[SOLVED] laptop won't POST, tried many solutions ?

Apr 24, 2021
2
0
510
hi,
my parents have Fujitsu Lifebook AH531 (intel core i5 2410m), my brother cleaned it too much thoroughly, even if not needed, laptop was perfectly working before he cleaned it, he wanted to clean it because laptop was bought second hand just a week ago.

he used medically purified gasoline to clean motherboard and parts, as he couldnt find isopropyl 70% alcohol in our town, (but he shouldnt even needed to clean it at all if he doesnt have isopropyl), he also sprayed some perfume on motherboard so laptop doesn't stink, to smell nice, and used shaving lotion that have a little (i mean, must be 3-4 % alcohol, and that's ethanol not isopropyl) and shaving lotion contains glycerine and purified burdock oil in small traces but most of all shaving lotion contains mostly water and then alchocol (must be 3-4 % ethanol), he dried it for 24-48 hours, but still i suspect it can be residue from oils or i anything.

i never heard how he can spray perfume on motherboard, or use anything other than isopropyl.
so that's the way he cleaned it, he cleaned motherboard and other components, he just didn't touched laptop screen, but all else, he cleaned too much and with wrong supstances.


so, when he assembled it, he was making sure to make all conections right (he took picture before he dissasembled, to assemble it same way).

But when he connected to power cord, with battery in, it don't want to turn on, power button where it's pressed to power on PC, it is showing light as it normaly does.
but when powering on, fan gets spinning fast for a moment, and then cools off, and fan is running periodiacally by itself, like PC is working normally, when i touch where is heat sink it feels warm, and fan is spinning warm air periodically, so that means motherboard and cpu are working, because it regulates cpu temperature and can monitor it. and after all, if cpu was issue, then from where heat comes from? it have integrated gpu, but it displays nothing on screen, not even when i try with bright light to point to lcd, nothing, lcd don't even show any sort of turning on.

I tried connecting to hdmi, once, when it was powered on, but no screen, just fan spinning periodically, on TV it detected it have PC connection, but when trying to connect, on TV says "connecting...", and displays nothing on TV, even if it recognizes some sort of input. Laptop has VGA input port, but i don't have any monitor with VGA input to test it :\

just bought one more second hand RAM stick, tried with that new bought, with old, and together, still nothing, same result, no screen, no POST, HDD is spinning but it settless idle, AND most importantly, i tried plugging in keyboard into all USB connections, and keyboard doesn't power up, i tried mouse in all USBs and not even mouse is not powering up, so it didn't boot into system at all.

I tried to press and hold F2, DEL, to enter BIOS, but still, no luck, it behaves same way, looks like it doesn't detect his internal keyboard.

removed all RAM modules, and when i click on power button to power on, power button flashes, it's blinking, so it means, motherboard is good, and it detects that it doesnt have RAM installed, when i bring back RAM with any of three mentioned methods, it's not powering (as explained above)

CPU can't be issue, because, fan spins, and motherboard regulates temperature with periodically spins, and heat sink is feeling warm.
It have integrated GPU on motherboard, but i don't believe it's GPU, because, it when sort of powered on, when i connect to HDMI, TV recognises device but can't connect to. and also, if GPU was issue, then i would be able to connect external keyboard or mouse and they would power on, so i don't think GPU is problem.

I also tried removing battery, to just power on with power cord, but it powers same way as described above.

But, i found some sort of catch, and maybe that's issue, i just don't know what is it.

Yesterday, i left it turned off, with battery. and left overnight to rest from troubleshooting.
tried to turn on today, same symptoms, "good" i said.

I turned it off, and connected it to power adapter, to charge while off, it showed orange lamp for battery that it's charging, and while i was working other stuff, after 30 minutes, i come back, and to my suprise, that orange light for charging battery is turned off. i turned on and off wall adapter, tried on other wall socket, and still same, it doesn't show that it's charging, it doesn't have orange battery light.

And then, with power cord on, even if it doesn't show any orange light, i turn it on, and blue light for power supply (light, to show, laptop is powered on), turned on, but there is still not battery orange light for charging, not even blue light to show battery charged.

as i said, i already tried turning it on, without battery, but it doesn't turn on.

so, there must be some sort of problem with power supply in laptop, not in cord, or in wall adapter, but something inside circuit, that doesn't allow it to turn on ?
even if fan spins, hdd spins, cpu spins and produce heat that's regulated with motherboard.

so those components look like they are working fine, maybe it doesn't have enough power to turn on USB, BIOS ?

i don't know what to do with it.
my brother assembled it, i don't know what he did good and what not, what cables he did wrong.

plz for advice
 
Last edited:
Solution
Besides any possible misassembly, you should know that in modern electronics many cable traces are simply attached with conductive tape to reduce cost of manufacture. I would imagine that such adhesives would dissolve readily in gasoline.

At least your new brick probably smells nice.
Besides any possible misassembly, you should know that in modern electronics many cable traces are simply attached with conductive tape to reduce cost of manufacture. I would imagine that such adhesives would dissolve readily in gasoline.

At least your new brick probably smells nice.
 
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Solution
Apr 24, 2021
2
0
510
Besides any possible misassembly, you should know that in modern electronics many cable traces are simply attached with conductive tape to reduce cost of manufacture. I would imagine that such adhesives would dissolve readily in gasoline.

At least your new brick probably smells nice.

yay, so there's no fix other than to replace whole motherboard

very sad times


i don't know who said he can use gasoline to clean pc parts, especially motherboard.
 
After such a catalogue of errors I doubt this laptop will ever work again without at the very least replacing the motherboard, that's assuming you can find a compatible one.
Easier to replace the entire laptop and put this whole sorry saga down to experience (or lack of it).
 

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