Blast from the past!

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  • Th3_uN1Qu3
    Believe in
    • Jul 2010
    • 6031
    • Romania
    #1

    Blast from the past!

    I had a P4 era laptop delivered to me today. Powers up but no video. First surprising thing - "Fabricat in Romania de concept electronics" - "Made in Romania by concept electronics". SERIOUSLY? Anyway, this thing has parts from all over the place. The CD-RW is Sony, the hard drive is an IBM Travelstare 20GB, the floppy is Panasonic with a Dell label on it... no wonder as it's made in Romania.

    Taking it apart reveals *gasp* a GeForce 2 Go!!! And it's REMOVABLE! Holy crap. I googled a bit "geforce2 go failure" and there have been failures reported, consistent with symptoms of failed BGA soldering. Looks like the nVidia GPU failure has been going on for longer than we thought.

    I'm heating 'er up and will see what gives.
    Originally posted by PeteS in CA
    Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
    A working TV? How boring!
    Tags: None
    • Th3_uN1Qu3
      Believe in
      • Jul 2010
      • 6031
      • Romania
      #2
      Re: Blast from the past!

      No luck... I don't think it's the GPU tho. CPU warms up, GPU warms up, all power supplies go, hard drive spins, but no activity. Looks more like a bad BIOS... that means it's SOL coz the company that made it is no longer in the laptop business. Tried removing stuff, no beeps. Tried another CPU, same thing.

      Btw it looks exactly like the Dell Inspiron 2650.
      Originally posted by PeteS in CA
      Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
      A working TV? How boring!

        Comment

        • mockingbird
          Badcaps Legend
          • Dec 2008
          • 5484
          • -
          #3
          Re: Blast from the past!

          Geforce 2 Go dying from BGA soldering... not likely.

          The removeable element of it fascinates me though. Is this some early iteration of MXM?

            Comment

            • Scenic
              o.O
              • Sep 2007
              • 2642
              • Germany
              #4
              Re: Blast from the past!

              probably some proprietary format.
              MXM style cards are post GeForce FX (5xxx) / Radeon 9xxx

              earliest i've seen so far were GeForce 6200/6600 and Radeon X300/X600 in MXM

                Comment

                • Th3_uN1Qu3
                  Believe in
                  • Jul 2010
                  • 6031
                  • Romania
                  #5
                  Re: Blast from the past!

                  Yes it's proprietary. Proprietary enough that i found 3 different shapes of geforce 2 go on ebay, and none are like this one.

                  Nothing wrong found - i'm going to put it back together and return it the way it arrived. I have to buy me a couple of those diagnostic cards, that way i can at least get some sort of feedback as to what could have failed.
                  Originally posted by PeteS in CA
                  Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
                  A working TV? How boring!

                    Comment

                    • Th3_uN1Qu3
                      Believe in
                      • Jul 2010
                      • 6031
                      • Romania
                      #6
                      Re: Blast from the past!

                      Okay, the bad part: It can't be fixed. The good part: I get to keep it. Should get a few bucks from RAM, hard drive, CPU, power brick. And of course the display... if i find someone who needs it that is. The battery is completely dead but i bet that if i tear it apart some of the cells are still useful.

                      Otherwise i'll be keeping the LCD - i've long wanted to learn how to drive one.
                      Originally posted by PeteS in CA
                      Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
                      A working TV? How boring!

                        Comment

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