Travel Technology - 5 year old laptop dead, any ideas on how to fix?

5 year old eMachines laptop won't respond to the power on key, with or without AC power. Took out the battery, replaced it, nothing works.

Looks like a dead mother board, but how to test for sure??

5 year old eMachines laptop won't respond to the power on key, with or without AC power. Took out the battery, replaced it, nothing works.

Looks like a dead mother board, but how to test for sure??

I had exactly the same thing occur a couple of weeks ago to my Vaio. A mother board replacement did the trick.

Not sure how to check, tho...good luck.

I take it there isn't any diagnostics software available from the manufacturer? I can imagine not, with eMachines, but thought I'd ask. Pretty sure Dell diagnostics software would ID something like this.

Pretty sure Dell diagnostics software would ID something like this.

i.e. on a Dell, that is!

It won't power on at all, so even if there were diagnostic software (like on a Dell), it wouldn't do any good. :(

If you hear fan turning, disk drive spinning, then the CCF backlight in the LCD may be out. Check the VGA port to make sure.

If the power light comes on but the computer does nothing, the DRAM module may have failed.

If there are no lights at all. Charge the battery outside of the computer and see if the computer boots with a fully charged battery. If it does boot, then check the fuse at the charger adapter port on the motherboard. If it doesn't boot with a fully charged battery, then something serious is wrong with the motherboard.

Thanks. Exactly nothing happens when I press the power button, with a charged battery, with or without AC power, with or without battery.

This is an old laptop I was using to test out various apps and linux on, so no big loss. Just sucks.

On Thinkpads, both the battery and power adapter port have fuses. It is unlikely both fuses will be blown. But it doesn't hurt to take a look. A modern laptop has close to 20 fuses and even older one has more than 10.

added:
Take a look at the USB port to see if it is damaged. A shorted power contacts in a broken USB port would make a dead laptop.

No promises, but try this (this works with several brands): 1) Remove battery and disconnect power cable, 2) Push and hold power button for 1 minute (time it), then release, 3) Plug in power cable and attempt to power up normally, 4) If that worked, put battery back in to charge.

Thanks will try the suggestions and see what happens.

On Thinkpads, both the battery and power adapter port have fuses. It is unlikely both fuses will be blown. But it doesn't hurt to take a look. A modern laptop has close to 20 fuses and even older one has more than 10.
Thanks. It's an eMachine so not sure where the fuses are.


added:
Take a look at the USB port to see if it is damaged. A shorted power contacts in a broken USB port would make a dead laptop.
The USB ports seem okay, on first inspection. Not sure if a magnifying glass would help.

Thanks. It's an eMachine so not sure where the fuses are....


The fuse for the battery is a large one about 4-5mm long. Others are much smaller thus harder to identify. I would not suggest fixing it unless you are familiar with this kind of things.

5 year old emachines laptop? Remove the hard drive, buy a usb 2.5" enclosure for the hard drive if there's anything on it you haven't backed up somewhere else that you need, and get a new $500 - $600 notebook.

It's dead, Jim. :)

Some cheap notebooks won't power up at all without the battery.

-David

I second the proposal to buy a new laptop. I think it is time...it isn't going to be cost effective to fix this. I don't think you need to buy a hard drive enclosure, however. You can buy a 2.5>3.5" IDE converter for a few dollars and then hook up the laptop's hard drive to a regular computer. Then you can copy your data over and be done with it.

On Thinkpads, both the battery and power adapter port have fuses. It is unlikely both fuses will be blown. But it doesn't hurt to take a look. A modern laptop has close to 20 fuses and even older one has more than 10.

added:
Take a look at the USB port to see if it is damaged. A shorted power contacts in a broken USB port would make a dead laptop.


Fusible links and/or diodes? Yes. Fuses???? Haven't seen one in a laptop since the Compaq LTE/286 days. Fusible links aren't user replaceable, sadly.

Fusible links and/or diodes? Yes. Fuses???? Haven't seen one in a laptop since the Compaq LTE/286 days. Fusible links aren't user replaceable, sadly.

Surface mount fuses. Yes, very hard to replace. I just solder a bus wire on top.

http://www.littelfuse.com/cgi-bin/r.cgi/en/prod_series.html?SeriesID=235&LFSESSION=y90gl2yJ7b

Not worth the cost of a motherboard. Save the hard drive as mentioned above and get a new computer.

Could there be any onboard bios batteries that need to be replaced? Still playing with it.

Could there be any onboard bios batteries that need to be replaced? Still playing with it.

if that was the case, the system would still power up, but lose the settings.
don't think thats the issue here....

Could there be any onboard bios batteries that need to be replaced? Still playing with it.
Yes. Find and remove. A shorted (or polarity-reversed) CMOS battery can cause a variety of symptoms, but the computer might POST if the battery is removed. I don't know eMachines, but I know that some Vaios look dead with a bad battery.

Add: the battery you are looking for is probably either a coin mounted flush on the mobo (if it's a lithium cell) or a small plastic-wrapped pack with one or two cells and a wire that plugs into the mobo (if NiCd).

Could it be a bad power button? My friend had that happen on a laptop once.

5 year old emachines laptop? Remove the hard drive, buy a usb 2.5" enclosure for the hard drive if there's anything on it you haven't backed up somewhere else that you need, and get a new $500 - $600 notebook.

It's dead, Jim. :)

Some cheap notebooks won't power up at all without the battery.

-David

This is good advise! Stop wasting your time, yank the hard drive and buy a new machine.

BBY has a Compaq lappy for $400 this weekend.

Fatwallet discussion on the same. (http://www.fatwallet.com/t/18/788845/)

BUY new LAPTOP ? :D^

5 year old eMachines laptop won't respond to the power on key, with or without AC power. Took out the battery, replaced it, nothing works.

Looks like a dead mother board, but how to test for sure??

I think it's pretty clear he wants to try to get it working again. Not sure if it's for academic reasons or not. I don't think it's for practical reasons, but who knows.

-David