Dell E7240 Laptop

[Spitz]

Picked this up on Ebay, and it is in very good condition. When powered on, the power light lights and stays on, fan turns on after awhile, but nothing on screen and no other lights flash or turn on. When pressing the power button again it turns off. Battery charge light turns on and battery charges just fine. Battery holds charge. I plugged in a diagnostic card in the msata slot and post codes increment to 6A and stop there. Cannot find any information on post codes for this model. Dell was no help, all they wanted was for me to send it in for service. I can find replacement motherboards on ebay, but would rather fix this one if I could. Do not see any damage of any kind to the board. Hooked it up to a monitor just to make sure it was not the display and got the same symptoms. No beeps either. I did find a schematic for this model. Anybody run into something like this or got any ideas on what might be the problem?

[piernov]

Re: Dell E7240 Laptop

Known good compatible RAM?
Tried BIOS recovery procedure?

[Spitz]

Re: Dell E7240 Laptop

Known good compatible RAM?
Tried BIOS recovery procedure?

Yes, I tried a different ram modules.

Not sure this model supports bios recovery, but tried the F2 button with no results. I did notice that when pressing power button to turn off the hdd light flashes.

[piernov]

Re: Dell E7240 Laptop

https://www.dell.com/support/article...tablet?lang=en

[Spitz]

Re: Dell E7240 Laptop

https://www.dell.com/support/article...tablet?lang=en

Again not sure this laptop supports bios recovery, but tried the ctrl-esc sequence, stll nothing on screen.

[Spitz]

Re: Dell E7240 Laptop

Again not sure this laptop supports bios recovery, but tried the ctrl-esc sequence, stll nothing on screen.

Pretty sure its a bios problem. I have ordered a ch341a programmer and will try to reload the bios when it comes in.

[pepegotera454]

Re: Dell E7240 Laptop

Check with the oscilloscope if pin 1 has data transfer, so you can know if the bios is corrupted.

[Spitz]

Re: Dell E7240 Laptop

Check with the oscilloscope if pin 1 has data transfer, so you can know if the bios is corrupted.

I don't have an oscilloscope, but I think there is data or the diagnostic card would not have incremented up to code 6A. The problem is it stops before it can finish the bios to move on to booting the system.

[Spitz]

Re: Dell E7240 Laptop

Pretty sure its a bios problem. I have ordered a ch341a programmer and will try to reload the bios when it comes in.

Just to give an update, it was a bios problem. Received the CH341A programmer with test clip and it worked perfect. Did not have to un-solder, just put the clip on and was able to erase and program both bios chips.