Intermittant Laptop

[mbwatson]

My 14 year old daughter has just dropped our laptop on the floor, as a result it is now working intermittantly. It is a 4 year old Elonex Soliton Pro. When it fails, it refuses to switch on, nothing happens other than the green lamp on the front of the laptop comes on. Normally, the CPU fan would start and the BIOS greeting would appear on the screen - these things do not occur under the fault condition. I have tried plugging in an external monitor, but it remains blank.

This fault is intermittent - the system does run properly sometimes. However, it can suddenly seize up - no activity, nothing.

I have stripped the laptop down to its components and rebuilt it in the hope that any intermittent contacts would be remade. Well it worked for a couple of hours afterwards, but then it has seized up again. I have also tried reducing the lapdown down to CPU/motherboard/memory/floppy drive from which I can run some basic memory tests. The system still exhibits the same problem. On one occasion, a memory fault was detected by the test, but this may be another symptom of the problem.

Has anyone got any idea what may be wrong and how I might solve it?

[Shabow]

So you are saying that you can run windows without any problem? But, after a while it locks up or sometimes you cant even get on windows. What version are you running? And how far does it go usually in the boot screen before it stops?

[mbwatson]

I run Windows XP Home (SP1a).
When it runs, it will run for some time without any problem and then suddenly die.
At other times, the laptop will not even enter the bios - no fan, no beep, no display, nothing.

[Kuasimodem]

It sounds to me like the drop has cracked the motherboard. Inspect the entire motherboard with a high power magnifying glass, preferably with a very bright light shining through the board from the backside.

Most computer motherboards have anywhere from 3 to 6 layers of "runs" or circuits connecting everything together, if one of the internal runs has been cracked, the motherboard is pretty much a loss. You may be able to find a motherboard from an online supplier or eBay, but it will probably cost more than the laptop is worth.

Sorry

[mbwatson]

I have checked the motherboard as suggested. I cannot find any cracks or damage at all, though I did remove one piece of swarf (a bit of fine wire), unfortunately no change to the laptop's behaviour. I am inclined to agree that the laptop is pretty much a write-off.

[motorbike]

is ac connection ok? i had the same trouble. even the local repair shop told me to scrap it,as you see ive sent this reply....

[fourthbean]

August 9th, 2004 11:38 AM