Both my laptops are down!

[digitalwanderer]

DAMN IT!

Ok, Bertha has been having problems for a while. She'll run for about 10 minutes then shut down. She runs fine when she runs, but then once shut down needs time to cool before she'll start again. After a bit of examination I noticed that neither of her fans are spinning anymore. :? Any advice?

Yesterday I got my micro-drive screwdriver set out and was going to tear her apart to check out the fans/blow out the heatsinks. I pull out Baggo and fire her up to pull up the nice step-by-step tutorial with pictures on how to do it to make it easy, but instead of booting she beeps at me and tells me she has no HDD or optical drives installed. :?

Hubba-wa?

I'd JUST got her all setup and working, she was fine the day before, no changes or nothing and just this. At first I thought the HDD died, but that wouldn't make the DVD disapear too...would it? I can get in the BIOS and the HDD & DVD ain't there, and being a "great" Dell BIOS I can barely access/change shit.

Any advice? I'm sort of stuck.

 

[Mize]

Uh...new fans for Bertha?

On Baggo, what kind of drives? SATA?

Did you try a cmos clear?

 

[digitalwanderer]

Uhm, the lil ones that you slide in the side?

I just got my USB HDD back from a friend. I'm gonna swap its HDD in and use its casing to check the lappy HDD.

How do you do a CMOS clear on a lappy, I mean is there a way without tearing her down first?

 

[Mize]

No. You have to open it up. Usually you have to remove the cmos battery and hold the power button for a few seconds (unplugged, no battery) - there isn't always a jumper like on a desktop.

Since both drives are down it's got to be chipset related. Does the drive have a sata connector (little L) or pata connector (a bazillion pins)?

I wager one of two things:

Dead chipset (unlikely) or loose daughterboard connector

 

[Mize]

Did Baggo get dropped recently?

 

[digitalwanderer]

It has a bazillion pins, and I'm not sure about Baggo...the kids had her.

 

[Mize]

It has a bazillion pins, and I'm not sure about Baggo...the kids had her.

If re-seating it doesn't bring it back I'm going with corrupted bios or loose connector.
Time to open it up.
That drive will (usually) seat into a daughter card that is connected to the mainboard. Make sure the daughter card isn't loose.

Then clear the bios by removing the cmos battery and the big battery and the power for at least a few minutes.

Working on laptops can be a bit more scary than desktops but they're just smaller and more scrunched.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Yeah, and I'm all fat-fingered. I've done it before and it's awful, but I'll do it again rather than pay someone else to.

I swapped out my 30Gb USB HDD for the lappy's HDD and it all got better. Suddenly it could see the DVD drive again and the new (ancient) 30Gb HDD.

I'm going for an XP reinstall now, I'll keep you posted. Thanks Mize.

 

[Mize]

Whoa, the dead HDD killed the DVD? That means they're on the same PATA channel (slower). At least it's working!

 

[digitalwanderer]

I don't use the DVD 'cept for installing Windows, so no biggy.

Found out what's wrong with my wife's laptop, the GPU fan is toast. No spinny even when set to high from a fan control app.

(Wife's lappy = Inspiron 1705 UXGA, C2D T5200 (1.6Ghz), 2Gb DDR2 @ 533, 256Mb ATi Mobility X1400, 120Gb 5400, CD/DVD burner)

 

[Mize]

Dead fans on laptops = noworkie

 

[digitalwanderer]

Yup. My question is does new fan on laptop make laptop all betters?

I'll probably find out tomorrow, I don't feel like playing with them anymore today for some reason.

 

[Mize]

If you replace both fans it'll be basically good as new for a couple years. Done it 3x.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Thanks Mize, you give me hope. I needed that right now.

 

[Davros]

Perhaps it died of shame when it discovered its name was Bertha

 

[suryad]

Perhaps it died of shame when it discovered its name was Bertha

lol

 

[digitalwanderer]

Ordered a new 160GB HDD for my 8200 along with 1Gb of memory for her, under $85 total.

On to the unhappy news...

Finally got around to tearing down my wife's lappy today. Technically it was a success...the fan is working fine now. Unfortunately I had a bit of troubles when I booted her up.

First time she seemed to boot fine, but when she went into XP her screen got borked horizontal bars and then faded to white from the edges in. Rebooted after that and it booted fine, until XP where she acted like a black and white TV filled with static and with the vert control all borked. Tried booting into safe mode, but she just got dark and wouldn't boot after that.

Think my GPU is fried?

I'm not that bummed about the GPU being fried, what's bumming me is I'm having a real hard time finding ANY GPU to replace it with for under $300. I haven't really been hunting long, but it's f-ing discouraging.

I think I'm getting into a geek depression.

 

[Davros]

how about this :
http://www.usbgear.com/USBG-DVI2.html

 

[Mize]

Dig, what kind of laptop? Does it have a replaceable GPU? Is it socketed?

 

[digitalwanderer]

It's an Inspiron 1705 UXGA, C2D T5200 (1.6Ghz), 2Gb DDR2 @ 533, 256Mb ATi Mobility X1400, 120Gb 5400, CD/DVD burner.

The X1400 is a replaceable module, but the GPU replacements are just anal rapage on the costs! A new X1400 will run $300, a new Go 7900 would be $250; it's f-ing nuts and depressing me.