Laptop doesn't power on. Some grime on the mobo. Clean it up?
Hi all,
today my laptop (Thinkbook 14 G3 ACL) refused to turn on. It was fine about 5 days ago after which it was sitting on a shelf without power. It refused to power up today. I tried a bunch of things - holding power button for long time, different power supplies (which I checked do work), etc. But nothing seems to help. I opened it up, disconnected the battery, tried powering up without it connected, then reconnected and tried again. No luck.
Then I noticed some grime on the motherboard - guessing from some old spill.
I want to at least try cleaning it up. What would be a reasonable way to try? Cotton swap + isopropyl alcohol? What percentage? Any other advice?
Thank you for your help in advance!
Update (02/25/2023)
Re-posting so the images show up.
Thank you for your encouragement! It turned out to be simpler than I expected :)
Ok, the back side seems to be quite clean.
The RAM EMI shielding seems cumbersome to remove, but I decided to leave it alone because there are no traces of any grime in the nearby area.
So it seems the problematic area is essentially what was seen from the outside prior to disassembly.
I'll clean it up with 91% Isopropyl alcohol and try reassembling and firing it up. Is there something else I can do here to increase my chances of success?
Update (02/25/2023)
Well, unfortunately, the laptop still shows no signs of life after I cleaned the problematic area to the best of my ability:
The charger is definitely fine - checked it with my other laptop and the phone - both charge flawlessly from it. Not sure how to check the battery though - I tried firing it up both with battery plugged in and disconnected if that makes any difference.
I appreciate the help! At this point, I am not sure that I can do much more - although I'm willing to try if you think there's more that can be done but to be honest I neither have tools nor knowledge and experience to diagnose if some chip is dead...
Finally - and let me know if this is a kind of question to ask on this forum - I was wondering if you could recommend a repair shop dealing with Lenovos near NYC which could do a more proper diagnosis? To be honest though, given that the motherboard itself seems to cost 300 bucks for a laptop that cost 500, the unfortunate likely outcome is that this one will become a paperweight. Perhaps worth trying to sell it for parts? I mean this thing is only one year old and I'd expect most components to still be usable...
Update (02/25/2023)
Well, to be fair, I didn't soak the board! Let me try again! :)
Update (02/25/2023)
After a long soak and cleaning with a soft brush, the result is unfortunately the same - no response from the laptop.
Some pins on the tps65988 chip seem darker than others and the isopropyl bath had no effect on that. No idea if that means anything and to be honest I don't think it really matters - even if I knew the chip is fried, resoldering it is way beyond my abilities.
In any case, thank you again for your help! I would appreciate any responses to the questions I posed in the previous update.
Best wishes,
Rostislav.
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