Replaced Motherboard does not start

Question

Hi,

After having a spill incident with my inspiron 8200, and spending a good amount of time on the phone with tech support, I feel pretty certain that my motherboard was damaged. So I bought a new motherboard (as well as a new keyboard) on ebay, and installed it. Same CPU, just swapped the motherboard and keyboard.

Now, when I push the power button the lights come on for about 3 seconds and then it shuts down. As far as I can tell, nothing is happening (no fan, no hard disk spinning). As far as I can tell, everything is connected securely.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,

Jeff

superjoe · Answer

what if you try turning on with just the battery and not plugged in tothe wall? that sounds like what mine does when i have my hardware error on my 4000

i would have to turn it on while just on battery. i would have to hit the power button about 12-20 times before it would finally come on. but the reason i sugested doing it with batery only is becasue it is set up to repeat the powere on cycle untill the prcessor is initialized but for me the screen would not initialize and it would go off and i would start over again.

johnallg · Answer

Ram problem - you need at least one good module in - if ram is installed, reseat it fully into the sockets.

[Edit] If you do and it still acts that way, the ram modules may have gotten wet - wash them in a bath of medical isopropyl alcohol 95-99% - no mineral oil), also use a clean ink erasure on the gold edge fingers.

Message Edited by johnallg on 10-07-2004 04:51 PM

superjoe · Answer

hey i am going to try that on mine.

mcbridejc · Answer

more info!

I don't know why, but I got it to start! It actually booted all the way into windows. I just switched the memory chip again and pushed the power button a few times. However, sometimes it starts and sometimes it doesn't. And now, even when it does start it had been hanging before it gets as far as starting XP.

I have now confirmed that the board contains a Latitude C840 bios, and I get the following warning when it boots:

----begin---

The system ROM version and keyboard controller ROM versions do not match.
Please re-flash the system.

*** Processor Microcode Update Failure ***

The revision of processor in the system is not supported.

----end----

I'm not really sure what to do next.

Jeff

mcbridejc · Answer

Let me update:

With the original (spilled on) motherboard, the system will actually start to boot, but it hangs when windows XP is loading.

After installing the new motherboard, it will not even begin boot up. When I turn it on, the power led comes on along with all three lock indicators for about 3 seconds. I have a feeling the three lock LEDs may be giving an error code, but I cannot find a list of error codes anywhere. Are they available? Does anyone know what this one means?

I have reseated the memory chips, and tried both chips, in different sockets. Nothing seems to work.

I understand that the same motherboard is used for the inspiron 8200 and one of the latitudes, but with a different bios. Having the latitude bios on the board wouldn't cause this behavior, would it?

Thanks,
Jeff

johnallg · Answer

Okay, your ram is being randomly seen/not seen.  Clean the edge connectors on the modules with an erasure, preferably a rough white ink erasure.  Once you get it reliably seeing the ram and booting, then flash the BIOS to the latest 8200 version using the floppy version only. Message Edited by johnallg on 10-11-2004 03:28 AM

mcbridejc · Answer

I've cleaned the edge connectors with rubbing alcohol, and I've tried both modules in both sockets. It doesn't seem to make any difference. I have been completely unable to get it to start these last few days. Does the three lock leds mean it is a RAM error? I still haven't been able to find any error codes for these LEDs. I can't believe dell doesn't have it listed somewhere.

Thanks for your response.

-Jeff

Locked Topics – Laptops General

Replaced Motherboard does not start

Was this post helpful?