Hello lads,
Will give a quick summary. Bought this laptop as broken. Initial board had shorted SOC (VCCGT coil shorted to GND, checked all caps and just desoldered soc to confirm, dead short from VCCGT to GND on soc). I ordered a replacement board. Board model Q326FA Rev 2.0: is: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005...1309180228rsDj
Installed the new board laptop booted but display was flickering very ugly in bios. Horizontal and vertical artifacts. I thought the GPU is dead but it turned out it was some almost broken wires (from previous owner) in the LVDS connector from LCD. While tampering to fix that one I probably discharged some ESD into the motherboard. I was not wearing my ESD brace and while working directly on insulated wires on the connector I touched by mistake GND with my elbow and got zapped a little (this means I was charged and I discharged some current into the motherboard). The symptom was immediate (thinking back about the course of events) I no longer had backlight also FAN didn't kick in again.
I do not have the original BIOS from the board (i7-16GB, old board was I5-8GB). I only took a backup after this happened. I bought a quick subscription on another website and I tried to flash a clean ME bios. Still no backlight. I ordered a new EC (I do not have a programmer capable of flashing it atm, should come soon from Ali). The EC is IT8225VG-128 (128 BGA ITA). I replaced the EC and reflashed the clean ME BIOS. The issue still persists.
More info:
All power supplied working except VCCGT (but this is expected I think since it is bring up only after POST). VCCGT measures around 1.4Ohm to GND. I have VCCCORE x2, 5v, 3v3, 1v2 (DDR) and 0.8V. Charging the battery works. Laptop runs off wall socket and battery.
I have a thermal camera and SOC seems fine. Heats up good and is uniform (no heat spots).
When laptop powers the power led (white) goes on. Problem is charging light switches to white and starts blinking 4x white then pause then 4x white then pause while power led stays solid white. No signal on HDMI. Keyboard works (Caps lock on/off).
All power good signals are checked and ok. Idk if EC really needs programming for internal TCM or it can bootstrap from SPI (Bios) with ME cleared. Maybe you have more experience since I rarely have time to repair electronics lately.
Boardview is on the website. The issue is that L_VDDEN_PCH and LCD_BACKEN_PCH is not going HIGH on the board.
Would really appreciate if you can give some help.
Best regards,
ND
LE: I think most likely BIOS/EC issue. Fan spins when CPU hits around 80 degrees. This means that EC works to some extent no? I think FAN is controlled by EC.
Will give a quick summary. Bought this laptop as broken. Initial board had shorted SOC (VCCGT coil shorted to GND, checked all caps and just desoldered soc to confirm, dead short from VCCGT to GND on soc). I ordered a replacement board. Board model Q326FA Rev 2.0: is: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005...1309180228rsDj
Installed the new board laptop booted but display was flickering very ugly in bios. Horizontal and vertical artifacts. I thought the GPU is dead but it turned out it was some almost broken wires (from previous owner) in the LVDS connector from LCD. While tampering to fix that one I probably discharged some ESD into the motherboard. I was not wearing my ESD brace and while working directly on insulated wires on the connector I touched by mistake GND with my elbow and got zapped a little (this means I was charged and I discharged some current into the motherboard). The symptom was immediate (thinking back about the course of events) I no longer had backlight also FAN didn't kick in again.
I do not have the original BIOS from the board (i7-16GB, old board was I5-8GB). I only took a backup after this happened. I bought a quick subscription on another website and I tried to flash a clean ME bios. Still no backlight. I ordered a new EC (I do not have a programmer capable of flashing it atm, should come soon from Ali). The EC is IT8225VG-128 (128 BGA ITA). I replaced the EC and reflashed the clean ME BIOS. The issue still persists.
More info:
All power supplied working except VCCGT (but this is expected I think since it is bring up only after POST). VCCGT measures around 1.4Ohm to GND. I have VCCCORE x2, 5v, 3v3, 1v2 (DDR) and 0.8V. Charging the battery works. Laptop runs off wall socket and battery.
I have a thermal camera and SOC seems fine. Heats up good and is uniform (no heat spots).
When laptop powers the power led (white) goes on. Problem is charging light switches to white and starts blinking 4x white then pause then 4x white then pause while power led stays solid white. No signal on HDMI. Keyboard works (Caps lock on/off).
All power good signals are checked and ok. Idk if EC really needs programming for internal TCM or it can bootstrap from SPI (Bios) with ME cleared. Maybe you have more experience since I rarely have time to repair electronics lately.
Boardview is on the website. The issue is that L_VDDEN_PCH and LCD_BACKEN_PCH is not going HIGH on the board.
Would really appreciate if you can give some help.
Best regards,
ND
LE: I think most likely BIOS/EC issue. Fan spins when CPU hits around 80 degrees. This means that EC works to some extent no? I think FAN is controlled by EC.
Comment