Laptop starts, shuts itself off. Sometimes will boot to Windows, then shut off. Now, obviously this thing is toast. But look at that thing..what's with the wire? What's with the huge blob of solder? Did somebody just cobble something up here so it would at least still power on, giving some hope of fixing it? Does anybody here think it's fixable if I replaced that chip? Is it a power mosfet? Sorry no pics of the reverse side as I haven't "progressed" to that point yet. Thanks for any ideas.

It would take lot of cleaning to even see the damage underneath it, and it is still no guaranteed that it would work. Your board is toasted, I believe.

cheers ...

Did you buy this new?

Okay well, I got the MB out. So there you have it. Pretty bad. That blue wire was attached to one of the legs of the mosfet, which was bent up and soldered to the blue wire. It ran around to the other side and was soldered to the board. The point at which the blue wire was soldered on the reverse side is indicated in Burnt3 and is circled in yellow. What a mess. By the way, is anybody good at reading schematics? I'm pretty bad at it but if you want to take a crack at it I can email you a pdf of it for this board. Thanks again.

Also no, bought it from a friend.

Alright. Honestly, I know little about electronics, so bear with me please. Looking at some search results, here's what I see. It appears that the blue wire was attached to the G pin of the chip...apparently the "Gate" of the chip(?). So, if this part of the chip is blown(and if you look at it the diagram, it is in that area) then whoever soldered that blue wire there did it as a bypass. What I don't understand is why it was soldered to the back though. Why not just replace it the chip?

Edit: Looking further at that first picture, it looks like the G(#4) pin does not contact the same area the others do. So again my question, what does that attach to?

I must say that I do admire your tenacity and tinkering

Looking at pic#3, it would be like trying reviving a flat liner. And sorry I have no idea where it connects to.

cheers ...

Update: First a thank you all for the thoughts/ideas, it is appreciated! Okay now for the update. I got a parts laptop and salvaged the chip off it. It is a different brand. I insulated the tin from the board underneath where it was sticking up. Then I soldered the chip down and left the G pin unsoldered. I then resoldered that little blue wire from the G pin back to where it was before. A quick power on test and guess what? Powers on fine with no stability problems. Now, here is the caveat(?), I'm not going to connect the battery as I think that might blow the chip and I don't want to cause anymore damage than is already present. Anybody have thoughts on that? I worked with the laptop for 3-4 hours last night and no problems thus far. Now some might question the effort and use of a laptop without the convenience of a battery. Well, this laptop is for my GF and all she will use it for is some light web browsing and some games that it can run easily, and I know she'll only use it maybe once a week at the coffee table. So that's the deal...thanks to all who helped!

I am totally impressed ...

The heck with the battery, if this works for long time. Did you have the chance to make some pics during the process?

REP just for tenacity and cool feedback.

cheers ...

Thanks qhn, back atcha. I just want people to know that 1, I'm a poor guy lol and 2, the only way to learn is to try..and try..and try. I'm not going to say it's a permanent fix, we all know these models were Walmart specials and their rep isnt the greatest, and well, just look at that damage in the pics. But I did learn something by doing what I did. And sorry, no pics right now I was too excited to remember that. I'm going to disassemble it again in the future to swap in a Turion 64 @ 2ghz and thermal paste the cpu and gpu right. I'll get some pics then. It's not pretty but hey, it works!

P.S. Will I need a shim on the GPU or was that Nvidia only? Thanks.

How big is the gap on the GPU? Sometimes I would just use AS5 thermal paste and it will do the job just fine. And it does not matter if it is nVidia or ATI, if you can "paste" it, do it - better heat dissipation.

And poor has nothing to do with tinkering, I broke a few comps doing just that - tinkering and learning ;-)

cheers ...

Pics of the heatsink assembly from the parts laptop. They are identical. It has one of those lovely pads on the GPU section..to go with the tape on the CPU section...nice. I'm going to reassemble the parts laptop tonight and remove that pad to see if there is a gap. I'll probably use what I have, which is Ceramique.

For a long time I use AS5, then I changed over to LiquidPro, tempting to try ICD7 sometimes myself.

cheers ...