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
June 15th, 2010 at 1:11 am
I have a DV2000 that wont turn on too save my life,the AC is good, and the battery is w.e but even if the battery sucked the computer is suppose to show that electricity is going threw, because the light on the side lights up, but there is no power. I opened it up and everything seemed to be okay, I really dont know what to do anymore.I was on my laptop and next thing I know it turns off and hasnt turned on in over a month.
June 11th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
I have a toshiba satellite a305-s6872 and I bought a new battery and done a bios update but it won’t charge my new battery had a guy who has the same battery pack and charger try it in his and the battery started charging and my power adapter charged it to he said he thought it was the charging circuit how can I tell if its that or something else? Oh yea it works just fine plugged in.
May 21st, 2010 at 2:25 am
To Kathleen who has failed HP dv6000
That is repairable. If looked for PC repairers around your area, you should find somebody who can resolder chipset for 80-150$. Here in Ireland im doing it for €80. That cost fortune if you take to company but private people fixing it for the right price and very often do much better job than companies because they don’t need to deal with time pressure.
April 23rd, 2010 at 7:42 am
EZEANYA FELIX,
I cannot tell what is wrong without looking at the laptop. It’s necessary to disassemble the laptop and take a look at the damaged. Probably the motherboard was damaged by the rain.
April 22nd, 2010 at 7:04 pm
Rain fell on my laptop (dell,inspiron 1501) through window.when i on the computer,it shows light and off since then.i dried it on the sun,yet nothing happens.this is 4months now.what should i do? And i dont have money for new one.
April 6th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
**************************
i have dell 1014 vostro. i forget bios password. how reset bios password***********************
you can try to unplug the CMSO battery on your motherboard, however your laptop is relatively new and its a dell so…. you probabaly
you cant, if you are the original owner call Dell they have a master password.
April 6th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
**********I have a 2 year old Dell Inspiron
1525. The machine worked fine yesterday but when i tried to turn it on today it has been unresponsive. I vaguely remember 1 of the 5 LED’s at the front of the machine being on for 5-10 seconds after i pressed the power button, though i could be wrong – following that there has been no response at all. No fan, no noise and no lights – no sign of activity at all. Tried a back up battery and adapter – still unresponsive. Any ideas?*************
either your Dc board is fried or your motherboard is dead i can do the replacement for DC board 110$ (part cost 80$ on ebay dont know why so high…but i happen to have one) sounds very likely to be the DC board…to me 1525 dont really have too many motherboard issue unless you dropped it in water pool.
and if its the motherboard i can repair it for 200$ (part cost at least 150$ on ebay)
or if you want to sell it i can offer you 50$ as is mcatlol@yahoo.com
April 6th, 2010 at 5:12 pm
“”"”"”"”"”"”
I have a HP Pavillion dv6000. I push power and it flashes for a second then nothing. The power supply is fine, as is the battery. The place I bought it says I should just buy a new one for the price of repairs. How do I know if it’s Mother Board, or could bad memory cause this sympton?
“”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”
memory? oh come on.
its the motherboard sorry to break it to you, dv6000 has known issue with over heating and burn off the graphic card from the motherboard… it is repairable for some, but without proper professional chip reflow machine which cost like 5000$ you are out of luck. my advice to you is to sell it for parts, since even if you replace it with new motherboard cost like 170$ it will only be a mater of time before it dies again, because this is a bad dv6000 laptop design and the over heat problem will always be there. not worth repair, i can offer you 30$. mcatlol@yahoo.com ps: dont buy anymore HP.
April 5th, 2010 at 7:30 am
Kathleen,
Most likely you have two memory modules installed in the laptop. Try removing memory modules one by one and test the laptop with each module separately. It’s very unlikely that both memory modules failed at the same time.
If you still have a problem with only one memory module in place (either module), most likely this is the motherboard failure.
I assume the AC adapter is working properly as you mentioned in your description.
April 4th, 2010 at 2:45 am
I have a HP Pavillion dv6000. I push power and it flashes for a second then nothing. The power supply is fine, as is the battery. The place I bought it says I should just buy a new one for the price of repairs. How do I know if it’s Mother Board, or could bad memory cause this sympton?
April 1st, 2010 at 8:03 pm
i have dell 1014 vostro. i forget bios password. how reset bios password
March 29th, 2010 at 11:12 am
Mike,
No lights/noise/any sign of activity even after replacing the AC adapter? Sounds like a failed motherboard.
March 23rd, 2010 at 5:18 am
I have a 2 year old Dell Inspiron 1525. The machine worked fine yesterday but when i tried to turn it on today it has been unresponsive. I vaguely remember 1 of the 5 LED’s at the front of the machine being on for 5-10 seconds after i pressed the power button, though i could be wrong – following that there has been no response at all. No fan, no noise and no lights – no sign of activity at all. Tried a back up battery and adapter – still unresponsive. Any ideas?
March 3rd, 2010 at 9:35 am
Ed,
Not sure what you are asking about.
March 3rd, 2010 at 9:29 am
Can you tell me how big the download is?
March 2nd, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Tara,
First of all, test your laptop with video output on the external monitor. Can you see same problem on the external video or it works properly?
You can, but first you have to find out if the problem is related to the video card failure or not. That’s why I’m asking you to test the laptop with external video.
If you see the same problem on both screens, the laptop LCD and external monitor, this is the video card failure.
If this problem appears only on the laptop screen but external video is fine, this could be the video cable or LCD screen failure.
March 2nd, 2010 at 1:29 pm
My gateway p fx 6860 display reacted with odd pixels all over it then had dual images on it,one on top of the other, with a green/yellow tint. After doing all I could to rescue it I just bought a new Asus. I am curious thou is there anyway I can use this as a project and possibly rebuild it? Replace the system board and reuse the detachable parts to reconnect it?
February 23rd, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Steve,
Most likely this is heat related issue.
http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2006/01/04/toshiba-laptop-overheating/
Take a look inside the heat sink. If the heat sink is clogged with dust, clean it with compressed air. Try after that. Should work fine now.
February 23rd, 2010 at 6:12 am
I have a Compal AL51 based system: it runs OK most of the time but the fan runs quite hard at times, and anything demanding just causes it to power off. Any ideas? I don’t see anything (quite) the same above
February 20th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
David Gohr,
Maybe you have a blown power fuse. Usually you can find a fuse somewhere close to the power jack. Test it with a multimeter and if the fuse is open, replace it with a new one.
February 20th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
leong,
Did you test memory modules?
In order to turn on a notebook, you need three main components: motherboard, CPU and memory.
CPU doesn’t fail very often and you’ve replaced the motherboard. It’s likely that one of the memory modules is bad.
February 16th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Hi! Leong here, my aspire one when switch on when black. only the power light is on. When to acer service centre, say need to replace the whole motherboard. did not make the changes. Need your input what the real problem here.
tks
February 13th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
I have a Compaq Presario F750us. About a year ago a child of mine got ice cream on the power button. It worked fine for the most part after I cleaned it up with a dry rag but the issue now is that the computer will not turn on. I went to a tech who told me that I more than likely blew the power chip that sits under the power button that you press. HP says that I am crazy and it has to be the motherboard. What I want to know is this, can it simply be that the power chip went out and needs to be replaced if that is the case how can I find the part number when the sticker came off with the ice cream? Also the ribbon that leads from the power chip under the keyboard is crimped pretty bad so I think that I would have to replace that too but I still can not find a site to tell me what the part numbers are for this situation. REMEMBER the computer worked perfectly until I shut it off to take it home and when I tried to reboot it it would not turn on. The motherboard has been checked so I know that it is fine is there a way that you can help me find the parts that I need to fix the laptop.
February 12th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
I have a Compaq Presario C504us that stopped working. It will not start with the power cord and the battery does not charge. I purchased a replacement power cord and still will not charge the battery or start the machine. I purchase a new battery and machine worked fine until the battery lost its charge. I checked for voltage after the jack inside the laptop and voltage is fine so it is not the jack. Is there a fuse or something on the motherboard that can be replaced. I am proficient with soldering.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
Will,
Maybe one of the memory modules went bad?
If you have two modules installed, you can remove them one by one. Test the laptop with each module separately. It will start fine when the bad module is removed (if it’s faulty of course).