System board also know as motherboard
A system board also known as motherboard or mainboard is the main circtuit board in any laptop. Unlike desktop PC system boards, laptop system boards come in thousands of different shapes and sizes. Laptop motherboards are model-specific. In other words, you cannot remove motherboard from a Toshiba laptop and stick it into a Dell laptop. All parts inside a laptop are connected to the system board, either directly via a connector mounted on the system board or through a cable.
In a typical laptop the following ports and components are permanently attached to the system board and cannot be easily removed and replaced without soldering:
1. Hard drive (HDD) connector.
2. CD/DVD drive connector.
3. Memory (RAM) slots.
4. Battery connector.
5. Keyboard connector.
6. Audio (headphone and microphone) jacks.
7. Volume control wheel.
8. USB ports.
9. Eithernet (RJ45 aka network) port.
10. IEEE 1394 (Fire Wire) ports.
11. Video chip and some other components and ports.
System board, processor (CPU) and LCD screen are the most expensive parts in any laptop. In some cases, when one of these three parts fails, it’s cheaper to buy a brand new laptop than replace the failed part. But each case is different so do your research.
The system board is mounted inside the laptop base assembly. In order to remove or replace the motherboard, you’ll have to disassemble the whole laptop.
SYSTEM BOARD FAILURE SYMPTOMS.
When a system board fails, you may experience the following most common problems with your laptop. 1. The laptop is completely dead. There are no LED light activity when you press on the power button or plug in a known good AC power adapter. 2. The laptop starts but the video output on the LCD screen or external monitor is garbled. Most likely this is related to the VGA chip failure. 3. The laptop turns on without video on the screen and the power LED starts flashing. 4. The laptop works fine with AC power adapter but will not charge a known good battery. If that’s the case, most likely there is something wrong with the battery charging circuit or DC power jack.
Laptop parts | Repair Man | 
December 26, 2008 3:45 pm
299 Responses to “System board also know as motherboard”
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Pages: « 12 [11] 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 … 1 » Show All
July 31st, 2011 at 10:23 am
hello, i have a toshiba satellite 300d-01q. I plug my laptop in to the power supply, it doesnt charge the battery but thats not really my biggest problem. The low battery light pops on as usual along with the connected to the power supply light. I push the on button, it comes to the regular start upp screen with F2 and F12 options if needed. Then it flips screens and at the top left of the screen
– < pops up, blinks a couple times then the screen is black. After about a minute of 2 of black nothing. it flips to a "windows is loading files…" with a bottom loading bar. after about 5 minutes it loads and starts again. can you help me specify what exactly the problem is?
July 20th, 2011 at 6:58 am
Hi I have a HP pavilion dv 6000 with a failed battery or battery charging circuit as it powers off completely if it’s not plugged into the wall, however when it’s plugged back in it starts over and runs fine. Today it happened that it got unplugged and powered off, but when plugged back in none of the LEDs turned on – except for the power jack one and the laptop is dead. Usually the power LED at the front turns on too, but this time it did not happen. Does that mean my motherboard is fried? Or should I try changing the primary battery and it could work? Are there other options not mentioned here which I could try?
Thanks
May 26th, 2011 at 7:12 am
Does anybody know the kind of motherboard an Acer Aspire 5720 (17″) has?
I need to buy one but i don t know how to find the specific one
gracias
May 8th, 2011 at 7:48 am
Hello Good eve, just want to ask if i could customize my old laptop, like i want to replace the whole board and start over. is that possible?
May 7th, 2011 at 10:04 am
abhi,
It’s hard to tell what’s going.
First I would test the laptop with another working AC adapter, just to make sure it’s not the adapter problem.
If the problem still there, I would take a closer look at the laptop power connector. It’s possible the the power connector (DC jack) is broken and has to be replaced.
May 7th, 2011 at 10:01 am
Mohamed,
No you cannot do that but there are companies where you can order a custom built laptop.
May 7th, 2011 at 6:01 am
Is it possiblem to build a laptop from scratch like a PC? Can you pruchase all the individual components and produce your own unique laptop?
May 5th, 2011 at 8:51 pm
hi,
my old dell xps m1330 had this problem every time i plug in the adapter the there is some tripping sound and adapter light goes off..
i think it gets shortckted so m not sure if the problem is with the motherboard or somthing else shown it to few technicians I was told the laptop was useless and should get a new 1 so i got a new one
any help????
thanks in advance.
May 3rd, 2011 at 9:25 am
Dave,
Is your new CMOS battery good? If the battery is good, the laptop should be able to keep time properly unless there is a problem with the CMOS chip.
When you enter the BIOS setup menu and change time, is there any button to save settings? Maybe you forget to save changes?
April 14th, 2011 at 4:21 am
I have replaced a cmos battery in a Compaq Evo N400c. The bios clock still reverts to year 2001. Is this a battery problem or setting?
Thanks
April 5th, 2011 at 11:43 am
I got what you intend, thankyou for putting up.Woh I am lucky to find this website through google.
March 31st, 2011 at 1:31 pm
Joyce,
It’s hard to tell how bad the spill is.
If the laptop still works, you are lucky.
I would turn it off, remove the battery and let it dry for a few days. Just to make sure all water is gone or dry.
March 31st, 2011 at 1:06 pm
My daughter spilled 20 oz. of water on her dv2000 HP laptop. We dried it out. So far it works with external usb attached keyboard. Will be replacing the keyboard soon – Monday. Should we leave it on and not shutdown. The adapter seems to work and we haven’t tried it with the battery in it. But the battery wasn’t in it when the water was spilled on it. Took out hd, dvd, memory, then finally the keyboard and underneath was some drops of water which was quickly cleaned out. Haven’t looked at the moboard. Should we also try to use battery?
March 14th, 2011 at 1:26 am
i have Compaq 420 notebook & its dvd writer is not working,when i removed DVD writer i saw there is no connection between DVD & Motherboard.there is a gap between connector of motherboard & DVD writer means DVD writer properly not connector to Motherboard ,What should i do????
March 2nd, 2011 at 8:38 pm
olusegun,
Take a look inside the RJ45 jack. Maybe you have bent pins inside the jack and when you plug the cable, you short them.
If the RJ45 jack is damaged, you can use an external PCMCIA LAN card. Just plug it into the PC slot and you have another RJ45 jack available.
February 28th, 2011 at 8:51 am
hi i have problem with my laptop hp pallion zv5000, whenever i try to connect the RG45 connector to browse it always restarted,why pls send your solution.
thanks,segun
February 5th, 2011 at 2:26 pm
Zara,
Keys do not work at all? Yes, most likely this is motherboard related problem.
Just in case, disconnect the keyboard cable from the motherboard and look inside the connector. Make sure the connector is clean and there is nothing stuck inside.
February 5th, 2011 at 11:10 am
I have a Toshiba A60 keyboard problem. Approx 10 keys do not work so we replaced with a new keyboard and the exact same keys do not work. Is this a motherboard problem?
Thanks
February 3rd, 2011 at 11:48 am
olushola,
Could be driver related issue. Is your laptop designed to support Windows 7?
February 3rd, 2011 at 3:13 am
THIS SITE IS GREAT
My presario CQ61 hang when it boot to destop environment. the system com with windows 7. the problem started immidiately after reformating it. pls help me with the solution. God bless
February 1st, 2011 at 12:12 pm
I have a Sony VIAO and the screen does not show anything. It appears that the laptop is working as you can barely see the screen with a flashlight. I thought it would be a module or CFFL bulb. I took it to a repair shop and the technician said he had to replace or fix the Motherboard and replace the bulb. He is charging me $160.00. Does this sound like a correct “fix”. The problem is, he fixed this laptop without my consent. I told him to let me know what the problem was and how much it would cost to fix this older laptop. It was manufactured in 2003 or 2005. ALso, I am not sure this laptop has an operating system.
January 28th, 2011 at 11:22 pm
David,
Make sure the CD is clean.
Also, try cleaning the optical lens inside the DVD drive. Open up the drive and clean the lens using cotton swab and 99% alcohol.
If it doesn’t help, it’s possible the DVD drive is bad. Test your drive with another bootable CD or DVD. Will it boot from another disc?
January 28th, 2011 at 11:11 pm
Jerry,
Most likely your problem is related to the DC power jack. I’ve seen hundreds Satellite A75 laptops like that.
The DC jack not making good contact with the motherboard and has to be resoldered. Probably it’s bad connection between the “+” leg of the jack and motherboard.
Here’s more info: http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2006/01/28/toshiba-satellite-m35x-a75-power-jack-problem/
It’s necessary to disassemble the laptop and remove the motherboard: http://www.irisvista.com/tech/laptops/ToshibaA75/satA75_1.htm
After the motherboard removed you can resolder or replace the DC jack: http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2007/12/06/dc-power-jack-repair-guide/
January 28th, 2011 at 4:57 pm
nisa,
The same problem as who?
January 24th, 2011 at 1:18 am
Please i need your help. I want to format my laptop and load a new operating system on it but it could not do, first of all i set the first booting device on CD ROM and second booting device on flopping derive, i put on the ( XP Service pack2 CD on the drive it refuse picking up, it only blank Screen will be display on the Laptop screen. please what will likely be the problem please help. Thanks.