Dieing Hardware A31P - Systemic Problem???

[friedrich-eugen]

Hello,

our (my wifes and my home-office-machines) old A31P (PM4 2,6/ 2GB/100GB) have been cared for a long time and been in use (about 2002-2011/2012) for long time. Since about 2011 we use "new" old hardware.

I happened to find my A31P working until autumn last year. Now it stopped booting, even no post is shown, but loading a battery seems to work, the lights show... My wifes machine exactly the same !

My daughters A31P (a bit younger ones, PM4 2,5/2GB/100GB) are still - continuously docked and connected to electricty - working, they boot quite normally.

First I though, that the bios batteries must have failed. They have not. On pushing the on-button, the usual lightshow shows up, but no hdd drive spins up, no cooler starts, no boot-Screen shows up, F1 has no function. Tried with less / different Memory, different batteries.

Both machines stopped working only after having been put off continuous connection to their docks and to continuous electrical connection.

Any hints to whats up?

- Died of lack of use or
- Died of shame?
- Bios lost its Memory?
- Dead electronic parts?

thanks in advance

[ajkula66]

Try pressing the Caps Lock key while attempting to power the machine on.

If the corresponding LED doesn't stay lit, the board is likely as good as gone.

Does the machine beep 1-3-3-1 when all the RAM is removed when you turn it on?

[friedrich-eugen]

Thanks ajakula66,

for Your continuous assistance!

The lights do not stay on...

- r i p -

ok, but why? ... built in Counter? aging elko, other parts? ...If You know...

sincerely Yours

[ajkula66]

I'm not going to claim that I know the specifics, it's just my own sad experiences that I'm re-living while reading your post...

You may want to check the condensers on both of these boards for any signs of desoldering...apart from that, I have no other suggestions...

Good luck.

[ganon11000]

After checking, this laptop has a non chip set GPU (ATI 7800 I believe) now third party GPUs are know to produce more heat and therefore fail more by breaking the solder. Now if you have equipment to repair a desoldered GPU (heat gun & infared thermometer) you may wish to attempt a GPU repair as its relatively easy. Obviously don't just take my word and make your own judgements!

[friedrich-eugen]

Hello Ganon,

You're right, as far as the graphics are concerned, the A31P does have an ATI FireGL with 64MB dedicated Memory. They were really great machines, still are (disregarding their age) while running, and they had same flaws (gpu-soldering, heat, Displays, docking Units)...

I have had some of these "events", but this one is special, and George's explanation makes a lot of sense to me. I'l have to find someone, who is able to check (and repair) my boards...

A failing graphics unit does show differently...

[RealBlackStuff]

Check with user Raceboy in Estonia, he might be able to help.