A31 Power Module Problem. Worth Fixing?

[banyanleaf]

I have an A31 that is still in very nice condition. However, it can't charge or run on AC/DC power. It has to depend on battery. Since I still have another A31, I can use the other one for charging the battery but it is not convenient. I think it is very likely that the power module on the mother board is bad (I have eliminate the possibility of bad DC jack by putting the machine on a replicator and it is the same). Is this a fix that I should pursue or should I just keep it as spare parts? Thanks for any advice.

BTW, I have one replicator that I can give for free if you can cover shipping.

[rkawakami]

Kind of hard to say... the problem could be as simple as a blown fuse. Assuming you can source one (digikey.com or mouser.com are good places for new fuses; ripping one off of a 'spare' motherboard is another option), it's fairly easy to solder it atop the old fuse. Then again, fuses generally blow because there's a short somewhere in the system. If you don't remove that problem, the new fuse will join the original one in "silicon heaven". And there's also the possibility that other components in the power circuit are dead.

[banyanleaf]

Any advice as where to locate the fuse? I do have a spare motherboard that has bad video module.

[rkawakami]

I believe that on the A31 motherboard, the main fuse which protects the DC jack is labelled "F2" and is located on the bottom side of the motherboard, in the upper left corner of the board ("above" the CPU; as looking at it with the keyboard removed).

[banyanleaf]

Tried but can't find it. Is it very very small?

[rkawakami]

Here's a photo of an F2 fuse from a T22: http://www.kawakami-ca.com/images/t22_main_fuses.jpg (the one on the left)
Here's the datasheet on the Littelfuse 429 Series fuse: http://www.littelfuse.com/data/en/Data_Sheets/429.pdf

The A31 probably uses a similar type. It's in a package called "1206", which are the dimensions in fractional inches: .12" x .06". So yes, it's pretty small.