Crippled laptop

[pentium]

My sister finally replaced her Presario R3000 and it ended up sitting on my desk. It's a nice low-end laptop these days and it would be nice to use however there is this distinct problem I have never managed to understand.
while the system runs fine, half of its I/O is unresponsive.
The trackpad does not work (nor does the little button above it), there's no Firewire, the video output does not work (though that could be a driver thing) and the card reader does not work. I have completely dismantled the system (had to when I was trying to figure out why the system wouldn't charge and it turns out the power jack is worn out) and found nothing wrong or disconnected and even with a fresh install of XP the system does not see the above hardware and the BIOS does not let you turn this hardware on or off.
The system has no value to me so is this something along the lines of "fixable" or should I just part it out and recycle the thing?

[ratdude747]

Re: Crippled laptop

or sell it? sounds like a good one to put linux on... maybe cold solder joints? maybe an oven-style reflow would help.

[washu]

Re: Crippled laptop

I know this probably doesn't help much, but we had the same problem with lots of Dell D600 laptops here at work. First the network would go, then the wireless, USB and cardbus slot. It was like the parts were just removed, they were not detected at all. Some of them were flakey, a few reboots would "fix" them until the next time they were powered off. Eventually they would get to the point where they would no longer boot past the Dell welcome screen. Not all of them did this, but if the network went then the rest was soon to follow.

We always end up parting them out. The MBs were to expensive to be worth replacing.

An interesting test is to boot with a FreeBSD install disk. The kernel startup lists all the hardware it finds, even stuff it doesn't have drivers for. Things like USB which should always be there would not show up.

[ratdude747]

Re: Crippled laptop

or linux... use the command "lspci". use a live cd and open a terminal window

example:

larry@larry-eee:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GME Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GME Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2860
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Attansic Technology Corp. Atheros AR8121/AR8113/AR8114 PCI-E Ethernet Controller (rev b0)
larry@larry-eee:~$

[pentium]

Re: Crippled laptop

Linux is just as useless.
The problematic items are still not detected, even with an lspci.

[NxB]

Re: Crippled laptop

Hiren's boot cd has a utility called PC doctor or something like that which would test I/O stuff. You can try that first.

After that, I would see where the power comes from for each of the chips that run firewire,etc. See if any mosfets or other power components died which would power those chips. Also check for cold solders along the same lines. If no power is going to all of these devices they would appear to not be present.

[Wizard]

Re: Crippled laptop

Remember, there is few SMD fuses scattered around the board as well. check these.

It can look like a resistor. But usually have a letter or a number. Not like a SMD resistor numbers (3 digits or blank).

Cheers, Wizard

[pentium]

Re: Crippled laptop

Can we at least narrow down the places to look?
I really do not want to completely dismantle this thing again and find out its plain and simply dead If bad comes to worse I'll just go replace the LCD panel in my T30 and just use that.

[Wizard]

Re: Crippled laptop

Sure that T30 use same panel?

I don't care if you have to take apart many times. I had gone through this many times. And where to look. I can't answer that as these can be anywhere. It is matter of finding it with your meter.

Cheers, Wizard

[NxB]

Re: Crippled laptop

IBM usually uses different panels than anyone else.
You will have to take it all apart . Possibly turn it on while its apart. The easiest place to start is the datasheets of the chips and see where the voltage pins are. Then you can see what goes from there.

[pentium]

Re: Crippled laptop

IBM usually uses different panels than anyone else.
You will have to take it all apart . Possibly turn it on while its apart. The easiest place to start is the datasheets of the chips and see where the voltage pins are. Then you can see what goes from there.

You are confused.
There is a place in Vancouver which has piles of various laptop parts, one of the many things they have include a replacement LCD screen for my T30 thinkpad.
If you were thinking I was going to swap the LCD on this Compaq with the one on my T30, no, that obviously will not work.
Related to the same place, they owe me work anyways so I decided to send the laptop into them and they will see what is up with it.