Clock generator faulty?

[wibble]

Hi I thought I would start a message / response thread to see if anyone can shed a bit of light on a particular motherboard fault.

It's a Toshiba motherboard from a Satellite P200, part no. LA-3441P (mfg by Compal).

I am using a mini-pci diag card and a DMM. All the required voltages seem to be present on the motherboard. When power button is pressed, the board powers up but goes to a blinking orange-blue power LED. The mini-pci diag card indicates that the BIOS does not initiate, and it has LED for CLK & RST; the CLK LED is not lit.

Does anybody know if this is something to do with the clock generator IC and if there is a way to test it?

[spidey]

Re: Clock generator faulty?

Debug cards are not %100 compatible with every laptop. If your debug card supports LPC, try connecting it from LPC with wires.

[wibble]

Re: Clock generator faulty?

OK thanks but this is not initializing the BIOS so I am not interested in using the full functionality of the diag card viz. BIOS output code.

Just to point out this board is the same as Satellite X200 / X205, I believe there is a controller chip which checks if things are OK with the power rails & other checks before allowing the computer to boot. For instance, if a voltage is too low or high, it will output a blinking blue LED with long - short blinks relating to a code.

In my case the LED blinks orange-orange-blue (repeats endlessly) so I am thinking this might be a known Toshiba error.

[spleenharvester]

Re: Clock generator faulty?

I'd love to know the answer to this. I have tonnes of motherboards (eg L300, 6735s etc) that have all voltages and rails present but boot to no display and sometimes blinking lights. There seems to be no information anywhere on where these faults come from.

I've seen one case of a 6735s with all voltages and just a blinking LED that was fixed by replacing the KBC controller and BIOS chip from another identical motherboard with a different fault.

[fddizon]

Re: Clock generator faulty?

Hi I thought I would start a message / response thread to see if anyone can shed a bit of light on a particular motherboard fault.

It's a Toshiba motherboard from a Satellite P200, part no. LA-3441P (mfg by Compal).

I am using a mini-pci diag card and a DMM. All the required voltages seem to be present on the motherboard. When power button is pressed, the board powers up but goes to a blinking orange-blue power LED. The mini-pci diag card indicates that the BIOS does not initiate, and it has LED for CLK & RST; the CLK LED is not lit.

Does anybody know if this is something to do with the clock generator IC and if there is a way to test it?

you will be needing a frequency counter to test a clock generator. normally they test crystal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnthx0DtxHc

[wibble]

Re: Clock generator faulty?

Although I do have a frequency function on my DMM, the slight problem is I am not sure that I trust its accuracy. I have tried testing some of the crystals but not getting meaningful readings. Will double check and get back...

[fddizon]

Re: Clock generator faulty?

what is the brand and model of your dmm?

[Kiriakos GR]

Re: Clock generator faulty?

Clock generator due it low power as signal needs exclusively one Oscilloscope so to be measured / inspected.

The Oscilloscope due it very sensitive input, it can verify the actual frequency and also present graphically how correct is the shape of the waveform, and also measure the actual voltage of this signal.

One multimeter it can do it best regarding sensitivity in the range of mV/AC and by activating in this range the frequency counter.

Cheap DMM with dedicated range as frequency counter they are usually not sensitive enough for this job.

[gabik111]

Re: Clock generator faulty?

It should be dedicated freq counter (not voltmeter with Hz function). I do not think that your DMM can measure hundreds of MHz.
Also if there is a problem with proper power on clock generator then it will not work (generate) properly. It can generate false frequency regarding that is stabilized by crystal.