New motherboard won't stay on 95% of time

[Alex K.]

I purchased a new motherboard for my girlfriend's laptop as her current one wasn't reading her hard disk (it would say it's faulty although on another computer, it tested and worked no problem). When I installed the new motherboard, the computer would power on and off right away within a second.

I tried the old motherboard which at least powered on and worked without a hard disk (using portable Linux for instance), but it's doing the same thing. I've tried two different kinds of thermal paste and I've cleaned the respective components each time prior to applying it. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

The laptop is an HP dv6110ca. Can't figure out why neither the new nor old motherboard will work anymore.

The 5% of the time that it will turn on, nothing comes on on the monitor and then it turns itself back off about 10 seconds later. Same situation for both motherboards.

[T.J.]

I can only assume that it could be a temperature problem, so do you know or could tell how hot the laptop is getting? You will need to blow out all the dust from the FANs as well. You can also use a bright light and take a look at the capacitors on the motherboard and see if any have swollen tops or appear to be leaking electrolyte. Some photographs of bad capacitors are located here.

[Alex K.]

It doesn't get a chance to get hot as it turns off as soon as it turns on. I don't see any way through the laptop itself to see how hot it's getting since it won't display anything on the screen.

I'll check the electrolytes, however it'd be very odd if both the motherboards got the exact same issue considering the original one (which BTW I installed about a year ago) started doing the same thing as the new one since I switched them.

[Techguru01]

I can assume that the problem seems to lie in the battery and charging circuit. As with all rechargeable batteries laptop ones get to become useless after x amount of charges. Have you tried replacing the battery? What happens if you run the PC on the AC power? Does it stay on or not? The cause could also be bad charger/PSU that is not producing enough power to feed the machine and recharge the battery. Also did you made sure that all the fans are spinning and no heatsinks are loose.

[Alex K.]

The battery and charging unit were both fine before replacing the motherboard. Also I did indeed attempt to use it with just the battery, battery & AC adapter, and just AC adapter, getting the exact same results each time (the ones described in the first post).

There is only one fan, and it's a part of the heatsink, and I've confirmed it's plugged in and all screwed in each time prior to attempting to power the machine on.

How could replacing the motherboard have damaged the AC adapter and/or the changing contacts that it plugs into (which plug into the laptop)?

[EINSTEIN_007]

I think that this is a motherboard issue and I think it files as "The notebook does not start" under the extended warranty. Check with the support. Try clearing your cmos first...look for a 'clear cmos' jumper on your motherboard or remove the battery for a while with the ATX power supply disconnected from your board.

[Alex K.]

I suspect it's the motherboard as well, but the big question is why both of them stopped working in the same way.

I've been disconnecting the battery from the motherboard every time I've worked on it as per the instructions on disassembling and re-assembling it.

[JAMES_911]

It might be possible that at the time of disassembling the laptop, some of the cables or some components might have damaged, so it is neccessary to check where this problem lies, that is with the power connector or battery or something else. As both the motherboard are not working, so my guess is there is a problem with the power connector only which is not giving enough power to boot the laptop. Check the drives as well, you never know.

[Alex K.]

I can indeed confirm that one of the cables has gone bad, but the power button's still functional regardless.

The power connector for the battery is on the motherboard itself, so I would have to have damaged it on both motherboards which I don't see being very likely.

The only common parts I can think of are the heatsink and the processor that I'm unable to prove working at this point :-/

[Aloke]

Dude if after having tried all the above solutions you are still not able to get the motherboard to perform the way you want than what I think that you should call some engineer who has got all the necessary knowledge about the motherboard and let him to do the necessary assembling for this motherboard. So I think that instead of you doing anything awful and getting more damage done to the motherboard or the laptop, so its better to get the assembling done with a help of a engineer.

[Alex K.]

I was under the impression that that was the point of this forum: when hitting a road bump finding someone who can assist me with getting through it :-)