I had a laptop that sort of mostly worked, but seemed to have some damage to the video card, which prevented it from running certain programs. I decided to try replacing the motherboard, as I understood the video card to be integrated into that.
Well, I got the replacement motherboard (from an ebay seller), took apart the laptop, took the CPU, heat sink, and memory from the old motherboard and attached them to the new motherboard, put that in the computer, put everything back together, turned it on, and–
–it beeped repeatedly, and had no display on the monitor. Also the caps lock light flashed. That seemed to be all it did.
I started taking it apart again in disgust, and then I thought maybe I missed a connection, or did something wrong due to undue haste. Well, there did seem to be one connector on the new (well, I think it’s used) motherboard that had some problems. Cracked housing, slightly bent pin. I took the housing off, straightened the pins enough to fit right, and tried again. Beep beep, no display.
OK, take it all apart, put old motherboard back in.
–it beeps repeatedly, and has no display on the monitor. Also the caps lock light flashes. That seems to be all it does.
The most useful piece of diagnostic information you have right now is the motherboard’s beep code, and that page has you completely ignoring it until you’re most of the way down the page. And even then it doesn’t say much about it.
The beep code is the motherboard telling you exactly why it thinks it can’t boot. Start with that.
ETA: Not being able to run certain programs is very rarely a sign of video card damage. It’s much more likely to be a driver issue or an issue of the particular program requiring some video feature that the video chip doesn’t happen to have (not because it’s broken, but because it just wasn’t designed with that feature in it). Without more info on exactly what the problem was, I strongly suspect that a bad video interface on the motherboard wasn’t actually your problem.
Nowhere near enough information to even make an educated guess. What’s the make and model of the laptop? The beeps and flashing caps lock key seems to indicate some kind of error code, especially if it’s only the cap lock key that flashes.
I’m confused as to whether you’re using a dedicated graphics card or if the video hardware is integrated into the mobo. I’m thinking it’s the latter since you mention a laptop but you implied both.
As others have mentioned, the beeps, and possibly the flashes of the Caps Lock key, are a code that is telling you what the problem is. The number of beeps and the grouping (if any) point to the problem. Each BIOS manufacturer has its own code; you need to look up the code for the motherboard you purchased.
Is the new motherboard ***exactly ***the same model as the old one? If not, it’s quite possible that your CPU and/or memory modules are not compatible with the new board. There is often a very narrow range, particularly for CPUs; just because the chip will physically fit in the slot does not mean that it will actually work.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but I find it pretty interesting that you have what it takes to do a motherboard replacement on a laptop (no beginner task, IMO), but apparently are completely unfamiliar with the quite basic concept of POST beep codes.
But yes, make/model of the laptop and pattern of beeps/blinking lights hopefully will tell you exactly what you need to know.
As an aside, did doing this actually save you a lot of money? I guess it depends on how high-end/new the existing machine is, but a usable new machine can be had for a few hundred bucks; since you are willing to buy second-hand parts off ebay, a used one for even less.
Well, apparently I’m not savvy enough. It was the same model number, and I can physically attach connections, but it seems like once I get past that there’s always something in online help written in an alien language.
Those beeps you’re hearing a sort of like morse code; the quantity and duration of beeps maps to an error message. This is called the beep code. Unfortunately, every motherboard manufacturer uses their own patterns for each message (and they don’t even all have the same messages).
You can typically find these codes and their meanings explained on the manufacturers website.
For example, on my current motherboard, if does one long beep followed by 2 short beeps it means it can’t detect any memory. If it’s one long and 3 short, it means no display (or video card) was detected.
Also, some non-obvious mistakes you could have made:
the cpu could be oriented incorrectly (though that’d normally result in no power up at all)
The memory might not be fully seated. iirc, even laptop memory takes a surprising amount of force to seat properly (there’s usually a beep code specifically for missing memory)
some other connection isn’t fully seated. laptops tend to have finicky internal connections that have to be installed a certain way.
My suggestion is to search for a guide on disassembling that particular model of laptop. You can usually find step-by-step instructions with the right search terms (try the laptops model followed by “disassemble”, “teardown”, or “repair”).
Yeah, it seems that once I took the RAM out, one of the memory card slots refused to seat the card properly thereafter.
Anyway, looks like the replacement isn’t quite right for my PC after all. I’m back to the old motherboard, and holding a RAM card in place with painter’s tape. Are you saying it’ll actually stay in place if I press really, really hard?
Edit: Hmmm. Looking at memory usage in Task Manager, it looks like it isn’t actually connected. Hmph.
I looked online, and for that model of motherboard, the repeating beep could mean a few things, but in this case it was probably the loose memory card.
I decided the motherboard (despite having the “right” part number) wasn’t exactly compatible when (1) it said in BIOS it was a different model of computer, and (2) couldn’t get past the startup screen in Windows.
Everybody I know that’s built a computer or replaced a MB (including myself, early on) was surprised at how much force it takes to seat a memory stick. Just be glad you didn’t have to wrestle with one of the cheap cpu heatsink/fan mounts. I’ve had to actually lean on some of those to get it to attach properly.
It is rather unnerving to put that much pressure on two thin slabs of silicon each worth $100 or more.
There can often be many different revisions of a board that have the same model number and are sold as the “same” device, that aren’t totally compatible with each other.
Often this is done because some component or other on the board can be replaced with a cheaper one (or has to be replaced, because the original one is no longer available), or someone discovers that they made an error on the original board and they can fix it in a later production run. None of those changes necessarily warrant changing the model number of the computer, since that’s more of a marketing thing than an actual specification.
