RIP Asus X83V

[ratdude747]

I BBQ'd one of my laptops today. My highly modded Asus X83V went up in smoke around 5:30PM EST. Serivices will be at... Oh wait, this is a BCN post, not an obituary!

Yeah, I had some bad luck today. I found a 19V (6.3A output) laptop car adapter at Goodwill for a big fat dollar. The only (working) laptop of mine that it fits is my Asus X83V (there's been a few threads about my shenanigans with it). I test it out, runs great... then smoke in the truck cab! Uh oh!

I originally though I bombed the charger so I open it up... nope, all looks good (actually had decent construction aside from Sam Young caps). After bible study I test it with my wall charger... flicker flicker more smell and possibly smoke. It's fried all right

Upon dissection I found that some sort of diode thing looks to have shorted and smoked... of course, no markings as to what spec it is. Lovely.

The question is do I fix the POS or not? It was my 2nd fastest unit but saw little use as it had a dead battery which I couldn't get a decent replacment for (I was looking at a repack). It's beat up and hacked a bit (only stock parts are the optical drive, RAM, webcam, and GPU) so putting a lot of money into it isn't happening.

If I knew what spec this part was supposed to be, I'd just fix it.

Here's some pics to illistrate.

First, the car charger that seems to have been the culprit:



Pretty beefy specs there... Here's what's inside:





Doesn't look all that bad to me. No load the output was reading 19.6V. I don't have a scope to check the ripple though. Maybe the Sam Young caps dried up?

Here's the relavent part of the laptop's mainboard:



The part I suspect highlighted:



Well, I guess I'm down to five working laptops now... If I come across another Penryn platform that I cam move the parts to, it will be tempting. As much as I love this ASUS, the features and serviceability may be good but the build quality is still consumer grade.

[dmill89]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

I know you're not a Lenovo fan, but you can get Thinkpad T500s (and T400s if you don't mind a 14.1" monitor) pretty cheap (I picked up a T500 with a C2D T9900 for less than $100 a few months ago, ones with a T9600 can be had for $50-$70 and T9400/P8400/P8600 for $30-50) if you're looking for a solidly built Penryn platform laptop, alternatively the Dell Precision M4400 and Latitude E6500 are pretty cheap these days (~$100 for a well spec'd model or less then$50 for a "base"/low-spec model to swap your existing parts into.) If you want to move to something more "modern" even Sandy-Bridge I5 Thinkpad T520s and Latitude E6520s can be had for less than $150 these days.

As for fixing your current Laptop if it looks like something simple (like a diode, though the lack of markings could be an issue, especially on a less common laptop like that one that may be harder to find info on) it is worth a shoot, after all if its dead you're not going to make it any worse. That being said given how cheap suitable replacements (and business grade to boot) are these days it isn't worth putting too much effort into except for your own curiosity (I know we all fix things that don't make financial sense to do so just for the challenge).

[ratdude747]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

I know you're not a Lenovo fan, but you can get Thinkpad T500s (and T400s if you don't mind a 14.1" monitor) pretty cheap (I picked up a T500 with a C2D T9900 for less than $100 a few months ago, ones with a T9600 can be had for $50-$70 and T9400/P8400/P8600 for $30-50) if you're looking for a solidly built Penryn platform laptop, alternatively the Dell Precision M4400 and Latitude E6500 are pretty cheap these days (~$100 for a well spec'd model or less then$50 for a "base"/low-spec model to swap your existing parts into.) If you want to move to something more "modern" even Sandy-Bridge I5 Thinkpad T520s and Latitude E6520s can be had for less than $150 these days.

As for fixing your current Laptop if it looks like something simple (like a diode, though the lack of markings could be an issue, especially on a less common laptop like that one that may be harder to find info on) it is worth a shoot, after all if its dead you're not going to make it any worse. That being said given how cheap suitable replacements (and business grade to boot) are these days it isn't worth putting too much effort into except for your own curiosity (I know we all fix things that don't make financial sense to do so just for the challenge).

If anything I'd get a Dell Latitude E6x00 or a Precision. I wouldn't use Lenovo for anything I'd keep, simply because they're not suited to my usage and because my stuff (minus that one T60) is Dell already.

[stj]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

fix that.
i think it's just an inductor, so a jump wire will fix it temporarily.
why is the pin of the connector so overheated above it?

[diif]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

Fix it, schamtics easily findable.

[ratdude747]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

Fix it, schamtics easily findable.

For a consumer laptop? I call BS. Prove me wrong.

[diif]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

For a consumer laptop? I call BS. Prove me wrong.

Did you even try searching ?

Consumer/business, they're all made the same inside except business laptops tend to have a TPM.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=asus+x83v+schematic

[ratdude747]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

Did you even try searching ?

Consumer/business, they're all made the same inside except business laptops tend to have a TPM.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=asus+x83v+schematic

Yeah, and it's an ASUS, who IIRC dont make business laptops. Not to mention it's probably an in-house design (given the unique layout) so no commonality that way. That said, I'm surprised one does exist... assuming it's accurate. I shall find out.

STJ- An inductor isn't the issue here as something blew up and shorted across the DC jack. Inductors, in terms of DC, are shorts, and thus not the problem here.

[stj]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

is there a short across the jack now?
if yes, remove the inductor and see if it's on the jack-side or the laptop-side.

[stj]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

For a consumer laptop? I call BS. Prove me wrong.

is it this!

[ratdude747]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

^diff found it. That's probably it too.

----

Plugged in the bare motherboard to see what was smoking... it was that bleeping positive DC solder joint! arcing!

I cleaned all the char (which I though might have been the issue, that stuff is conductive) and resoldered the joint (good thing I moved my soldering gear to my apartment)... Still arcing, now inside the PCB!

What I think happened is whatever went wrong charred the inside of the PCB, shorting the whole thing out. Aka not fixable as the substrate itself is burnt away. Dave Jones actually had this happen before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6D4MMWjrmM

Whatever hit it was hot enough to melt the solder on the DC jack and make it loose contact and arc.

I'm calling it fried beyond repair based on what I'm seeing.

[Sparkey55]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

Test the adapter under load to see what the output voltage is.

[ratdude747]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

Test the adapter under load to see what the output voltage is.

Which adapter? The car adapter that I was using when it fried or the wall brick I'm using to test it now?

Either way if it's arcing inside the PCB itself the goose is cooked.

[Sparkey55]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

Which adapter? The car adapter that I was using when it fried or the wall brick I'm using to test it now?

Either way if it's arcing inside the PCB itself the goose is cooked.

Test the dc to dc adapter. Maybe it goes high under heavy load. Are you wanting to find out what caused the high current load?

[stj]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

it's fixeable,

remove the power inlet, drill out the hole for the center pin,
refit the connector with a bit of sleeving over the pin to insulate from the board.
remove the inductor, and put a jumper from the inboard inductor pad to the connector-pin

it could also be a shorted ceramic cap, the schems say they are rated at 25v!!! bastards should have used 50v or 63v
6v is not enough headroom.

[Sparkey55]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

it's fixeable,

remove the power inlet, drill out the hole for the center pin,
refit the connector with a bit of sleeving over the pin to insulate from the board.
remove the inductor, and put a jumper from the inboard inductor pad to the connector-pin

it could also be a shorted ceramic cap, the schems say they are rated at 25v!!! bastards should have used 50v or 63v
6v is not enough headroom.

A shorted cap, a ov protect diode shorted either series or paralleled to ground, series inductor shorted to ground.
Reverse voltage would play hell on protective diodes also.

[ratdude747]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

Testing the one adapter will come with time.

Honestly I can't be that bothered to do a lot with the laptop itself. While it did have some nice features, it was in bad shape and with the battery situation putting it in jeopardy, it seems like putting that much in it would be good effort after bad.

If it were in better shape or a more critical system I'd be more inclined. However, if things are arcing internally, that to me is indicative of a greater issue. As in having to peel traces and scrape out carbon. Literally the inside of the PCB is charred conductive. Why else would it arc like that?

[Sparkey55]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

Testing the one adapter will come with time.

Honestly I can't be that bothered to do a lot with the laptop itself. While it did have some nice features, it was in bad shape and with the battery situation putting it in jeopardy, it seems like putting that much in it would be good effort after bad.

If it were in better shape or a more critical system I'd be more inclined. However, if things are arcing internally, that to me is indicative of a greater issue. As in having to peel traces and scrape out carbon. Literally the inside of the PCB is charred conductive. Why else would it arc like that?

Arcing internal is after the fact. That is not cause. A large current pull lead to the traces being over heated and then arcing.

[stj]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

cracked soldering will cause heating, then burning, then arcing.

[Sparkey55]

Re: RIP Asus X83V

cracked soldering will cause heating, then burning, then arcing.

Those dc power jacks are known to wobble and make poor connections at the solder pads as well as the inside of the jack.