A30P repair story

[SMA]

I obtained a defect a30p from eBay, and as it happen quiet often these days, it was sold without drives.
The model number is 2653-66G.

When connected to the AC adapter the battery started charging - something did work.
I removed the battery and connected the machine to my laboratory power supply. Current consumption
was normal in the power off state. About 30 mA.

Pressed the power button. The fan did not spin up and nothing was display on the LCD, but the power LED did turn on.
The current consumption was 0.74 A.
Pressed the power button again. The power LED did turn off and current consumption went back to 30 mA.

Hooked the machine up to an external monitor. Tried the same scenario again and got the same results.

Then I removed the memory module and tried again. There was no 1-3-3-1 beep.

I decided to take the machine apart.

The first surprise came when I got the keyboard off.
The backside of the keyboard is covered by a metal plate and on this plate I found several black burnt marks.
Similar marks were found on top of the Ultrabay Plus Slot and on the bracket holding the fan.

When I got the mother board out, I did a scan of it. Primarily with the purpose of posting it on the forum.
Then, when I was inspecting the quality of the scan I discovered a missing component.
Rather a surprise to discover such a thing by looking at a scanned picture.

Clearly the missing component was a power inductor. But what value should it have?
To find out, I had to open up another a30 and I found that the inductor should be a 2.5 uH.
I could have avoided opening up that other a30, if I had scanned its board when I repaired it a couple of months ago.
The repair story of that other a30 can be found here. This time I did scan its board.

I found a replacement inductor and soldered it in.
It was an easy solder operation. There were only 2 legs to do and plenty of room for surgery.
I hooked up the board for testing and it booted. Assembled the entire machine and everything was fine.

Cosmetically this machine is in a good condition and I was very pleased when I saw that the LCD panel (UXGA)
was in an almost perfect condition.
Installed with 1 GB of memory and a 160GB hard drive, the machine is running just fine.

There are still a few trivial issues left that I may try to solve some day.
The machine was obtained from eBay Germany. It came with a UK keyboard but I prefer a Danish keyboard.
The antennas are there but both the wlan card and the bluetooth module are missing.
For now I can live with these issues. I have a working a30p now.

Not really important, but I never managed to find out what had caused those burnt marks.
Also one could expect that the loose inductor would be rattling around inside the cabinet. But it was not.
So the question of how that inductor has managed to get out and away will also have to remain unanswered.

The a30p board scans can be found here. bottom and top.
The missing inductor is on the bottom side in coordinate J-1.

It is my hope that bringing this story will be of help to others.

[Brad]

Excellent job.

Well done.

Thanks for taking the time to post the scans.

Brad