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A co-worker recently gave me a HP Pavillion dv9310us laptop that wouldn't work and was destined for the trash. I'd like to think that he meant recycling.
Anyway...The laptop would turn on and off every 15 seconds or so and would not post. Also no video would display on the screen itself or an external monitor.
It looked like such a neat laptop that I thought that I would give it my best attention. The thought of a decent free laptop was very appealing plus I like to be able to figure things out. I usually don't give up without a fight.
It seemed obvious that it was a motherboard problem so I started searching the net for whatever I could find out about HP laptop problems. I didn't have to look far. It seems that HP and Nvidia are connected with this issue all over the Net. Some of you may know this already but I never had any reason to look up the information before.
So what I was reading at first, was that it was a defective graphic chip supplied by Nvidia. HP seems to shun the whole situation, shame on them, because most of these laptops are dying within months of the end of the warranty. Some people reported getting an RMA from HP but most have gone on unsatisfied or have paid the expense of having HP replace the motherboard all together.
Now that is the ironic part of this experience because there is nothing wrong with the graphic chip.
The problem lies with the motherboard itself. Or more accurately the process it goes though when being manufactured. The problem is cracked solder joints. I spent many an hour researching different websites and forums to agree with this conclusion. So how much does it cost to fix? Pay HP over $250 to fix it? Not a chance
I fixed it for free (except the cost of Arctic Silver thermal paste).The first method that I tried, from better thinkers than me, was to bake the motherboard in an oven. The idea is to put the board in a 385f oven for 8 minutes and then let it cool. Well the thought of putting a motherboard in my home oven didn't sound too appealing to me. The smell of burning plastic and who knows what else coming from the board would be sure to linger a while. I'm married you know and I want to stay that way.
"Honey, why does the roast smell like an experiment from Radio Shack?"
So I am lucky enough to have access to an industrial oven at work and decided to use that. I set the temperature for 385f. and placed the board in there for 8 minutes exactly. At that point I opened the door and turned off the oven to let it cool down gradually.
When I reassembled the laptop enough to see if it would work I was disappointed to find that this blackart voodoo had not worked for me.
Well, I figured that maybe the temperature was too low for the size of the oven I was using. It's about 10 times the size of a home oven.
So I decided to go on a different route. I still wasn't going to cook it in my oven at home. Relying on work again I took home a digital temperature probe and a heatgun.
I covered the plastic parts with foil and started by heating the whole board. I had taped the heat sensor right next to the graphic chip. I did that for about 2 minutes before really concentrating on the chip area exclusively. I used circular motions with the heatgun and stopped when the temperature peaked at the 385f. mark.
I let it cool by itself and then reassembled the laptop. Wouldn't you know it but it actually worked!
It started up like a trooper and loaded right into Windows. It's a funny process, more of a last Hail Mary attempt.I did redo the heatsink adding a larger copper shim to the board over the graphic chip to replace the thermal spongy pad that HP uses. I also added an app to check temperature and so far it seems like a new computer. Well it's new to me and it's all mine!!!
I'd be her favorite son!
The cause of the problem actually has to do with poor heat dissapation inside the machine so it is no surprise that this same problem occured with a laptop. The motherboard would buckle in the center where the graphics chip usually is because of the intense heat and cause the solder points on the chip to soften and crack..
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