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.
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
January 29th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
I have a Dell Inspiron 1720 and today it suddenly went dead. Its not the battery nor the adapter. (I have 2 same laptops and interchanged them and it worked in the other computer.) The Power LED comes on and it doesnt flash – stays solid. The hard disk LED flashes for 2 seconds and disappears and i dont hear/see the fan working either. I tried to Fn+Power combo, the middle top 3 locked LED lights come on but again only for 2 seconds. I could be wrong but it seems when the computer tries to load to dvd player then it just dies. Any idea? Thanks.
January 19th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
Jrh,
No, you cannot.
No, you cannot.
January 19th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
jimmyduh,
I’m not familiar with this laptop but most likely it has two memory modules installed. It’s possible that one of the modules went bad and because of that the laptop will not start. I think your problem is not related to the virus infection, it’s just a coincidence.
Try removing memory modules one by one. Test the laptop with only one module installed. Try different slots.
If the laptop worked fine with a 40 watt adapter before the failure occurred, I don’t think it’s related to the problem.
January 19th, 2010 at 7:31 am
mr repairman,
I have an Arima M630-UC Laptop which a friend of mine bought somewhere in china for a very cheap price. The problem started when he download some virus and the laptop just went dead. At first when he gave me i was able to boot it using SLAX but now it wont even boot. LED light is on, the battery is out using AC adapter. I thought it was the CMOS battery (as some of my frind told me) dissamble it and change i with a new one, but still no luck. When I push the button the LED light is on and sound as if it want to boot but it is not. Oh by the way, I check the website it the laptop used a 60 watt AC adapter but i just bought a 40 watt adapter could this be the reason or the motherboard?
sorry for my bad english. I really need help mr repairman
January 19th, 2010 at 2:14 am
i just want to ask u
can i replace a RAM came from a laptop tp PC ??
and also a wireless Lan ??
January 5th, 2010 at 7:40 am
Hi there, it was the CPU after all. Working like a charm now
January 5th, 2010 at 5:50 am
Hi there,
I have an Acer Travelmate 5730 series laptop. Laptop will not POST unless I remove the CMOS battery and replace it. When I do this and plug in the AC adapter the the laptop powers up by itself.
When I remove the CPU from the socket and connect the laptop it will power up for a couple of seconds (power light/charge light + the fanc spins).
I removed and replaced RAM, HD, DVD-ROM, etc and it makes no difference. Only thing I haven’t been able to rest is the CPU. Does this sound like a CPU related fault?
Regards
TheBoyBest
December 29th, 2009 at 9:37 am
jazzmine,
Sounds like you have a problem with the power jack – socket where you plug the adapter. Most likely in your laptop the power jack (DC jack) is soldered to the motherboard. The laptop charges intermittently because the power jack is not making good contact with the motherboard.
The power jack has to be resoldered (or replaced if it’s broken). Here’s what I’m talking about: http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2007/12/06/dc-power-jack-repair-guide/
December 29th, 2009 at 1:52 am
hi i have a acer aspire 5000 laptop and i cant get it to charge uselly i can get it to take a charge by unpluging the cord and repluging it back in i keep doing it until it starts charging i do not wiggle the cord around like some people do but thats starting not to work the cord does work cause i tested it on my moms laptop and it charges her fine i was on my laptop earlier the battery was fully charged but then it was about to shut down cause the battery got low there is a little juice in the laptop to turn it on for like 5 mintues but im wondring is it somthing wrong with the dc-jack the needle on the inside of the computer looks fine its not bent and i know its not the motherboard cause the computer comes on with no problem is there another reason why a laptop wont charge?
December 27th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Freddie Ruiz,
First of all, test the power supply. It’s possible the AC adapter is dead. You can test the adapter with a multimeter. Can you read any voltage coming from the AC adapter?
Also, you can try the old trick. Sometimes it helps. Unplug the power adapter, remove the battery. Press on the power button for a few seconds. Now plug the AC adapter and try to turn it on.
December 27th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Hi repair man my dad’s laptop its a Acer Aspire 5315 and he was just using it one night turned it off and the next day the laptop was dead. It wont turn on any light or led and wont start any internal stuff like the fan. I started thinking that maybe it could be a BIOS problem but my dad didnt make any upgrade. Right now im out options could you give a any ideas.
P.D. I did the fn+ESC+power button but no luck
December 19th, 2009 at 4:07 am
hello
I have a laptop Toshiba satellite brand,it was working before in a good way , one day i turned it on, but nothing on the screen, i feel there is no boot, only power led is on, but no activity for the laptop.
is there any keys for reset the bios or something can help me?
Thanks for your help.
Regards.
December 18th, 2009 at 4:27 am
Hello,
I’ve got a Packard Bell laptop EASYNOTE MX52-B-018 which doesn’t turn on, when i press the power button it lights up for a second and turns off again. I removed the cpu (Athlon X2 TK-55) pressed the power button and the laptop turned on but with no video.
Is it possible the cpu has gone bad?
Thanks
November 26th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
greg,
This sounds like a problem with the inverter board or backlight lamp. Most likely the inverter failure.
But I don’t understand what’s going on with video on the external monitor. Can you get video on the external monitor at all? Will it stay there?
November 26th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
lukas,
To be honest, I don’t know what the daughter board is.
November 23rd, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Update on the above – I’ve R&R’d another ram module and the display works on the second monitor, but still nothing consistent on the laptop lcd. Any thoughts?
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:00 am
Hi Repairman –
I have a 2004 Dell b130 which has suddenly come up with a blank screen issue. The computer seems to be running normally otherwise.
When I run it off the wall jack and power it on, I momentarily see the startup screen before everything blacks out. If I connect an external monitor, I can sometimes get the display to show there briefly (few seconds) before that goes out, too (by hitting fn/f8).
If I close the screen then reopen quickly, I can once again see the display briefly. It appears that each time I do this, it is about to go into standby mode. I removed one RAM module which seemed to get me a little more screen time, but it is still not maintain the display.
Any recommendations on what to try next? Thanks!
November 20th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
hello,
I need a daughter boards for Medion MAM2100, MD96327, pwa bd 8807im – apparently model number of daughter bard…
thank you
regards
lukasz
November 18th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Naveen,
It’s very unlikely that both memory modules failed at the same time, so I assume this problem is not memory related.
The garbled screen sounds like a problem with the video card.
It’s hard to tell but I think this is related to the video card failure.
Is it a discrete module? If yes, I would try replacing the video card.
If the video card is integrated into the motherboard, you’ll have to replace the entire motherboard.
November 18th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Hi, I have a Dell Inspiron 1720. Yesterday while booting it up, the Dell Logo Screen was garbled and it wouldnt start. When I try to power it on again, the Caps lock LED just flashes for like 30 times and nothing happens.
I tried reseating memory modules & also tested the laptop with each memory module separately but it wont start.
When I try pressing the power button with ‘D’ key simultaneously, I see Colors changing on the screen. Do you think its the motherboard thats causing the issue? I also have a NVIDIA graphics card on my machine. Please advice and appreciate your time!
November 16th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Hp pavilion dv6000 schematic diagram
November 16th, 2009 at 11:33 am
mother board can’t power LCD light
November 13th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Chelns Dyson,
Most likely this is either memory or video card failure.
Do you have two memory modules installed in the laptop? Try removing them one by one. It’s very unlikely that both modules failed at the same time. The laptop might work properly when you remove the faulty memory module.
Also, try moving modules from one slot to another just to make sure it’s not a faulty memory slot on the motherboard.
If playing with the memory modules doesn’t help and the laptop still had garbled video, most likely there is a problem with the video card.
November 13th, 2009 at 9:29 am
I have a dell latitude d820 it will load os successfully and after a while the video will be garbled. Once you shut it off, trying to start it there be two blinking lights and one solid and it will not boot again. What can be causing this problem?
November 10th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Carter,
Find the motherboard part number and google it. In most Toshiba laptop the motherboard part number could be found on a sticker in the memory compartment.
If you cannot find it, give me the laptop model number: PSPBLU-XXXXXX and I’ll find the motherboard part number for you. I assume you purchased this laptop in the United States.