Thank you so much to Ridge for sending me this wallet and supporting the channel! Here’s the site if you want to check them out AND get 15% OFF! > ridge.com/tronicsfix
Hi I've got a laptop thats had all the stickers removed the screen is broken gives you a black and white star I know its an 11.6 inch screen and lenovo but don't know the model no. could you assist please great video's learnt loads from your channel 👍
with the acer did you try using an external keyboard to get into windows then visiting acers site for a driver for the specific laptop keyboard and installing that?
The amount of devices he gets working by simply fixing the installation of the sofware is frightning. I mean, there is a recovery partition on most laptops for a reason.
I just can't believe the first one was considered salvage just because owner didn't want to reinstall Windows. This is a huge eye opener for what people consider to be e-waste. I hope you sold these to make good profit on these machines.
Really all of them except the yoga was a nice buy, anything with a simple fix like a broken keyboard is a nice problem to have considering how expensive these laptops are.
For the Lenovo: Might also be a problem with either the charging cable, as my Yoga 730 recognizes if it‘s the supposed original one or a different. Which brings me to the second problem, if I use a different one I need to have the laptop open, because there is a light sensor near the camera which has to detect light. Else it won‘t start charging on another charger than the original one. This seems to be a known problem in Lenovo forums.
I am 28 IQ short of even being considered a village idiot but I really do enjoy watching you diagnose every issue and at a very high success rate, diagnose and fix issues with very valuable electronics that people like me would just toss in the trash. Great job and we need more people like you doing this. Cheers!!
Regarding the battery issue, I'd measure what changes when you connect the battery after it triggers 20V, especially on the battery sense pins, either voltage or resistance to ground and resistance to the charge controller. Also I'd check the battery connector soldering
Laptops with battery issues are a tale old as time. Been doing laptop repairs, tech support and troubleshooting for over 15 years. One of the most common things I've run into is no power, no charging, etc. which seems to match up with the Lenovo. Most common fix I've had for that is to remove the battery, plug the unit into ac power, power the laptop on, go into windows, give it a few minutes, then shut down. Power off the laptop, reinstall the battery, boot back in, plug it in, and more often than not, it starts working again.
Laptops specially these compact ones got annoying issues with batteries. Usually the trick that Chris Harper said will work, but what I've seen 9 out of 10 needs a new battery to fix charging issue. A aheap batter isn't the best solution for a budget laptop or a sleek one.
As a computer tech, I was definitely smiling as you struggle with the software issues (like the lan card). We all like to think that windows just has an automatic driver for everything, and while it's driver database is good, it's certainly not perfect :). Great luck getting so many working systems though!
For the Yoga, that was likely a display unit in a security lock. Those dents might have been caused by the security brackets that hold the laptop to the shelf/table.
For the charging issue: my guess is that your dongle is not able to "boot" (initialize) itself, maybe try without your dongle and the computer on, see if the battery icon shows a charging indicator?
Yep - Always try without the dongle to rule that out as a cause! On another note i've seen Lenovo's kill the battery charging controller on several occasions so i'd probably just replace that to rule it out!
The first laptop just goes to show how quickly people abandon something as "broken". I once bought an allegedly broken laptop. Only issue was that a RAM bar wasn't properly set in the slot. That was all it took to "fix" it.
For the first Razer, I've had issues with SSD's you might want to do a whole SSD diagnosis to make sure that it's not faulty and why the image of Windows went corrupt. Sometimes SSDs will work for months, then suddenly clear sectors.
Everytime you say "AHHH NOOO!" whenever you try the laptop to charge, I feel your pain. The expectation you're having that you thought you already fixed it but no. I've felt that a lot whenever I try to fix something too!
Anytime you have a windows install that doesn't detect certain hardware (particularly the internet connection), you just need to install the drivers for it, you do not need to reinstall windows. You can usually find downloads for the driver software from the manufacturer's site if you simply search up the model number of the computer from another computer and download it to a USB drive for it. /IT professional
For the dead keyboard sometimes a BIOS update fixes it. There was nothing wrong with the two first devices. The first one just needed a single Windows reinstall and some drivers (that device manager looked horrible). Now it's worth taking the working ones apart for repasting and cleaning the dust.
Always great to see your thought processes. Its weird that the charge controller chip sees the battery voltage. I would have normally thought a Mosfet between the battery and charge chip isn't working or something, but without a schematic thats tough to diagnose. Really strange, but glad you have most of them working. Great job!
Retailers do not fix the hardware, when a system is "broken" it gets tossed into a pile of broken computers to be auctioned to places that sell computers like this by lots. You still need to know what you are doing and this was not a cheap lot (average 500 per computer, add to that the time to check it over and order parts) but retail wise he could maybe sell them for 5k if the Lenovo gets working properly. Of course, with reselling the laptops, comes the warranty issues. I used to purchase from Surplus by Design but their prices and shipping cost have become prohibitive, we'll let the market die down a little before there are normal profits to be made.
ALWAYS beat the GPU to death as a matter of testing. A good chunk of the time, that's the failure point. Everything will look peachy until you run a game and you get green lines on the screen after a while . . .
If you do hardware IMO it is imperative that you learn the software as well that way you know if it is a hardware problem, otherwise the rabbit holes you fall into suck
Make sure to test the ram on all of these laptops especially the easy fixes. When it comes to PCs and laptops faulty ram can cause crashes and blue screen when put under a very specific load and with basic testing you have a chance you won’t encounter those issues. I suggest run memtest or Aida64 stresstest on all systems and if they pass it’s all fine.
I had the same Battery Issue. Quick fix from an IT guy, he unistalled Drivers and did system restore from old backup. he checked my battery voltage as soon as he grabbed the laptop; then he checked AC connector, not even 5 minutes passes he asked me if we could do a system recovery or format PC to leave software Issues aside. he did system recovery, it took about 15 minutes for the PC to Load, and it was fixed!. 😇 he could have charge me for new battery or other expensive parts, I'm happy that there is some honest workers out there.
One word of advise. It looks like your Windows USB drive has an Asus image on it. If you plan on reselling these, I would either check to see if there is a restore partition available to either revert to the proper factory image, and if not, I would use a generic Windows install (Microsoft has a tool that allows you to create a generic flash drive). If using the Microsoft Image, just say you don't have a key and pick Windows 10 Home for the install. By doing this, it will save the buyer from violating Microsoft's licensing terms.
Also, it will automatically reactivate when you connect to the internet because the key is tied to the laptop in MS servers. So, even a generic win install will activate with the laptops built in key.
Yeah Windows should be able to find the license. Upgraded my mother's old Windows 8 desktop with a ssd and a Windows 10 install so she could access her HEIF photos, and Windows just automatically activated and upgraded the license to Windows 10.
I'm actually planning on "fixing" my own laptop soon. When I bought it, it was super cool running and never made noise. Now the fans are super loud and it gets pretty warm. I suspect the thermal paste is just trash. My mom's laptop was an easy fix. Just a loose video cable. Lets hope mine is just as easy.
Lenovo - if it's fully discharged, it usually needs to boot up 2 or 3 times [turns on, turns off, turns on] and then it's fine. I guess when it powered down when you tested it, you just unplugged it right after it turned off by itself for the first time. also if it's not charging and just flashing, but starts to charge when battery is unplugged, it can be KBC chip (Super IO chip)
I’ve got a very similar issue with my Lenovo X1 Yoga as well. It just decided to stop charging and not even turn on with AC power. Brought mine to a repair shop and they could not fix the issue. Hope you find a solution and maybe I can fix my laptop as well. Thanks for the great content!
@@BobDevV My grandmother's lenovo laptop refuses to charge. It just blinks the charging icon, orange light. The batter is never used but the laptop is 5 years old
Tip: Keyboard replacements are gonna be common in laptops. I've done quite a lot myself. Some are easy to take out and replace, but others require total disassembly.
For the Lenovo laptop, try discharging the capacitors by unplugging the battery, pressing the computer power button for 20 to 50 seconds, replug the battery and then everything *should* start to behave normally again, I've seen this behavior before on other laptops and hearing as you said "it charges normally but starts doing it after a while" reminds me of this, said procedure usually fixes it
Lenovo has been repeating this thing since the old T60 that has somoe sort of latching issue because of residual charge on a mosfet (something like that). But hey, HP support and forums are not very different ....
I think I see your problem... The low voltage LDO outputs on the TPS65988 are not meant to power too many external components. At most the 3v3 LDO output will be powering an external flash chip that stores the firmware for the chip. The ADCIN1 (pin 6) and ADCIN2 (pin 10) pins are not voltage inputs, they are literally Analog to Digital Converters that measure the voltages across a set of external resistors. When the chip boots from the flash it reads the voltages on ADCIN1/2 and uses that information to set the address of the chip on the I2C bus and what it does during boot if something is wrong. This allows the designers to set the behavior of the chip with a few resistor values... With the battery disconnected you should get nothing on VIN_3V3 with everything unplugged. LDO_3V3 and LDO_1V8 are used to start up the external voltage regulators elsewhere on the board but can't really power too much, they are only meant to get things started. The fact you see LDO_3V3 at 3.3 volts says to me the board was designed correctly with this in mind. I believe the flash for the TPS65988 could be bad or the resistors are the wrong values, both could cause it to boot loop and make your meter blink like that. You'll have to read the datasheet for more info and where to get the flash bin but you could check the resistor values and follow the SPI lines to find the flash chip (probably a W25X05CL): 39- SPI_CS (GPIO11) 38- SPI_CLK (GPIO10) 37- SPI_PICO (GPIO9) 36- SPI_POCI (GPIO8) From the datasheet: The TPS65988 loads any ROM patch and-or configuration from flash memory during the boot sequence. The TPS65988 is designed to power the flash from LDO_3V3 in order to support dead-battery or no-battery conditions, and therefore pull-up resistors used for the flash memory must be tied to LDO_3V3. The flash memory IC must support 12 MHz SPI clock frequency. The size of the flash must be at least 64 kB. The SPI controller of the TPS65988 supports SPI Mode 0. For Mode 0, data delay is defined such that data is output on the same cycle as chip select (SPI_CS pin) becomes active. The chip select polarity is active-low. The clock phase is defined such that data (on the SPI_POCI and SPI_PICO pins) is shifted out on the falling edge of the clock (SPI_CLK pin) and data is sampled on the rising edge of the clock. The clock polarity for chip select is defined such that when data is not being transferred the SPI_CLK pin is held (or idling) low. The minimum erasable sector size of the flash must be 4 KB. The W25X05CL or similar is recommended.
Okay, maybe not a bad flash chip... but a bad diode-pair or bad mosfet... If you can find the flash and trace the power backwards from there to one of the LDO power pins on the TPS you'll probably find the component that has failed. It would probably be between one of the the LDO pins on the TPS65988 and the flash chip holding its ROM (maybe a W25X05CL or similar).
The laptop that you're still struggling with you can try and reset the SuperIO. Its normally accessed via a pinhole through the back case with a thin paperclip. It presses a tactile button, hold it for 5-10 seconds. Also enter BIOS and see if there is a battery reset option in there. I find it odd that it will indicate charge with not battery attached unless it has another smaller internal one which some laptops do have.
You installed Windows in the BEST way which is the original/old school method. It allows you to wipe your partitions completely and start with a truly clean OS.
Love the videos, I find them really inspiring. I used to fix a lot of HP laptops back in the day. Older laptops were pretty simple but as things evolved, they got more complicated. Some components now had their own hidden processors. Quite often these would crash but because they always had battery power you couldn't just reboot them. An HP engineer showed me a trick to force a reboot of these hidden processors and it might be worth a try. Disconnect the battery and connect the charger, power on the device and as soon as you see the boot logo before windows starts to load, pull the power cable. Now reinstall the battery and power on as normal. The HP laptops would flash the power light to indicate the hidden processors had rebooted and usually the weird issues would disappear. Hope this helps. Keep up the great work.
A quick tip for aspiring fixers or even someone whose laptop keyboard isn't working and you suspect it's a hardware fault; just plug in any usb/Bluetooth keyboard and if that works, then it's most probably the laptop keyboard problem (still could be liquid damage & fixable) so buy a nee replacement part. If the usb/Bluetooth one doesn't work as well, then it's most probably a software problem.
I just finished watching one of your previous videos, and then this video pops up on my feed. oh well here we go again. I Seriously enjoy watching your videos, I'm not a repair person nor do I know how to fix things but I love watching your videos , almost therapeutic. Keep it going !
for the Lenovo... I would try to update the BIOS to the latest version (even if the actual BIOS is the latest), Load optimized defaults, restart the device and see if it helped. Nice video 👍👍
Normally OEM laptops (ASUS, Razer and so on) have their own deployment systems that handles reinstalls. Most of the times you have issues with a normal reinstall is due to that. But there are always workarounds. Drivers from webpage, a RJ45 adapter and so on.
ACER has problems with EEPROM. Keyboards and TP are generally affected by that. And no a BIOS flash wont fix it. You have to use an ACER tool to fix it. Very easy tho, but i doubt ACER share the EEPROM writing tools
These videos makes me want to fix stuff like broken laptops! I can do simple things nothing so in depth as you. Keep it up! One day I may get enough courage to pull the trigger
I wish you would have figured out the lenovo charging problem. I have the exact same situation on a lenovo x380 yoga. It happened after minimal water damage - a few drops went in around the area of the arrow keys. The laptop turned off and since then I have the exact same behavior as yours. It works fine without connected battery though. But it would be great to revive it back to its full functionality somehow.
It is so nice to see how easy is to replace battery and keyboard in windows laptops, I remember replacement battery in my 2019 MacBook, 1.5h fight with a glue, and I'm not even talk about keyboard, 40 tiny screws, 40+ ribbons and a thin aluminum foil shield.
Firstly great job and great video! :D For the laptop with the charging issue, I would measure with an oscilloscope the instant current drawn when you couple the power cable, because it looks like the power source is hitting some kind of over-current protection or short-circuit protection and cuts the supply off, then tries again every second (and that could be the reason for the flash)...so it might be the faulty battery which is drawing a lot of current at start or maybe a faulty power supply
Anytime you reinstall windows you will need to reinstall the drivers for various hardware components, this generally cures most of the internet issues or little yellow triangles in the device manager.
When installing Windows onto an OEM machine you should download all the necessary drivers and add those to a folder on your USB drive before installing windows... or at least the system and network related drivers. That way you can just install them and be done.
Thank u so much dude, been having problems with overheating in my omen laptop and have been undervolting but I opened up the fans the way u did and had same amount of cat hair as you pulled out , im so glad I watched this video. :)
I would suggest trying a higher wattage charger. Normally USB-C devices are not supposed to draw more current than the charger’s 20v PDO advertises. It’s possible that when Lenovo developed the machine in-rush current was not kept under control (to ensure compatibility with 3rd-party chargers) or that the machine may not be adjusting the maximum current draw based on the max current value provided by the charger. Certain USB-C adapters may be more quick to trip over-current protection than others. For example - if you try to power up a Raspberry Pi 4 from a Nintendo Switch USB-C adapter it will trip the overcurrent protection because the in-rush current drawn by the Raspberry Pi 4 when it is initially connected is greater than the 1.5A current limit for the 5v PDO of the Switch charger. (Off tangent - This is a good thing for the Nintendo Switch because they are especially sensitive to higher voltages finding their way onto pins like CC, VCONN, SBU1, SBU2, etc. - so if that device were to negotiate the 15v from the charger it would likely kill the console)
I just subscribed recently and really like this channel. You remind me of me, but at a higher level of skill. I think I can learn a lot from this channel. Hope you hit a MIL soon. Thanks for the great content. 🤙🤙
I actually use a relatively weak vacuum to get rid of dust when I rebuild, works like a charm and blowing dust always seems to push tiny bits of lint and other "stuff" into small openings.
I liked the hardware fixing more than software, you need a course with software, installing windows, installing drivers, that's all what you need, and wasting sometime browsing windows setting, etc..., Good work, and i like your videos 😌❤️
Steve: "I paid $2500 for these broken laptops!" Me who just paid $150 for a broken laptop with a used market price of arund $100: "Lmao you paid way too much......wait."
10:30 Any laptop that is used for a few years without being cleaned out is gonna look like that inside. I've seen much worse in desktop PCs that sat running 24/7 in a smokers bedroom. They can get bad, like someone just dumped dusted tobacco inside the PC and kept packing it in until the PC died.
Couple things I would have done with the yoga: the charge IC was clearly replaced, I would have removed it and properly reseated it, its possible solder is bridged underneath to the ground plane. Next I would have went on VinaFix and got the schematics. That USB-C port is super sus I would have removed it and looked for bridging on the USB C port, it was probably replaced poorly by a tech.
For the lonovo yoga, You might just check the pin on the battery connector on the board to see if there's any issue since it work perfectly fine when you unplug the connector, hope it help.
Regarding the Lenovo laptop, I have an older Lenovo laptop that had the same issue. I had to replace an 8 pin MOSFET. I followed a guide, so I don't really know why it worked. Though, I do think that my computer has two charging circuits. Hopefully this helps.
I have a Lenovo Y500 (8 years old at this point!) that had battery issues from the very first year. 2 years ago, it decided it didn't like the battery any more, somehow. If I power up the laptop with the battery plugged in, it doesn't even power up. So, I have just been running it like a desktop with the battery removed. That said, it would be nice if a MOSFET replacement fixes my charging circuit issues. Which laptop did you have and where did you find the information about replacing the MOSFET?
@@hooeezit Interestingly, I have a Y580; the model just before yours I think. In the process of writing this comment I remembered some of the details of the issue I had. Long story short, it may have not be the "same" issue but a similar one. I'll try to find the guide so that you can see what I replaced. That's said, paraphrasing, the guide basically said "This is what's bad. Change it with a good one.". I'll come back with an update about whether I found it or not.
@@luchvk I think I found the page. It's on Blogpost, right? And that is pretty much exactly what is happening with my Y500 as well. Solid find. Thanks man! I'll just need to find a place to source that mosfet or an equivalent now.
I got a "broken" thinkpad for 150 and will upgrade it with an "incompatible" screen for another 150. 3K + nvidia, about the most that can be paid for a normal thinkpad.
I had the same slab of lint on my first laptop. Couldn't figure out why it was sounding so loud and running so hot...... This was nearly 20 years ago mind you..... Took it apart and the heat sync was just completely blocked..... After the clean I started it up and I couldn't hear a damn thing.... Thought I had knackered it.... Until I saw the glorious start up screen. My oh my how I rejoyced. Ever since then, everything I own, electronics wise, gets a clean every 6 months. Great video Steve. Made me laugh out loud a few times. Always entertaining. 👍
Though your videos trigger my ocd super hard sometimes. I love them and the work you do. I have learned a lot watching you thank you for the knowledge.
Two things about the battery from me: 1) remove the battery and power. Tap the power button 30 times then hold it for 30 seconds to discharge everything inside the laptop. Plug battery back in and power, to see if it charges. 2) you tested the charging board, what about the battery connector to the motherboard?
for teh charging issue check the conectors mate... i had an issue like this and after i replaced the imput conectors to the battery it stoppped happening great videos :D
I had a problem quite similar to the last one, I tried everything from re-soldering to changing components, finally decided to check what the BIOS said about the charger, turned out that the charger watts weren't enough for the battery to charge so I purchased one with more watts and it solved the problem. The issue as I said was similar, once I connected the charger with less watts the laptop would turn off immediately if the battery was connected, once the battery was disconnected it worked normally
You absolute mad lad, I was actually thinking about you the other day when I took my switch to a repair shop and they made it worse :( Rip Nintendo Switch
I know hindsight is always 20/20 but 7:40 and later plugging in the charger then the battery was a pretty clear sign the battery wasn't the problem and if it wasn't for the latter I would check for cracked solder joints, since that isn't the case I would check the power delivery chip or there might be some faulty resistor/capacitor making it think it's going out of spec and turn off. Although I wouldn't sell it to someone, I think an easy fix would be to insert a mosfet between the battery and have a 555 timer or microcontroller detect 20v from the charger and disconnect the battery for a couple seconds, that "should" technically make it functional unless something changes.
Hi Steve, great Video!! Dust is the greatest enemy. Some people don't understand this and never care for their laptops. Many take their laptop to bed with them and cover the fans and then wonder if something breaks🤦🏻♂️ Greetings from AUSTRIA (EU) 🍻
Thank you so much to Ridge for sending me this wallet and supporting the channel! Here’s the site if you
want to check them out AND get 15% OFF! > ridge.com/tronicsfix
Hi I've got a laptop thats had all the stickers removed the screen is broken gives you a black and white star I know its an 11.6 inch screen and lenovo but don't know the model no. could you assist please great video's learnt loads from your channel 👍
We want MOREEE AND MOREEEEEEEEEEEEE !
Can I buy a laptop from you?
Do a bios update.
with the acer did you try using an external keyboard to get into windows then visiting acers site for a driver for the specific laptop keyboard and installing that?
If this channel has taught me anything it is that 2/3rds of all electronics dumped in the bin are not actually broken and just need maintenance
The amount of devices he gets working by simply fixing the installation of the sofware is frightning. I mean, there is a recovery partition on most laptops for a reason.
I just can't believe the first one was considered salvage just because owner didn't want to reinstall Windows. This is a huge eye opener for what people consider to be e-waste. I hope you sold these to make good profit on these machines.
That first laptop is a heck of a buy, all it needs is some drivers and good to go!
The hp spectre is not bad too
Jup just needs some drivers.
I always wonder who sells this since it's clearly not broken.
I really need the webpage that sells computers that just need cleaning and drivers
Really all of them except the yoga was a nice buy, anything with a simple fix like a broken keyboard is a nice problem to have considering how expensive these laptops are.
For the Lenovo: Might also be a problem with either the charging cable, as my Yoga 730 recognizes if it‘s the supposed original one or a different. Which brings me to the second problem, if I use a different one I need to have the laptop open, because there is a light sensor near the camera which has to detect light. Else it won‘t start charging on another charger than the original one. This seems to be a known problem in Lenovo forums.
I am 28 IQ short of even being considered a village idiot but I really do enjoy watching you diagnose every issue and at a very high success rate, diagnose and fix issues with very valuable electronics that people like me would just toss in the trash. Great job and we need more people like you doing this. Cheers!!
yet you seem like Einstein compared to most other people on the internet 🤣
None has a short IQ or considered to be an idiot. With a bit of learning, you can also understand anything. All you need is to invest time
But you probably have 28 EQ more then most people :)
@@jochemcode4570 🤣🤣
For the Lenovo, you might want to try to use their proprietary charger just in case it's an issue with the USB-C charger/port
Regarding the battery issue, I'd measure what changes when you connect the battery after it triggers 20V, especially on the battery sense pins, either voltage or resistance to ground and resistance to the charge controller. Also I'd check the battery connector soldering
Laptops with battery issues are a tale old as time. Been doing laptop repairs, tech support and troubleshooting for over 15 years. One of the most common things I've run into is no power, no charging, etc. which seems to match up with the Lenovo. Most common fix I've had for that is to remove the battery, plug the unit into ac power, power the laptop on, go into windows, give it a few minutes, then shut down. Power off the laptop, reinstall the battery, boot back in, plug it in, and more often than not, it starts working again.
Laptops specially these compact ones got annoying issues with batteries. Usually the trick that Chris Harper said will work, but what I've seen 9 out of 10 needs a new battery to fix charging issue. A aheap batter isn't the best solution for a budget laptop or a sleek one.
As a computer tech, I was definitely smiling as you struggle with the software issues (like the lan card). We all like to think that windows just has an automatic driver for everything, and while it's driver database is good, it's certainly not perfect :). Great luck getting so many working systems though!
For the Yoga, that was likely a display unit in a security lock. Those dents might have been caused by the security brackets that hold the laptop to the shelf/table.
Love the way how this guy shows all his failed attempts honestly 👏
For the charging issue: my guess is that your dongle is not able to "boot" (initialize) itself, maybe try without your dongle and the computer on, see if the battery icon shows a charging indicator?
correct. I have same issue with those USB-c meters.
Yep - Always try without the dongle to rule that out as a cause! On another note i've seen Lenovo's kill the battery charging controller on several occasions so i'd probably just replace that to rule it out!
yep, i would do the same thing... i think the issue is the dongle, the charger, battery and laptop are just fine imo.
Also try to flip the usb-c cable.
Totally agree with that, I had the same issue with such a dongle.
The first laptop just goes to show how quickly people abandon something as "broken". I once bought an allegedly broken laptop. Only issue was that a RAM bar wasn't properly set in the slot. That was all it took to "fix" it.
I know these videos are super expensive, but they are for sure the best :) The more time with Steve, the better!
Glad you like them!
For the first Razer, I've had issues with SSD's you might want to do a whole SSD diagnosis to make sure that it's not faulty and why the image of Windows went corrupt. Sometimes SSDs will work for months, then suddenly clear sectors.
"There is an error code, that's something to go off of at least." - Proof that he's not a software guy 😂 Windows BugCheck codes are 100% useless!
Everytime you say "AHHH NOOO!" whenever you try the laptop to charge, I feel your pain. The expectation you're having that you thought you already fixed it but no. I've felt that a lot whenever I try to fix something too!
I had paid around $50 for 2 broken laptops and both of them was actually very simple to fix. And it was a success.
Anytime you have a windows install that doesn't detect certain hardware (particularly the internet connection), you just need to install the drivers for it, you do not need to reinstall windows. You can usually find downloads for the driver software from the manufacturer's site if you simply search up the model number of the computer from another computer and download it to a USB drive for it. /IT professional
For the dead keyboard sometimes a BIOS update fixes it.
There was nothing wrong with the two first devices. The first one just needed a single Windows reinstall and some drivers (that device manager looked horrible).
Now it's worth taking the working ones apart for repasting and cleaning the dust.
Always great to see your thought processes. Its weird that the charge controller chip sees the battery voltage. I would have normally thought a Mosfet between the battery and charge chip isn't working or something, but without a schematic thats tough to diagnose. Really strange, but glad you have most of them working. Great job!
It does seem strange to me. We'll see what the comments say when this goes live tomorrow.
P
The charge controller chip may see Vbatt for features like over voltage protection or similar safety features right?
I am constantly surprised by how many items you get that only need a simple fix like re-installing the OS.
Retailers do not fix the hardware, when a system is "broken" it gets tossed into a pile of broken computers to be auctioned to places that sell computers like this by lots. You still need to know what you are doing and this was not a cheap lot (average 500 per computer, add to that the time to check it over and order parts) but retail wise he could maybe sell them for 5k if the Lenovo gets working properly. Of course, with reselling the laptops, comes the warranty issues. I used to purchase from Surplus by Design but their prices and shipping cost have become prohibitive, we'll let the market die down a little before there are normal profits to be made.
ALWAYS beat the GPU to death as a matter of testing. A good chunk of the time, that's the failure point. Everything will look peachy until you run a game and you get green lines on the screen after a while . . .
If you do hardware IMO it is imperative that you learn the software as well that way you know if it is a hardware problem, otherwise the rabbit holes you fall into suck
Make sure to test the ram on all of these laptops especially the easy fixes. When it comes to PCs and laptops faulty ram can cause crashes and blue screen when put under a very specific load and with basic testing you have a chance you won’t encounter those issues. I suggest run memtest or Aida64 stresstest on all systems and if they pass it’s all fine.
Never been a tech wiz or a genius at fixing things but It is certainly relaxing to see someone fix these laptops.
I had the same Battery Issue. Quick fix from an IT guy, he unistalled Drivers and did system restore from old backup.
he checked my battery voltage as soon as he grabbed the laptop; then he checked AC connector, not even 5 minutes passes he asked me if we could do a system recovery or format PC to leave software Issues aside. he did system recovery, it took about 15 minutes for the PC to Load, and it was fixed!. 😇 he could have charge me for new battery or other expensive parts, I'm happy that there is some honest workers out there.
From not repairing laptops to repair a lot of them, congrats! Nice video
Glad you enjoyed it
One word of advise. It looks like your Windows USB drive has an Asus image on it. If you plan on reselling these, I would either check to see if there is a restore partition available to either revert to the proper factory image, and if not, I would use a generic Windows install (Microsoft has a tool that allows you to create a generic flash drive). If using the Microsoft Image, just say you don't have a key and pick Windows 10 Home for the install. By doing this, it will save the buyer from violating Microsoft's licensing terms.
Good to know. Thanks!
@@Tronicsfix windows media creation tool is what ya need! 😁
Also, it will automatically reactivate when you connect to the internet because the key is tied to the laptop in MS servers. So, even a generic win install will activate with the laptops built in key.
Yeah Windows should be able to find the license. Upgraded my mother's old Windows 8 desktop with a ssd and a Windows 10 install so she could access her HEIF photos, and Windows just automatically activated and upgraded the license to Windows 10.
I'm actually planning on "fixing" my own laptop soon. When I bought it, it was super cool running and never made noise. Now the fans are super loud and it gets pretty warm. I suspect the thermal paste is just trash. My mom's laptop was an easy fix. Just a loose video cable. Lets hope mine is just as easy.
Good luck!
I really enjoyed the detail in this video. Pulling the chip pinouts up and probing voltages was something new.
Glad you liked that part. It's always hard to know how much to keep in.
Lenovo - if it's fully discharged, it usually needs to boot up 2 or 3 times [turns on, turns off, turns on] and then it's fine. I guess when it powered down when you tested it, you just unplugged it right after it turned off by itself for the first time.
also if it's not charging and just flashing, but starts to charge when battery is unplugged, it can be KBC chip (Super IO chip)
I’ve got a very similar issue with my Lenovo X1 Yoga as well. It just decided to stop charging and not even turn on with AC power. Brought mine to a repair shop and they could not fix the issue. Hope you find a solution and maybe I can fix my laptop as well. Thanks for the great content!
@@BobDevV My grandmother's lenovo laptop refuses to charge. It just blinks the charging icon, orange light. The batter is never used but the laptop is 5 years old
Your determination in restoring electronics and your content deserves to be subscribed. Kudos and keep up the good work!
Tip: Keyboard replacements are gonna be common in laptops. I've done quite a lot myself. Some are easy to take out and replace, but others require total disassembly.
For the Lenovo laptop, try discharging the capacitors by unplugging the battery, pressing the computer power button for 20 to 50 seconds, replug the battery and then everything *should* start to behave normally again, I've seen this behavior before on other laptops and hearing as you said "it charges normally but starts doing it after a while" reminds me of this, said procedure usually fixes it
Lenovo has been repeating this thing since the old T60 that has somoe sort of latching issue because of residual charge on a mosfet (something like that). But hey, HP support and forums are not very different ....
I think I see your problem...
The low voltage LDO outputs on the TPS65988 are not meant to power too many external components. At most the 3v3 LDO output will be powering an external flash chip that stores the firmware for the chip. The ADCIN1 (pin 6) and ADCIN2 (pin 10) pins are not voltage inputs, they are literally Analog to Digital Converters that measure the voltages across a set of external resistors. When the chip boots from the flash it reads the voltages on ADCIN1/2 and uses that information to set the address of the chip on the I2C bus and what it does during boot if something is wrong. This allows the designers to set the behavior of the chip with a few resistor values...
With the battery disconnected you should get nothing on VIN_3V3 with everything unplugged. LDO_3V3 and LDO_1V8 are used to start up the external voltage regulators elsewhere on the board but can't really power too much, they are only meant to get things started. The fact you see LDO_3V3 at 3.3 volts says to me the board was designed correctly with this in mind.
I believe the flash for the TPS65988 could be bad or the resistors are the wrong values, both could cause it to boot loop and make your meter blink like that. You'll have to read the datasheet for more info and where to get the flash bin but you could check the resistor values and follow the SPI lines to find the flash chip (probably a W25X05CL):
39- SPI_CS (GPIO11)
38- SPI_CLK (GPIO10)
37- SPI_PICO (GPIO9)
36- SPI_POCI (GPIO8)
From the datasheet:
The TPS65988 loads any ROM patch and-or configuration from flash memory during the boot sequence. The TPS65988 is designed to power the flash from LDO_3V3 in order to support dead-battery or no-battery conditions, and therefore pull-up resistors used for the flash memory must be tied to LDO_3V3. The flash memory IC must support 12 MHz SPI clock frequency. The size of the flash must be at least 64 kB. The SPI controller of the TPS65988 supports SPI Mode 0. For Mode 0, data delay is defined such that data is output on the same cycle as chip select (SPI_CS pin) becomes active. The chip select polarity is active-low. The clock phase is defined such that data (on the SPI_POCI and SPI_PICO pins) is shifted out on the falling edge of the clock (SPI_CLK pin) and data is sampled on the rising edge of the clock. The clock polarity for chip select is defined such that when data is not being transferred the SPI_CLK pin is held (or idling) low. The minimum erasable sector size of the flash must be 4 KB. The W25X05CL or similar is recommended.
Ya, that's what I was thinking. LOL, Jk. Seriously though, thanks. That's a lot of info. So how would one fix this type of problem?
Okay, maybe not a bad flash chip... but a bad diode-pair or bad mosfet... If you can find the flash and trace the power backwards from there to one of the LDO power pins on the TPS you'll probably find the component that has failed. It would probably be between one of the the LDO pins on the TPS65988 and the flash chip holding its ROM (maybe a W25X05CL or similar).
But without a schematic you'd probably have to poke and pray....
24:00 try to change CMOS BATTERY ig... hmmmmm.......
I've had to fix 3 laptops before and 1 was a failure to me. Watching your video reaffirmed my debugging technique.
For the charging issue: I think the problem is a short from a faulty capacitor, you should be able to use your multimeter to check
I really like that your doin new stuff like the camera, and also now some laptop. Keep up the good and honest repairs!
The laptop that you're still struggling with you can try and reset the SuperIO. Its normally accessed via a pinhole through the back case with a thin paperclip. It presses a tactile button, hold it for 5-10 seconds. Also enter BIOS and see if there is a battery reset option in there. I find it odd that it will indicate charge with not battery attached unless it has another smaller internal one which some laptops do have.
You installed Windows in the BEST way which is the original/old school method. It allows you to wipe your partitions completely and start with a truly clean OS.
Love the videos, I find them really inspiring. I used to fix a lot of HP laptops back in the day. Older laptops were pretty simple but as things evolved, they got more complicated. Some components now had their own hidden processors. Quite often these would crash but because they always had battery power you couldn't just reboot them. An HP engineer showed me a trick to force a reboot of these hidden processors and it might be worth a try. Disconnect the battery and connect the charger, power on the device and as soon as you see the boot logo before windows starts to load, pull the power cable. Now reinstall the battery and power on as normal. The HP laptops would flash the power light to indicate the hidden processors had rebooted and usually the weird issues would disappear. Hope this helps. Keep up the great work.
Man you’re closing to a million subs ! Congrats really
At his point I hope we get 4k content , thanks !
A quick tip for aspiring fixers or even someone whose laptop keyboard isn't working and you suspect it's a hardware fault; just plug in any usb/Bluetooth keyboard and if that works, then it's most probably the laptop keyboard problem (still could be liquid damage & fixable) so buy a nee replacement part. If the usb/Bluetooth one doesn't work as well, then it's most probably a software problem.
Man this video makes me want to get into fixing laptops and stuff, it looks super fun and seems quite intuitive really!
Normal people be like: “please don’t turn off,keep working”
Steve be like: “I hope we have have a hardware issue so I can open this computer”
I just finished watching one of your previous videos, and then this video pops up on my feed. oh well here we go again.
I Seriously enjoy watching your videos, I'm not a repair person nor do I know how to fix things but I love watching your videos , almost therapeutic. Keep it going !
Thank you! So glad you're enjoying these.
for the Lenovo... I would try to update the BIOS to the latest version (even if the actual BIOS is the latest), Load optimized defaults, restart the device and see if it helped.
Nice video 👍👍
Love this vid! I had a bunch of videos in my feed but clicked on this first because of gaming laptops! Please do more of these in the future!
Normally OEM laptops (ASUS, Razer and so on) have their own deployment systems that handles reinstalls. Most of the times you have issues with a normal reinstall is due to that. But there are always workarounds. Drivers from webpage, a RJ45 adapter and so on.
ACER has problems with EEPROM. Keyboards and TP are generally affected by that. And no a BIOS flash wont fix it. You have to use an ACER tool to fix it. Very easy tho, but i doubt ACER share the EEPROM writing tools
These videos makes me want to fix stuff like broken laptops! I can do simple things nothing so in depth as you. Keep it up! One day I may get enough courage to pull the trigger
I wish you would have figured out the lenovo charging problem. I have the exact same situation on a lenovo x380 yoga. It happened after minimal water damage - a few drops went in around the area of the arrow keys. The laptop turned off and since then I have the exact same behavior as yours. It works fine without connected battery though. But it would be great to revive it back to its full functionality somehow.
Love this stuff. I've done low level repairs but never tried a microscope. Interested in an update, and even purchase someday
You got me cracking up at 2:30 😂 already earned a like!
It is so nice to see how easy is to replace battery and keyboard in windows laptops, I remember replacement battery in my 2019 MacBook, 1.5h fight with a glue, and I'm not even talk about keyboard, 40 tiny screws, 40+ ribbons and a thin aluminum foil shield.
Firstly great job and great video! :D For the laptop with the charging issue, I would measure with an oscilloscope the instant current drawn when you couple the power cable, because it looks like the power source is hitting some kind of over-current protection or short-circuit protection and cuts the supply off, then tries again every second (and that could be the reason for the flash)...so it might be the faulty battery which is drawing a lot of current at start or maybe a faulty power supply
Anytime you reinstall windows you will need to reinstall the drivers for various hardware components, this generally cures most of the internet issues or little yellow triangles in the device manager.
When installing Windows onto an OEM machine you should download all the necessary drivers and add those to a folder on your USB drive before installing windows... or at least the system and network related drivers. That way you can just install them and be done.
Thank u so much dude, been having problems with overheating in my omen laptop and have been undervolting but I opened up the fans the way u did and had same amount of cat hair as you pulled out , im so glad I watched this video. :)
I would suggest trying a higher wattage charger. Normally USB-C devices are not supposed to draw more current than the charger’s 20v PDO advertises.
It’s possible that when Lenovo developed the machine in-rush current was not kept under control (to ensure compatibility with 3rd-party chargers) or that the machine may not be adjusting the maximum current draw based on the max current value provided by the charger.
Certain USB-C adapters may be more quick to trip over-current protection than others. For example - if you try to power up a Raspberry Pi 4 from a Nintendo Switch USB-C adapter it will trip the overcurrent protection because the in-rush current drawn by the Raspberry Pi 4 when it is initially connected is greater than the 1.5A current limit for the 5v PDO of the Switch charger. (Off tangent - This is a good thing for the Nintendo Switch because they are especially sensitive to higher voltages finding their way onto pins like CC, VCONN, SBU1, SBU2, etc. - so if that device were to negotiate the 15v from the charger it would likely kill the console)
Wait..what..? Is it Friday already..? Loved this content..can't wait to see this channel hit 1 million! #Tronics Tuesday... #TronicsFix
I just subscribed recently and really like this channel. You remind me of me, but at a higher level of skill. I think I can learn a lot from this channel. Hope you hit a MIL soon. Thanks for the great content. 🤙🤙
Welcome to my channel! So glad you're enjoying it
Glad you and others are out there fixing these so they don’t end up in the ocean.
I actually use a relatively weak vacuum to get rid of dust when I rebuild, works like a charm and blowing dust always seems to push tiny bits of lint and other "stuff" into small openings.
honestly, i love your real-time troubleshooting of issues. the battery thing seemed weird and all i can guess is lack of (adequate) power.
4:12 is where the ridge wallet ad ends :)
I liked the hardware fixing more than software, you need a course with software, installing windows, installing drivers, that's all what you need, and wasting sometime browsing windows setting, etc...,
Good work, and i like your videos 😌❤️
I like the hardware fixes a lot better as well! Glad you enjoyed.
Steve: "I paid $2500 for these broken laptops!"
Me who just paid $150 for a broken laptop with a used market price of arund $100: "Lmao you paid way too much......wait."
Love this new trend of fixing random things that are not just consoles in your channel
10:30 Any laptop that is used for a few years without being cleaned out is gonna look like that inside. I've seen much worse in desktop PCs that sat running 24/7 in a smokers bedroom. They can get bad, like someone just dumped dusted tobacco inside the PC and kept packing it in until the PC died.
I mean that razed laptop is a very small form factor so if it’s used in a dirty home it could very well look like that in months.
You are the reason I want to learn micro soldering so bad.
Great video as always.
Couple things I would have done with the yoga: the charge IC was clearly replaced, I would have removed it and properly reseated it, its possible solder is bridged underneath to the ground plane. Next I would have went on VinaFix and got the schematics. That USB-C port is super sus I would have removed it and looked for bridging on the USB C port, it was probably replaced poorly by a tech.
I really like these laptop fixes. I love learning how to diagnose issues a bit more generally.
For the lonovo yoga, You might just check the pin on the battery connector on the board to see if there's any issue since it work perfectly fine when you unplug the connector, hope it help.
I like these longer videos! Thank you for the awesome content!
Legit laughed out loud when you petted the last Razer.... I'm always wondering how people let their stuff get so dirty.
What a tank, a ocuple or particles of dust on any HP product, overheats by 0.2°C then video chip is gone. CRAP !!!
Seeing you comforting the Razer keyboard was the cutest thing I've seen today
Regarding the Lenovo laptop, I have an older Lenovo laptop that had the same issue. I had to replace an 8 pin MOSFET. I followed a guide, so I don't really know why it worked. Though, I do think that my computer has two charging circuits. Hopefully this helps.
Thanks!
I have a Lenovo Y500 (8 years old at this point!) that had battery issues from the very first year. 2 years ago, it decided it didn't like the battery any more, somehow. If I power up the laptop with the battery plugged in, it doesn't even power up. So, I have just been running it like a desktop with the battery removed.
That said, it would be nice if a MOSFET replacement fixes my charging circuit issues. Which laptop did you have and where did you find the information about replacing the MOSFET?
@@hooeezit Interestingly, I have a Y580; the model just before yours I think.
In the process of writing this comment I remembered some of the details of the issue I had. Long story short, it may have not be the "same" issue but a similar one.
I'll try to find the guide so that you can see what I replaced. That's said, paraphrasing, the guide basically said "This is what's bad. Change it with a good one.".
I'll come back with an update about whether I found it or not.
@@hooeezit I can't post the link. I think it's being filtered as spam.
@@luchvk I think I found the page. It's on Blogpost, right? And that is pretty much exactly what is happening with my Y500 as well. Solid find. Thanks man! I'll just need to find a place to source that mosfet or an equivalent now.
Really nice video Steve! Unbelievable that people are selling such expensive laptops as faulty just because of a windows issue.
He buys faulty notebooks for an average of $500 that might as well be complete wrecks, sounds implausible.
Imagine the dismay of the first guy if he saw all he needed was a fresh OS installation LOL
this is very nice. The honesty in repairing, trying other stuff, and finding its not working. Good video!
I got a "broken" thinkpad for 150 and will upgrade it with an "incompatible" screen for another 150. 3K + nvidia, about the most that can be paid for a normal thinkpad.
I had the same slab of lint on my first laptop. Couldn't figure out why it was sounding so loud and running so hot...... This was nearly 20 years ago mind you..... Took it apart and the heat sync was just completely blocked..... After the clean I started it up and I couldn't hear a damn thing.... Thought I had knackered it.... Until I saw the glorious start up screen.
My oh my how I rejoyced.
Ever since then, everything I own, electronics wise, gets a clean every 6 months.
Great video Steve. Made me laugh out loud a few times. Always entertaining. 👍
I'm not an expert in electronics but I watch your videos a lot, they're educational and fun to watch (sorry for my bad english). Greetings from Mexico
Thanks for watching! So glad you enjoy these videos.
Though your videos trigger my ocd super hard sometimes. I love them and the work you do. I have learned a lot watching you thank you for the knowledge.
Dont forget the perfect amount of thermal paste
@EpicTendoGameSkills he's a member
Two things about the battery from me: 1) remove the battery and power. Tap the power button 30 times then hold it for 30 seconds to discharge everything inside the laptop. Plug battery back in and power, to see if it charges. 2) you tested the charging board, what about the battery connector to the motherboard?
The first Razer looked like it needed drivers? The device manager showed several problems. Did that all get fixed once you got on line?
Yes, it's working great so far
@@Tronicsfix Awesome. You did good on this batch of goodies
for teh charging issue check the conectors mate... i had an issue like this and after i replaced the imput conectors to the battery it stoppped happening
great videos :D
I had a problem quite similar to the last one, I tried everything from re-soldering to changing components, finally decided to check what the BIOS said about the charger, turned out that the charger watts weren't enough for the battery to charge so I purchased one with more watts and it solved the problem.
The issue as I said was similar, once I connected the charger with less watts the laptop would turn off immediately if the battery was connected, once the battery was disconnected it worked normally
That's a good idea. I'll be checking that.
@@Tronicsfix do a video
@@Tronicsfix hope it helps
man i forgot about your channel, took me a year to see you again, i remember you fixing some random xbox and nintendo switch
You absolute mad lad, I was actually thinking about you the other day when I took my switch to a repair shop and they made it worse :(
Rip Nintendo Switch
Rest in pepperoni
One of the more entertaining video I've watch in a while bro. Nice nice nice!
This is why I dont buy brand new stuff especially laptops and smartphone. I'd rather buy last year high ends
Been waiting for this video for a few days, I knew that laptop repair had done well enough to warrant a full blown laptop omnibus.
Thank you!
I know hindsight is always 20/20 but 7:40 and later plugging in the charger then the battery was a pretty clear sign the battery wasn't the problem and if it wasn't for the latter I would check for cracked solder joints, since that isn't the case I would check the power delivery chip or there might be some faulty resistor/capacitor making it think it's going out of spec and turn off.
Although I wouldn't sell it to someone, I think an easy fix would be to insert a mosfet between the battery and have a 555 timer or microcontroller detect 20v from the charger and disconnect the battery for a couple seconds, that "should" technically make it functional unless something changes.
Hi Steve, great Video!!
Dust is the greatest enemy. Some people don't understand this and never care for their laptops. Many take their laptop to bed with them and cover the fans and then wonder if something breaks🤦🏻♂️
Greetings from AUSTRIA (EU) 🍻