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.
Need spare parts for your laptop?
If you are looking for spare parts for your laptop you can find brand new and used parts here. Just search by the part name and laptop model.
October 17th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Hi!
A question, when I turn on the power to my Toshiba Satellite A105 the light comes on indicating power but there is no Toshiba boot up screen. The screen remains blank.
The harddrive was removed and the same problem happened, the video output was tested but that was not the problem. Do you have any ideas?
Thank you
October 15th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
ben,
If the laptop is completely dead after liquid spill, most likely you fried the motherboard. Sony motherboards are not cheap.
October 15th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
hello i have asony vaio laptop that got a little water on it and it will not show any signs of life. it was brand new and working fine until then, is there any way i can fix this or test it? please help and thank you in advance. ben in alaska
October 11th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
urmi,
Can you use keyboard on the BIOS level? Turn on the laptop and try entering the BIOS setup menu. When Toshiba logo appears on the screen, press Esc key (or F1, or F2). Can you enter the menu? Does your keyboard work in there?
October 11th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
hi repairman,
i have a toshiba laptop 2405-S201, one fine morning, after having worked well till the night before, the cursor just would not move from the middle of the screen. i cant go the keyboard route as it seems that the key board is unresponsive. could you help me figure out what could possibly be wrong and how i could fix it? thanks.
October 3rd, 2009 at 6:47 am
Hi stave, base on your request these are some suggestion.
each laptop manufacturers used to provide system maintenance and services manual for there customers.
I think you can try this and see like;
-ping to http://www.hp.com
-click on support and drivers download
-Select start by detection
-Type the laptop you are interesting to deassemble (eg.hp pavilion dv6000 cto notebook pc manuals) and click start
-A list of different laptop displayed, select yours and your operating system.
-On the listed question they asked select maintenance service manunals.
-By then you will see your manual on your request……………………………………………bye.
October 1st, 2009 at 12:33 pm
abhi,
It’s not a common failure and I cannot tell you what is causing the problem. It’s possible that one of the laptop components is failing preventing it from booting properly.
Here’s what you can try. Try minimizing your system as much as you can and test it after each step.
For example:
1. Remove the battery and test with AC adapter.
2. Remove DVD drive and test.
3. Remove hard drive and test.
4. Unplug the keyboard and test.
etc…
If the laptop stat properly after you remove something, most likely the last removed device is causing the problem.
Try removing memory modules one by one. Test the laptop with only one memory module installed. It’s possible that one of the modules is bad.
If you minimized your laptop as much as you could but it still having the same problem, most likely it’s related to the motherboard.
Make sure the main battery is installed. Plug in the laptop into AC and let it charge overnight. If the laptop still loosing date and time, it’s either bad CMOS battery or faulty motherboard.
A CMOS battery usually last more than 2 years.
October 1st, 2009 at 12:03 am
Hi,
I am using 2 years old Toshiba Equium A-100.
It’s not powering up immediately after pressing power buttons.
I have to leave it for few hours connected to power source before it boots up.Only Ac adapter led keeps glowing.
Also it is not retaining system date and time.
Any Clue on whats wrong with it?
Thanks
September 28th, 2009 at 1:38 am
Alright mate…thanks alot! i’ll check it out
September 26th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Veen,
Try calling Fujitsu and find out if it’s a known issue with your model. It’s possible there is a grounding issue in the laptop.
Sorry, I cannot help remotely, it’s not a common problem.
September 24th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
am using a fujitsu l1010
and now i have some things need help.
i got a few shocks from my laptop touching the metal parts…
and also, when am holding the laptop, and if someone rubs me or sumtin, theres a static. When someone rubs my ear, i can hear the buzzing sound
please someone help me
when i use a test pen to check on the metal parts, it lights up.
but i aint sure, cauz the same test pen i checked with a homepc, theres no light.
so is it because of current leakage?
September 22nd, 2009 at 10:17 pm
stephh,
Is it normal for all three lights to flash when the battery is charging?
I think you might have a dead AC adapter and it’s not charging the battery. You’ll have to test the laptop with another known good AC adapter.
If you have the same problem with a new adapter, most likely it’s the motherboard failure.
I would definably tested the laptop with a new adapter first.
September 22nd, 2009 at 4:46 pm
hi,i have an hp pavilion dv7 and it was working fine until one day it discharged completely.I left it discharged for about 3-4days.I then hooked up the AC adapter and the it appears as its charging the three lights are flashing.i left it charging all day then i pressed the power button and it seemed as if it was going to power on..the power and lights on keyboard turn on.the fan runs as well.only for about 5 seconds and then i hear a little beep and it turns off.and ive tried it couple of times it does the same thing
September 22nd, 2009 at 11:20 am
anjum,
I’m not familiar with compal laptops but here’s my guess.
Look in the memory compartment, maybe you can find the motherboard part number in there. When you find the part number, google it. There is a chnce to find a replacement motherobard this way.
September 22nd, 2009 at 5:27 am
Thanks Repair Man, for pointing me in the right direction (see 43). The problem description exactly fits mine! I’ll try it tonight.
Cheers,
Keeth
September 16th, 2009 at 1:38 am
repairman hello
i have dead compal al51-15 pentiam m 1.4 ghz .motherboard required as per local repair shops. from where i can find motherboard for this laptop.
September 13th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Steve,
Take a look here. You’ll find some good links to sites with laptop disassembly instructions.
September 13th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Bhagyanath,
Not sure what’s going on but it’s possible you have some kind of compatibility issue between the PCMCIA card and your ThinkPad laptop.
I know that ThinkPads might now work properly with some internal Wi-Fi cards because it has to be some kind of “IBM certified card” or something like that. Apparently, the same applies to some external PCMCIA cards.
Can you find another PCMCIA Wi-Fi card for test?
September 12th, 2009 at 12:49 am
hai,,,im facing a big problem…my buffalo network adapter is not working..there is 2 PCMCIA slots in ma laptop..and wen i insert the adapter to the top slot ,laptop detects the network card but after installing the driver ,it says cannot start the device..and wen i insert it to the bottom slot..my xp gets stuck..my xp continues working if i remove the adapter from the slot..what should i do..im not able to use ma wireless these days…i am using IBM T21..
September 10th, 2009 at 6:12 am
Where can I find step by step manuals on how to disassemble all laptops so I can replace motherboards?