a somewhat similar problem with my machine. However, in my case the HDD works fine and it is the CD drive that no longer works. The Promise controller BIOS always goes through the setup routine and the HDD works completely fine. However, the CD drive started to malfunction when attempting to boot from it (but still was recognized by Windows and could be used). Eventually the CD drive started dropping data in Windows and now it no longer even registers as reported by the BIOS at boot time.

Recently, however, I took my machine apart for cleaning as I noticed the fan RPMS creeping up. After I put it back together again, the CD drive worked but only for a short time whereupon the drive 'dropped out of windows' causing the system to periodically stall. The drive worked through a couple reboots but eventually stopped working altogether as before. This makes me think that the drive itself is still functional, but the controller is malfunctioning somehow. I'd say it was a heat related problem but it doesn't seem to matter now how long I leave the computer off or power supply unplugged, the CD drive is no longer recognized.

I've been toying with the idea of buying an external SATA CD drve and hooking it into my spare HDD controller port, but I'm not sure if you could do the same thing with your computer. I know there are 2 HDD ports and 2 CD ports, and BIOS supports booting through either the CD interface or the HDD interface. I assume that either the HDD or CD controller could drive drives through either interface so long as the drive uses a compatible interface. However, does the slim drive use the standard PATA interface, and how difficult would it be to access and attach an external PATA cable/device to it? If your system uses the SATA interface for the HDD instead on the PATA interface, you would also need to buy an PATA/SATA adaptor; but this is just an idea...
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post #15 of 29
6/11/07 at 9:07pm
youre idea sounds great but the systen doesnt; even go through the promise detection screen, and does not even show up in bios anymore. for me to use sats instead of pata the promise controller would have to start up. thanks for the idea though.
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post #16 of 29
6/16/07 at 4:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaTwo View Post
The reason I asked this is because of the way the bios is handling them. Also the both get power from the same rail. Say the power rail is weak and the cd drive attempts to spin up. It will pull all available power off the rail and cause the controller to error out.
OK, but after he said that his CD drive worked but the promise controller did not, you said it was wierd that the CD drive was on a separate bus. Why?
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post #17 of 29
6/16/07 at 5:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by denn_76 View Post
youre idea sounds great but the systen doesnt; even go through the promise detection screen, and does not even show up in bios anymore. for me to use sats instead of pata the promise controller would have to start up. thanks for the idea though.
If the CD drive and HDD are controlled by separate chips then I don't see why it would matter that your Promise controller is broken. You said that your CD drive still worked. I think it would be safe then to assume that your southbridge controller is still functioning correctly. If you decided to run a HDD from the CD drive port, then you would be using the southbridge. Note how when you boot up, the CD drive is listed before the Promise controller detection screen activates (on my 9860 at least); you should still see your CD drive being detected by the BIOS.

I think it would only cost you the price of an ATA cable to find out if the HDD would work through the CD port. Well I'm curious now, I think I'm going to check for myself what the CD drive interface looks like... and since I think I have an old desktop ATA cable lying around, I just might try it myself. I'll let you know what I find out.

BTW, how did you manage to get your computer working off of a USB HDD? I recall being able to boot off of a USB HDD at one time but it's been some time now since I've been able to do so. I can't recall what it was that disabled this function. Perhaps it was when I reflashed my BIOS with the latest version from Sager's web page.
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post #18 of 29
6/16/07 at 5:33pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Starcub View Post
OK, but after he said that his CD drive worked but the promise controller did not, you said it was wierd that the CD drive was on a separate bus. Why?
OK, you are confusing the data signaling with the power rail from my statement. Basically if the power rail is week... one may work but not the other due to a dip in voltage. This can be caused by something as simple as a failed capacitor. He was saying the cd-rom was working intermittently based on his election in the bios. I opinion is that the promises controller isn't getting the correct power due to a failed capacitor and is causing it to report to the bios incorrectly causing a halt in the boot process. This is why when the cd-rom is selected as the first to boot it will work fine. Basically what I was trying to find out is if the cd-rom wasnt connected electrically and drawing power. Will the hard drive inside boot ok?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Starcub View Post
I think it would only cost you the price of an ATA cable to find out if the HDD would work through the CD port. Well I'm curious now, I think I'm going to check for myself what the CD drive interface looks like... and since I think I have an old desktop ATA cable lying around, I just might try it myself. I'll let you know what I find out.
Yes the hard drive will show in bios if you connect it to a cd-rom port. You can also boot from it. I have yet to find a cable the will convert the 50 pin slim drive to a 44 pin 2.5 notebook drive nor have I found a caddy that will work. I ended up making my own from a blank cd-rom caddy that come in the D900 series if you are not using the second drive. Basically the has the 50 pin interface connector to a 44 pin 2.5 connector so the drive can sit inside it. Makes it so I have a third hard drive inside the laptop.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Starcub View Post
BTW, how did you manage to get your computer working off of a USB HDD?
Just select it in the bios boot order.
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post #19 of 29
6/17/07 at 10:35am
ti get windows to install on a usb device i had to modify the windows installation disk.
http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176

the cdrw works period, not intermittently.
there isn't a halt in the boot process it just doesnt show up in bios everything does.
i think you might be right maybe a failed resistor? or f'ed up promise controller.
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post #20 of 29
6/17/07 at 11:15am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by denn_76 View Post
ti get windows to install on a usb device i had to modify the windows installation disk. http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176 the cdrw works period, not intermittently. there isn't a halt in the boot process it just doesnt show up in bios everything does. i think you might be right maybe a failed resistor? or f'ed up promise controller.
The promise controller is connected to the pci bus. If it isnt getting the correct power it will not load it bios boot rom patch. Does it show on the screen that its loading the patch rom for the raid controller? If you run a system check utility such as SiSoftware Sandra does anything show up on the pci bus? Really the only way to check this is to check the vcc pins for correct power while the board is powered on. If the voltage into the chip on all pins is correct the next step would be to replace that chip. I have never seen a failed pdc20378 chip yet however.
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