M1330: Onboard Power & Charging Circuit R.I.P.

[traveller]

Hi2all,

this is round 2 for me & my 1330.

Round 1 was the GPU and thanks to that ordeal I made my share of posts in the venerable "Vertical Lines on Reboot & Crash & Vertical Lines" thread.

To insure I wouldn't have to go through a mobo swap again, I also did the infamous Cu Mod - which, btw, worked flawlessly and I still support the concept, regardless of which revision nVidia GPU you may have.

So talk about my astonishment when my 1330 just powered off instantly last night while I was doing some 3D work (*and* charging the battery...). At first I thought it was an OS glitch but after noting that I couldn't power the 1330 back on, I realized I was dealing with another issue.

Round 2: Symptom, diagnosis & prognosis:

>1330 will not power on and the external PS's blue LED is not lit.

>Connecting the 1330's PS (adapter) with the 1330 causes the PS to immediately switch off (fail-safe circuit).

This is easy to determine because the infamous blue LED goes out and stays out until you unplug and replug the adapter to the AC outlet (mains). Reconnecting the 1330 with the PS causes the PS to once again switch off. And so on.

>Hence, my second Mobo replacement is on order... sigh.

There's the slight chance that it's only the so-called "charger Board" which is actually connected to the mobo (see my pics - link in my sig. below) but the last time they replaced my mobo, they replaced the charger board along with it.

I'm not the first to 1330 owner to experience this, but there is no well-defined thread on the problem so I thought I would start one

cheers

p.s. That reminds me... I'd better swap out my copper shim with that silly periwinkle crud-pad before Monday...

[texasman]

Thanks for the post. My mom's 1330 is doing the same thing. She had hers plugged in to an outlet overnight about a week ago, and there was a pretty bad thunderstorm that night. The next morning she went to turn her computer on, and it would not turn on (imagine that). Of course she did not have it plugged into a UPS or surge protector. Now when I plug her ac adapter into an outlet, the blue light immediately comes on. When I then plug the adapter into her computer, the light immediately goes off. My big dilemma is that I hate to spend the money on a new motherboard, if an electrical surge may have fried other components in her computer (especially processor, hd, wireless, etc). Did you get your issue resolved?

[Bchen06]

Sometimes surges are covered by home insurance.

[traveller]

Did you get your issue resolved?

Hi, yes, but it does mean swapping out the Mobo.

I don't believe my issue had anything to do with a power surge, I believe the 1330's power rails just shorted out. Fwiw, I was doing 3D benchmarks while charging the battery and who knows, maybe it was a bit too much for the power rails.

In any event, seeing as the PS (bricks) survived, I really would be surprised it was a surge-related issue...

Finally, the CPU was fine. The GPU is part of the mobo & has to be swapped out along with the mobo.

[7oby]

There's the slight chance that it's only the so-called "charger Board" which is actually connected to the mobo (see my pics - link in my sig. below) but the last time they replaced my mobo, they replaced the charger board along with it.

Just for curiosity: Clearly there are VRM circuits and DC/DC converters for many different purposes like CPU VCore, GPU, battery charge, ... But is there really such thing as a seperate charger board? I neither see that from your pictures nor from the disassembly instructions of Dell:
http://support.dell.com/support/edoc....htm#wp1000473

[traveller]

...is there really such thing as a seperate charger board?

No, I just wrote that for the hell of it...

No seriously, I had access to the "Dell Certified Systems Expert" Manual (but that official link was since long locked out). I do have pics of it (IMG_3799, 3800, 4298 & 4298) - it's the long & thin PCB extension jutting out from the mobo. The thin PCB not only has the battery connectors but also the USB port on the 1330's right-hand side.

[texasman]

Thanks for the tips guys. I think that I will go ahead and order one of the new motherboards that I see on ebay. Hopefully that will take care of it. I warned my mother on several occasions not to leave her laptop plugged in all of the time. Maybe this will be enough to make her change her ways.

I'm glad that these forums are out there.

[traveller]

Thanks for the tips...

no worries, our pleasure
I've also gotten a lot of help from the members of this community and it's one of my favorite boards

[diggler649]

Yup, same thing happened to me last night. A slight chirping sound and the thing shut off right away and wouldn't turn on again. Although my laptop is out of warranty, Dell is covering the repair anyways. When I called them, they seemed to know right away what the problem was. This leads me to believe that this is a widespread problem.

This is the third time it has gone to repair in 1 year and 2 months. Twice for the GPU and now the charger board. This laptop is a ticking time bomb. As soon as i get it back from repair, i'm am ebaying it. I will never buy Dell again!

[texasman]

Is the "charger board" included with a new motherboard? I hope so because I just ordered a new motherboard from ebay.