Repara tus cosas Comunidad Tienda

Repair guides and support information for Lenovo's ThinkBook series of laptops.

Preguntas 14 Ver todo

Opciones

Laptop doesn't power on. Some grime on the mobo. Clean it up?

Hi all,

today my laptop (Thinkbook 14 G3 ACL) refused to turn on. It was fine about 5 days ago after which it was sitting on a shelf without power. It refused to power up today. I tried a bunch of things - holding power button for long time, different power supplies (which I checked do work), etc. But nothing seems to help. I opened it up, disconnected the battery, tried powering up without it connected, then reconnected and tried again. No luck.

Then I noticed some grime on the motherboard - guessing from some old spill.

Block Image

Block Image

I want to at least try cleaning it up. What would be a reasonable way to try? Cotton swap + isopropyl alcohol? What percentage? Any other advice?

Thank you for your help in advance!

Update (02/25/2023)

Re-posting so the images show up.

Thank you for your encouragement! It turned out to be simpler than I expected :)

Ok, the back side seems to be quite clean.

Block Image

The RAM EMI shielding seems cumbersome to remove, but I decided to leave it alone because there are no traces of any grime in the nearby area.

So it seems the problematic area is essentially what was seen from the outside prior to disassembly.

Block Image

I'll clean it up with 91% Isopropyl alcohol and try reassembling and firing it up. Is there something else I can do here to increase my chances of success?

Update (02/25/2023)

Well, unfortunately, the laptop still shows no signs of life after I cleaned the problematic area to the best of my ability:

Block Image



The charger is definitely fine - checked it with my other laptop and the phone - both charge flawlessly from it. Not sure how to check the battery though - I tried firing it up both with battery plugged in and disconnected if that makes any difference.

I appreciate the help! At this point, I am not sure that I can do much more - although I'm willing to try if you think there's more that can be done but to be honest I neither have tools nor knowledge and experience to diagnose if some chip is dead...

Finally - and let me know if this is a kind of question to ask on this forum - I was wondering if you could recommend a repair shop dealing with Lenovos near NYC which could do a more proper diagnosis? To be honest though, given that the motherboard itself seems to cost 300 bucks for a laptop that cost 500, the unfortunate likely outcome is that this one will become a paperweight. Perhaps worth trying to sell it for parts? I mean this thing is only one year old and I'd expect most components to still be usable...

Update (02/25/2023)

Well, to be fair, I didn't soak the board! Let me try again! :)

Update (02/25/2023)

After a long soak and cleaning with a soft brush, the result is unfortunately the same - no response from the laptop.

Block Image



Some pins on the tps65988 chip seem darker than others and the isopropyl bath had no effect on that. No idea if that means anything and to be honest I don't think it really matters - even if I knew the chip is fried, resoldering it is way beyond my abilities.

In any case, thank you again for your help! I would appreciate any responses to the questions I posed in the previous update.

Best wishes,
Rostislav.

Contesta esta pregunta Yo también tengo este problema

Es esta una buena pregunta?

Sí No
Puntuación 1
Agregar un comentario

1 Respuesta

Filtrar por:
Mas Útiles Más Reciente Más antiguo
Respuesta Más Útil

Opciones

@rostislav that is a lot of grime and lots of opportunity to shorten out your motherboard. For now you need to stop stop continuing to try to charge, or even try to run on your computer. This potentially, and looking at the amount of grime you got on there it's pretty likely, that this can make a bad situation worse.This may further damage your motherboard.

The next thing for you to do, is to clean it. Disassemble your computer using something like this maintenance manual Once you have your motherboard removed, remove any EMI shield. If you do not remove those, you might as well not do anything. After you removed those, clean the whole board, connectors and all with at least +90% isopropyl alcohol. Follow this guide , and even so it was written for a Apple iPhone all the points are still pertinent to your motherboard. While you clean your board, check for any obvious damage, like burned or missing components etc. Best thing to do would be to clean it with an ultrasonic cleaner, but if you do not have access to one, this will at least help. Once all this is done, reassemble your computer and reevaluate.

Fue útil esta respuesta?

Sí No
Puntuación 2

5 comentarios:

Thank you! It's quite a bit of work but definitely worth a try! Worst case scenario it will still be dead and I'll gain some more experience :) I'll make sure to check back in with any results - good or bad.

- de

@rostislav it's a lot of work. The real issue here is that you can't even assess the motherboard for any damage with all the grime. Once it is clean it will be so much easier to determine what is wrong with it. You know that the volunteers on here are always available to assist you and guide you as much as we can. We want you to succeed to get your computer "back on the road" :-)

- de

@rostislav once it is nice and clean with no more grime being a potential for short circuit, reconnect the motherboard. Make sure that peripherals are nice and grime free as well. Fire it up and see what it does. Check your charger, make sure that it is working well (proper voltages, no bend pins or corrosion etc) and check your battery.

- de

@rostislav that is the trouble with whatever the grime was. It is entirely possible that components on the motherboard got shortened out. Now is the time for extensive troubleshooting. You will need the schematic as well as the components placement view for this. At minimum you would need a multimeter and a rework station to identify and remove shortened components.

- de

Hello. I think this is the stage where I'll probably stop trying to repair the laptop. I don't have neither the tools nor the skills to replace the chip. I understand that it is possible to acquire both, but it will take a lot of time and chances of success at the early stages are very slim at best. I called a place that does component-level motherboard repair and they basically said that it would cost around $400. I understand that - it's a lot of work. But it doesn't make sense to do that on a laptop that I can buy new now for the same money. I'll probably keep this laptop as a source of spare parts - after all the battery, screen, keyboard, etc. are likely still alive. I understand that this is possibly not the attitude within this community, but it is what it is. I want to thank you again for your help and wish you all the best!

- de

Agregar un comentario

Añadir tu respuesta

Rostislav Khlebnikov estará eternamente agradecido.
Ver Estadísticas:

Ultimas 24 horas: 0

Ultimos 7 días: 0

Ultimos 30 días: 1

Todo El Tiempo: 73