T23 crashes, cylindric piece fallen off from mainboard PICS

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chrisg · #1 Post by **chrisg** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:06 am

hi, the problems started with hearing a sound from the fan as if a loose piece is being rotated inside of it. i shaked the notebook a little and when i switched it on again that sound was gone.

but then after some minutes the 23 crashed and since then it keeps crashing after few minutes of operation. after rebooting/restarting, it would run for even less time and finally it would not start at all or hang up with pulsating fan on start up. once it reached the point where it doesnt start at all, plugging the ac adapter into another socket makes it start again but then it will also crash again after little time.

i completely dissassembled the notebook and found a loose cylindric metal piece.
http://i25.tinypic.com/b8l255.jpg
http://i26.tinypic.com/n4b682.jpg

i discovered a hole where the piece most likely loosened from. here two photos, one with the piece plugged in and one without.
http://i26.tinypic.com/n4b682.jpg
http://i26.tinypic.com/11s2dme.jpg

i guess i have to solder the piece back on that hole. can anyone tell me what solder i should use for that ?

how can i find out if the fan is broken?

i ran the notebook with two different ac adapters, with and without harddrive, tried out two different ram sticks and the problem would always occur. i also checked the inductors and they are not loose at all.

Thanks, Chris

#2 Post by **Harryc** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:39 am

It's difficult to tell what you have there since your photos are so out of focus, but I'd guess it's a standoff and as such would not prevent the machine from functioning correctly unless it shorted out something else whilst rolling around inside the machine.

#3 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 9:43 am

That's a mounting bush for putting the modem-card on.
No need to solder that. Use a small dollop of Cyanolit instant glue.
You insert it from the 'top' where it says U20 on the mobo, i.e. the side where the Savage gfx chip sits.
When you mount your modem again, it will hold properly.

Robbyrobot · #4 Post by **Robbyrobot** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 11:37 am

This is the eyelet for the ethernet card, and I have seen it missing from around three T23 boards to date - the solder bond to the mainboard appears to be very poor:

Eyelit missing

Eyelet top

Eyelet bottom

The short end goes to the bottom of the board, the long end to the top, and you can just "pin" it to the board with a dab of solder.

Actually, it shouldn't be possible for it to drop off unless the screw holding the card to the palmrest is missing, since the screw holds everything together. I once replaced this with one of the eyelets from a T21 (too short on the bottom part) together with plastic tubing from a screw anchor. That also worked, although it isn't the ideal situation. The main purpose of this is to hold the ethernet card steady... the card itself is properly grounded with the other screw diagonal from the one that goes through this eyelet.

I'd appreciate the OP or a Moderator changing the title to reflect the image, as I can't do that.

Edit: "modem card" changed to "ethernet card" - I also confused the two.

Website · #5 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:54 pm

When you say that you checked the inductors, did you mean the ones on the top, or the ones on the bottom? The ones on the bottom are the ones that cause the pulsing. They only need a hairline crack in them to cause the pulsing fan. I would look really closely, or even just go ahead and touch the solder joints on it with a solder iron. You don't even need to add solder to them, if you don't have any.

chrisg · #6 Post by **chrisg** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 3:31 pm

after i carefully checked the inductors on the bottom side again i found indeed such a hairline crack, soldered it , which was troublesome because it was the first
time i soldered something, i hope it holds up.

the crashes and the pulsing fan have disappeared for now.

i also soldered the eyelet back on the mainboard and realized that the ethernet adapter is supposed to be mounted on it.

thanks everyone for the help,
chris

Website · #7 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Wed Apr 09, 2008 8:04 pm

So it is up and running again?

chrisg · #8 Post by **chrisg** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 6:14 am

yes, the pulsing fan and the crashes completely disappeared and i've ran it for 10 hours so far. whilst before i soldered the inductor it would crash instantly after booting.

Robbyrobot · #9 Post by **Robbyrobot** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 9:42 am

Wonderful! Congratulations on your success

T23 crashes, cylindric piece fallen off from mainboard PICS

T23 crashes, cylindric piece fallen off from mainboard PICS

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