T23 bad motherboard? Pics.....beware

[Wingnut]

I picked up a cheap T23 for parts and tried booting it just for kicks. It powers on for about 3 seconds (fan spins, light illuminate, etc.) then it just dies completely. Hitting the power button again does nothing unless I disconnect the power (AC or battery), then it will repeat the same thing, power on for 2-3 seconds then die.

So I pulled the keyboard to have a poke around. the first thing I saw was this:



Here is a closeup with the LCD ribbon removed:



It looks like something might have gotten spilt on the MB? Can it be cleaned or am I looking at replacement MB?

[rkawakami]

Hmm... definitely looks like some sort of contamination on the motherboard. My suggestion would be to remove the board from the base, get some isopropyl alcohol and lint-free wipes (if you can find some; paper towels might work but will probably rip) and clean off the "stuff". Pay particular attention to the (tiny) spaces between the leads of the surface mounted components and connectors. Allow the board to fully dry before re-applying power. Hope for the best; sometimes miracles do happen .

edit: Q-tips and a dental pick (or toothpicks) can be used to clean out the spaces between the legs of the integrated circuits. I'll post a picture in a few minutes of what I had to do with a DIMM just last night.



I got this module from eBay last night and it appeared to have some thermal grease on one of the SDRAM chips. There was a small glop of it across three of the legs, so before I installed it in my Gateway desktop, I cleaned it off with alcohol and ran a dental pick between the pins of the IC. It might have been non-conductive but I didn't want to take any chances with it.

[Wingnut]

Thanks for the reply. Upon further inspection, it looks like that area of the MB is charred, like it shorted out and burned up or something. And there seems to be a lot of corrosion under the LCD plug, whick I wouldn't be able to get to to clean anyway.

I only paid $30 for it, so at least I got an optical drive & LCD out of it for parts. Maybe I'll try my luck on E-bay for a MB, unless someone on here has a T23 MB they are looking to sell

I'll post a wanted add in the classifieds and see what pops up.

Thanks again.

[RealBlackStuff]

I'll take that bad mobo off you for shipping cost, please.
PM me if interested.