Replacing ribbon cable...(not that simple, hear me out)

[Uranium-235]

I have this Asus G73JH and after a lot of work replacing the video card, I was putting it back together and before I put it totally back together I booted windows. In win10 the touchpad worked for a few seconds then stopped. I didn't understand why so I looked at the ribbon cable and the contacts were all falling off and some shorted across (though I didn't smell anything burning)

I tried to straighten them out the best I could and put it back but they were too loose. Instead of getting the cable for the model laptop from ebay for an exorbitant amount, I got one from Mouser that had the same # of contacts, pitch (0.5) and length (though I never got a spec on voltage (60, 30) or awg)

when I put it back on, the power light didn't come on, the HDD light did, and I started to smell something burning so I disconnected the power real quick (the cable is hooked to the LED board which has another cable to the touchpad)

what am I missing here? did the old cable short out something that now hooked back up is frying?

[Uranium-235]

Re: Replacing ribbon cable...(not that simple, hear me out)

is it possible I burned the microcontroller out?

hm, now that I look at a disassembly guide, I think the cable has the contacts on opposite sides, does that mean the connection is reversed?

[jiroy]

Re: Replacing ribbon cable...(not that simple, hear me out)

Yes , it was reversed . It was better if you kept the original one , cut an appropriate piece of plastic to fit the loosing size .

[Uranium-235]

Re: Replacing ribbon cable...(not that simple, hear me out)

I know what you're talking about, but two of the contacts were totally off, so I could not shorten it to a size where they were still intact

[jiroy]

Re: Replacing ribbon cable...(not that simple, hear me out)

I know what you're talking about, but two of the contacts were totally off, so I could not shorten it to a size where they were still intact

Yes , sometimes it get very nasty . Using a sharp scissor to ameliorate a tough situation may fail too .
Remain to say that i saw many laptos not powering at all if the pad's microcontroller is damaged ..

[Uranium-235]

Re: Replacing ribbon cable...(not that simple, hear me out)

got the reversed FFC today (love living 5 minutes from mouser HQ and picking up from will call). Whatever got hot enough to smell didn't burn, the touchpad and LEDs (what is also on that touchpad board) works too (at least the power and HDD led does). Can't test the battery and 4th whatever it is I forget till I get it together enough

and of course I just saw the FFC going to a button board on the side with torn contacts, but I think I can cut it (I have a pair of VERY sharp scissors)

[dellxps15]

Re: Replacing ribbon cable...(not that simple, hear me out)

good work for fixing

[Uranium-235]

Re: Replacing ribbon cable...(not that simple, hear me out)

UGH Pointless in the end. This laptop is f'd. Started rebooting, freezing, used chkdsk, let it run, now there is a permenant orange line in the screen. I checked the connectors. The screen is new, the MXM video card was replaced and is used from china. I'm guessing it was reflowed and even though I arctic silvered it, it must have been poorly flowed. I give up. This thing at once time was filled with hundreds of german cockroaches, twice. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did

[dellxps15]

Re: Replacing ribbon cable...(not that simple, hear me out)

only one line on lcd could be bad flat cable or bad lcd.

if pc freezing or elase could be bad pch or bad videocard or could also be other problem.

[jiroy]

Re: Replacing ribbon cable...(not that simple, hear me out)

An external monitor would affirm if it's the LCD damaged . Freezing and restarting can be a defective Ram so clean and re-seat them .

[Uranium-235]

Re: Replacing ribbon cable...(not that simple, hear me out)

the LVDS cable was good, I replaced the screen and it was just fine when I hooked it up, even before I fried the old screen by using a different LVDS cable (checking if the cable was the issue)

the original LVDS cable never gave me any issues till I left it alone for the checkdisk (never moved it). I'll hook it to the HDMI port later today. worst case scenario, bad MXM (again), next to that, bad screen. But so much money has been put into this old thing.

windows did boot fully several times, but it started having problems staying on for extended periods of time. This reeks heat issues

[dellxps15]

Re: Replacing ribbon cable...(not that simple, hear me out)

the LVDS cable was good, I replaced the screen and it was just fine when I hooked it up, even before I fried the old screen by using a different LVDS cable (checking if the cable was the issue)

the original LVDS cable never gave me any issues till I left it alone for the checkdisk (never moved it). I'll hook it to the HDMI port later today. worst case scenario, bad MXM (again), next to that, bad screen. But so much money has been put into this old thing.

windows did boot fully several times, but it started having problems staying on for extended periods of time. This reeks heat issues

if pc freeze, or reboot itself, to exlude a bad mxm video card, just uninstall ati or nvidia video card driver and use generic vga driver instead and disable installing driver fror vga via windows update. if pc stays on fine and u can do everything and pc still work fine, then its a vga problem. if pc freeze with generic video driver then could be bad ram, bad cpu, bad mosfet at power circuit or bad pch or something else.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Replacing ribbon cable...(not that simple, hear me out)

I can't get to the point where I can uninstall the driver. it boots to black with touchpad even with safemode

hdmi doesn't have the line. the LVDS cable was never moved during the checkdisk, so i'm guessing its the new screen. The cable never indicated any problems since the new screen

I moved ram in and out with the same results. So possible motherboard, power issues. I've already spent most of the $360 I was given to fix this thing on parts themselves. I just told the guy i'm giving up on this ~8 year old gaming laptop because who knows if the (used) motherboard for ~$170 might last. Its not worth it as this point. Thanks for the ideas and help everybody but this has been one small issue rolling into another from the beginning.

[jiroy]

Re: Replacing ribbon cable...(not that simple, hear me out)

Maybe the LVDS is good , and the screen is good too , but , it's not compatible . There are lot of different specs for a compatible LCD other than the usual inches , it happened many times with me , HD , TL1 , TL2 , TL3 , WXGA , etc . That , in my opinion explain well the single line ..

I checked this laptop specs , and if it's Icore 7 , then it is still worth ...