Notebook/laptop not turning on & salvaging notebook/laptop parts

[Silvan96]

Before I start, I did scour the internet repeatedly, for long sessions to find an answer to my problem, but either no-one yet attempted to do what I want to do, or it’s simply not possible.
A few months ago, my custom high-end laptop (yes,"for playing games and stuff") unexpectedly turned off, and never turned on again. Now, there are several things that should aid in putting together the puzzle:
- the laptop was under high workload when it crashed, and it’s usually always above 60°C anyway
- it wouldn’t turn on again by depressing the "on"-button
- I noticed that my power adapter, which has a green light to indicate being connected to a power supply, would turn off when I plugged it into the laptop. Using a new power adapter yielded the same results.
- Repeating the experiment above after removing the battery yielded the same results.

This results in my first question: what’s the problem? I came to the conclusion that the motherboard was fried and/or short-circuited. This would explain why the power adapter would turn off when connected to the laptop, as a safety measure.

Now, the second part assumes my motherboard is fried. I called the company I got the laptop from and asked them about guarantee and repair costs, turns out I’d have to pay for the parts, while labour is still covered. A new motherboard would cost around 300 pounds, + 150 pounds of shipping costs. Since I’m short on cash, I crossed this option off my list. For that kind of money, I’d buy a new rig anyway. So my idea was: I take the undamaged components, buy a new motherboard myself, put everything together and run it in either a new laptop barebone, or a makeshift pc case (honestly, any case will do as long as it runs). Mobility isn’t a requirement anymore. The problem is, I found nothing the like.

My second question is if i could somehow salvage the still-good parts and put together a running system, and if that solution is economically viable.

The computer specs are:
Case: Some MSI barebone
Motherboard: Mobile INTEL HM87 Express Chipset Mainboard
CPU: Intel Core i7-4700MQ Mobile Processor 2.4GHz
GPU: Nvidia GTX 560M PCIe Video
RAM: 4x4GB notebook ram (yes , I overdid it on this one)
Wireless Card: Some built-in card
Sound Card: nothing specific, just on-board sound

Thank you for having the patience to read this, and I appreciate any help I can get.

 

[jaraldo]

Hey,

I once had a laptop that did the same thing, it was stuck in a bootloop one day, then never turned back on :/ I was sure the cause was from overheating, though I never did figure out what part went bad. (assumed the motherboard)

Since you have a dedicated GPU and your CPU has some integrated graphics, you could try to take out the GPU and see if your computer will start up. I have a feeling you are right about it being the motherboard though.

Motherboards are usually custom made for laptop cases, this is why it costs you an arm and a leg to get a replacement.

You could salvage the RAM/HDD forsure and try to salvage the CPU/GPU, but it could be that one of them that is the problem also.

 

[Silvan96]

Hey,

I once had a laptop that did the same thing, it was stuck in a bootloop one day, then never turned back on :/ I was sure the cause was from overheating, though I never did figure out what part went bad. (assumed the motherboard)

Since you have a dedicated GPU and your CPU has some integrated graphics, you could try to take out the GPU and see if your computer will start up. I have a feeling you are right about it being the motherboard though.

Motherboards are usually custom made for laptop cases, this is why it costs you an arm and a leg to get a replacement.

You could salvage the RAM/HDD forsure and try to salvage the CPU/GPU, but it could be that one of them that is the problem also.

Alright, that's a start. Well, I'll probably have to take a look at the storage devices anyway to get my files back eventually. For the other parts, I did some digging around and found that my CPU has a very specific socket requirement, to which I didn't find a suitable mainboard. The GPU, being PCI-e, should work with all the normal mainboards, no? (Thinking of buying a portion of the parts for my new desktop, I had an "AsRock Z97 Extreme6" in mind). As for the RAM, I'm pretty sure they'll be compatible.