motherboard repair

[tg]

I have a sony vaio laptop VPCEF3E1E with a faulty motherboard - the laptop
won't come on properly. The screen is blank and when the power button is
pressed the three panel lights flicker briefly and that's all, there's no
fan action. I'm given to understand this is a common fault with these
laptops and it comes down to a component on the motherboard. Problem is I
can't find out which component it is. I'm handy with a soldering iron so if
anyone is familiar with this and knows the rogue component I'd be grateful
to know.
The writing on the motherboard says:
HannStar J MV-6 94V-0
D A ONE 8MB C60
REV: C
Laptop service tag is: C104NQ4S

 

[micky]

I have a sony vaio laptop VPCEF3E1E with a faulty motherboard - the laptop
won't come on properly. The screen is blank and when the power button is
pressed the three panel lights flicker briefly and that's all, there's no
fan action. I'm given to understand this is a common fault with these
laptops and it comes down to a component on the motherboard. Problem is I

Do the same people who tell you it's a particular component say that
it can be fixed? Motherboards are multi-layer -- I don't know how
many layers -- and are I presume harder to fix than single layer or
two-sided circuit boards are.

Much as I despise web forums, this is probably better for you.
http://www.computer-forum.org/forum/VAIOVPCEF3E1EWI-Sony.html
or the VAIO laptop forum there, since maybe it's not just this model
with this problem, and even if it is just this model, some really
knowledgable guy might only read a broader forum.

Also, if I may, if you give more details in the subject line, like the
brand or model number, you're more likely to find someone who knows
the answer, esp. in a busy forum like this one or the Sony forum
above. (actually you're more specific than a lot of people who
would say just computer repair or even repair.

 

[Bob F]

I have a sony vaio laptop VPCEF3E1E with a faulty motherboard - the
laptop won't come on properly. The screen is blank and when the power
button is pressed the three panel lights flicker briefly and that's
all, there's no fan action. I'm given to understand this is a common
fault with these laptops and it comes down to a component on the
motherboard. Problem is I can't find out which component it is. I'm
handy with a soldering iron so if anyone is familiar with this and
knows the rogue component I'd be grateful to know.
The writing on the motherboard says:
HannStar J MV-6 94V-0
D A ONE 8MB C60
REV: C
Laptop service tag is: C104NQ4S

I recently worked on a Sony laptop that had had Windows 7 64 installed over the
origional Vista 64. It had an interesting failure to boot. The left of the 3
LEDs would turn on when you hit the power button, but the HD LED would not. This
would happen almost every time I rebooted it. The only way I could get it to
boot properly was to leave it powered down with the battery removed for several
hours. Then it would usually boot right up.

I was thinking that this must be a motherboard or power supply problem, but I
finally tried restoring the origional Vista OS from the recovery partition on
the disc. I backed up the drive, then did the Vista recovery. Since then, it has
booted up properly every time. I'm guessing that there may have been a problem
with the boot sector on the drive. I thought about restoring the origional boot
sector from the backup and testing to see if the problem comes back, but haven't
done that.

If your problem is similar, it's possible that re-writing the boot sector might
solve it.