98X0 motherboard repair service (anyone interested) - Page 2

OK, but I would have thought that if the Promise controller and southbridge were on the same rail, that a power problem would manifest in both controllers. However, I suppose it could be that the chips are competing with each other for power in a low voltage condition and one is winning out over the other, or that the BIOS is intelligently managing components for such a condition (highly unlikely IMHO). But I really don't know how exactly the BIOS relates with the PDC and southbridge, which is one reason why I'm asking all these questions.

To me, the fact the HDD controller failed intermittently over a period of time before failing completely (with the CD drive always working fine) would indicate that the HDD controller (or a cold solder joint/cable issue) was the problem. The BIOS re-odering may have had nothing to do with the device being recognized.
No, I think he was referring to his HDC failing, not his CD drive.

What has the 50 pin/44 pin slim to IDE adaptor? Looks like you left the word out.

This is what I did before to get it working, and it's all I should have to do. The solution Denn found seems awfully convoluted to me... However, now, even if I re-arrange the boot options, the USB HDD does not appear to be detected by the BIOS and will not boot. This most certainly appears to me to be a BIOS issue. I can't imagine why Sager would have crippled the 9860 BIOS even further in later revisions.

I have one that has about half of the pins on the keyboard connector busted. I had a friend test all the pins and they still make connection, so I'm guessing maybe the two solders on the end might be grounds or something. The board still works, but the lower half of the keyboard does not.

i downloaded sandra, how do i find whats on the pci bus?
and what do you mean the patch rom? do you mean the promise detection screen?
how would i checked the power going to thw chip?

Any updates on this?

I think my Promise controller just bit the dust as well. Sometimes it will show up and Detect the drive and will show up in the BIOS, but most of the time it won't. Even if it does show up it may load the OS (either XP or Ubuntu) but then it will lock up hard and I have to power it off. I got a new drive to make sure it wasn't a failing drive, but no luck. It acts exactly the same.

In case it was the BIOS, I re-burned the last BIOS Sager (1.00.12, file 989bv12cs.ISO that they sent me) to CD from a different machine and flashed it again with no improvement. I even removed the CMOS battery in an effort to reset the BIOS and make sure the issues weren't due to a bad BIOS update.

This is all on a Sager 9890 with a single drive in ATA mode, and yes I reset the default settings after the BIOS flash and changed the Controller to ATA mode.

Unfortunately I bought my laptop originally from PCTorque and they are not responding for me to know for sure if I got caught by the ATS garbage, so any ideas on a cheaper repair option if it turns out its needed would be great.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or ideas.

You still there Digg?
Sent you an email a couple weeks ago about my 9880 and faulty voltage regulator--no answer yet? please advise.

These are basically the crappiest motherboards ever made. I have bought three to replace mine, and none of them work (mine has a broken keyboard connector, my own dumb fault). I re-installed my old one just to make sure I wasn't putting it together wrong, mine still works. I'm about to give up and just part out the machine.

I've got a busted 9880. Sager says the motherboard needs to be replaced and I can't mentally justify $500 to repair something that (according to some posts on this board) is just gonna go bad again.

Anybody interested in buying a 17" notebook with a busted motherboard for parts?

seriously...

I might be, PM me the details.

hi;

are you still offering your mobo repair service?