Me thinks I did a very stupid, again. My laptop had died a while back
and I concluded the board was fried. I successfully swapped the board
and the system ran fine. The board came out of a used laptop with a bad
monitor, or something (can't really remember). I upgraded from Win7 to
Win 10 and though it's not a box I use much since I retired, I wanted it
for traveling.
It all worked just fine except, the new board had an i3, where the old
board had an i7. It was slower than I would have liked, and thought I'd
see if it was a soldered or socketed CPU. It was socketed so I swapped
the old i7 back into the working system, but it wouldn't post. I took
it all apart again, and everything seemed hooked up properly, so I
figured I had no choice but put the i3 back in. Naturally, that won't
post either.

My best guess is that whatever happened before with the old setup, fried
both the CPU and the motherboard, and putting the fried CPU in the good
board had now fried the new motherboard?

Might be time for another purchase. 8-(

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On 12/5/23 09:13, sticks wrote:
> Me thinks I did a very stupid, again.  My laptop had died a while back
> and I concluded the board was fried.  I successfully swapped the board
> and the system ran fine.  The board came out of a used laptop with a bad
> monitor, or something (can't really remember).  I upgraded from Win7 to
> Win 10 and though it's not a box I use much since I retired, I wanted it
> for traveling.
> It all worked just fine except, the new board had an i3, where the old
> board had an i7.  It was slower than I would have liked, and thought I'd
> see if it was a soldered or socketed CPU.  It was socketed so I swapped
> the old i7 back into the working system, but it wouldn't post.  I took
> it all apart again, and everything seemed hooked up properly, so I
> figured I had no choice but put the i3 back in.  Naturally, that won't
> post either.
>
> My best guess is that whatever happened before with the old setup, fried
> both the CPU and the motherboard, and putting the fried CPU in the good
> board had now fried the new motherboard?
>
> Might be time for another purchase.  8-(
>
> Hi Sticks,

Get a flashlight and magnifying glass. Check the pins on
the CPU socket. Some of them may be bent over. If so,
try straightening them back. And try again, but be very
gentle and careful setting the CPU in the socket. Straight
down and no sliding around.

-T

On 12/5/2023 1:23 PM, T wrote:
> On 12/5/23 09:13, sticks wrote:
>> Me thinks I did a very stupid, again.  My laptop had died a while back
>> and I concluded the board was fried.  I successfully swapped the board
>> and the system ran fine.  The board came out of a used laptop with a
>> bad monitor, or something (can't really remember).  I upgraded from
>> Win7 to Win 10 and though it's not a box I use much since I retired, I
>> wanted it for traveling.
>> It all worked just fine except, the new board had an i3, where the old
>> board had an i7.  It was slower than I would have liked, and thought
>> I'd see if it was a soldered or socketed CPU.  It was socketed so I
>> swapped the old i7 back into the working system, but it wouldn't
>> post.  I took it all apart again, and everything seemed hooked up
>> properly, so I figured I had no choice but put the i3 back in.
>> Naturally, that won't post either.
>>
>> My best guess is that whatever happened before with the old setup,
>> fried both the CPU and the motherboard, and putting the fried CPU in
>> the good board had now fried the new motherboard?
>>
>> Might be time for another purchase.  8-(
>>
>> Hi Sticks,
>
> Get a flashlight and magnifying glass.  Check the pins on
> the CPU socket.  Some of them may be bent over.  If so,
> try straightening them back.  And try again, but be very
> gentle and careful setting the CPU in the socket.  Straight
> down and no sliding around.

I did carefully check alignment and pins before each swap. After I took
out the i7 again, they were still just fine, too. I guess the only
question I have is if the i7 originally swapped out for the new board
and CUP the i3 was toast, is it possible that a corrupted CPU could
damage an otherwise good motherboard? If not possible\probable, I guess
I'd take it apart again and do some looking.

As most of you know, it is a pain to keep taking these apart and the
ribbons and connectors get more delicate each time. If a bad CPU could
harm the motherboard, I probably would not spend any more time trying to
do any more replacement parts. I figure the drive is still good, and
could salvage that. But I don't know how else to check things if it
won't even post. It's disappointing since I did get Win 10 working good
on it, but it is what it is I guess.

--
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NOTE: If you use Google Groups I don't see you,
unless you're whitelisted and that's doubtful.

On 12/5/23 14:34, sticks wrote:
> On 12/5/2023 1:23 PM, T wrote:
>> On 12/5/23 09:13, sticks wrote:
>>> Me thinks I did a very stupid, again.  My laptop had died a while
>>> back and I concluded the board was fried.  I successfully swapped the
>>> board and the system ran fine.  The board came out of a used laptop
>>> with a bad monitor, or something (can't really remember).  I upgraded
>>> from Win7 to Win 10 and though it's not a box I use much since I
>>> retired, I wanted it for traveling.
>>> It all worked just fine except, the new board had an i3, where the
>>> old board had an i7.  It was slower than I would have liked, and
>>> thought I'd see if it was a soldered or socketed CPU.  It was
>>> socketed so I swapped the old i7 back into the working system, but it
>>> wouldn't post.  I took it all apart again, and everything seemed
>>> hooked up properly, so I figured I had no choice but put the i3 back
>>> in. Naturally, that won't post either.
>>>
>>> My best guess is that whatever happened before with the old setup,
>>> fried both the CPU and the motherboard, and putting the fried CPU in
>>> the good board had now fried the new motherboard?
>>>
>>> Might be time for another purchase.  8-(
>>>
>>> Hi Sticks,
>>
>> Get a flashlight and magnifying glass.  Check the pins on
>> the CPU socket.  Some of them may be bent over.  If so,
>> try straightening them back.  And try again, but be very
>> gentle and careful setting the CPU in the socket.  Straight
>> down and no sliding around.
>
> I did carefully check alignment and pins before each swap.  After I took
> out the i7 again, they were still just fine, too.  I guess the only
> question I have is if the i7 originally swapped out for the new board
> and CUP the i3 was toast,  is it possible that a corrupted CPU could
> damage an otherwise good motherboard?  If not possible\probable, I guess
> I'd take it apart again and do some looking.
>
> As most of you know, it is a pain to keep taking these apart and the
> ribbons and connectors get more delicate each time.  If a bad CPU could
> harm the motherboard, I probably would not spend any more time trying to
> do any more replacement parts.  I figure the drive is still good, and
> could salvage that.  But I don't know how else to check things if it
> won't even post.  It's disappointing since I did get Win 10 working good
> on it, but it is what it is I guess.
>
>

Usually that kid of damage results in a small blue cloud of
smoke and a stink to go with it. Sniff the motherboard up
close as it will retain the smell.

Is there a used computer store near by you could get
another motherboard from?

On 12/5/2023 12:13 PM, sticks wrote:
> Me thinks I did a very stupid, again.  My laptop had died a while back and I concluded the board was fried.  I successfully swapped the board and the system ran fine.  The board came out of a used laptop with a bad monitor, or something (can't really remember).  I upgraded from Win7 to Win 10 and though it's not a box I use much since I retired, I wanted it for traveling.
> It all worked just fine except, the new board had an i3, where the old board had an i7.  It was slower than I would have liked, and thought I'd see if it was a soldered or socketed CPU.  It was socketed so I swapped the old i7 back into the working system, but it wouldn't post.  I took it all apart again, and everything seemed hooked up properly, so I figured I had no choice but put the i3 back in.  Naturally, that won't post either.
>
> My best guess is that whatever happened before with the old setup, fried both the CPU and the motherboard, and putting the fried CPU in the good board had now fried the new motherboard?
>
> Might be time for another purchase.  8-(
>
>

Circuit designers can put "under-powered" VCore circuits on motherboards.
Some motherboards for example, got a "65W Vcore" and were only meant
for gutless dual-core CPUs.

Some companies provide upgrade information, and right in the chart,
it'll show no i7 items are to be fitted. They don't write it out as
"we used under-powered VCore", but the chart leaves no doubt, as
to what they are declaring to you. If you see no 130W CPUs in the chart,
then the VCore is likely a 65W one.

And in working with PCs, there are "domino failures". You can be
working with one PCB, have a failure, draw a conclusion about the
wrong part being the defect, move one of the components to a
second PCB and blow that one too. People on USENET, usually write
in after the third PCB blows :-)

*******

Modern PCs, are getting more and more fancy, about internal
sensors, and what they know about what you're doing. Early PCs
knew nothing about operating conditions.

[Picture] My AMD shows off its knowledge of what is going on...

https://i.postimg.cc/XJbVph8f/power-control-recent-CPU.gif

That's an example of closed loop control, which should, in theory,
make it harder to burn out a VCore via a swap of an i7. Both CPUs
and GPUs have closed-loop controls now, and the GPU-Z application
can show some info for a newer NVidia card.

When a chart, as in the picture, casually says "your CPU temperature
is X", in fact, there could be twenty temperature sensors at
silicon die level. But they have no way of organizing the data so
it makes sense to a human, so the results have to be simplified in
some way to make it comprehensible. The increase in sensors, can be
blamed on the ability to "have as many as you want, as long as
they're inside a big chip". That is where they are getting added.
Putting them outboard, costs money.

And not all current/power sensors are honest ones. Some use engineering
tricks. When my cheap video card reports it is "burning 35W at idle",
that's just... bullshit. The power is a lot less than that. The proof ?
The cooling fan doesn't spin, and the heatsink screws on the back of the PCB
don't even get warm. That puts a "bound" on the power. As an engineer, this
is part of my "reasonable-ness" testing -- when you observe something,
do the other conditions you can see, back up the measurement ? In this
case, No is the answer.

Paul

On 12/6/2023 1:45 PM, Paul wrote:
> On 12/5/2023 12:13 PM, sticks wrote:
>> Me thinks I did a very stupid, again.  My laptop had died a while back and I concluded the board was fried.  I successfully swapped the board and the system ran fine.  The board came out of a used laptop with a bad monitor, or something (can't really remember).  I upgraded from Win7 to Win 10 and though it's not a box I use much since I retired, I wanted it for traveling.
>> It all worked just fine except, the new board had an i3, where the old board had an i7.  It was slower than I would have liked, and thought I'd see if it was a soldered or socketed CPU.  It was socketed so I swapped the old i7 back into the working system, but it wouldn't post.  I took it all apart again, and everything seemed hooked up properly, so I figured I had no choice but put the i3 back in.  Naturally, that won't post either.
>>
>> My best guess is that whatever happened before with the old setup, fried both the CPU and the motherboard, and putting the fried CPU in the good board had now fried the new motherboard?
>>
>> Might be time for another purchase.  8-(
>>
>>
>
> Circuit designers can put "under-powered" VCore circuits on motherboards.
> Some motherboards for example, got a "65W Vcore" and were only meant
> for gutless dual-core CPUs.
>
> Some companies provide upgrade information, and right in the chart,
> it'll show no i7 items are to be fitted. They don't write it out as
> "we used under-powered VCore", but the chart leaves no doubt, as
> to what they are declaring to you. If you see no 130W CPUs in the chart,
> then the VCore is likely a 65W one.

I did some research before on the motherboard and it came with an 17,
but I don't remember the limits. 95W comes to mind, which I think put
the i7 at the upper limit. Are you saying that going with an i5 would
draw less and perhaps lead to fewer failures?

> And in working with PCs, there are "domino failures". You can be
> working with one PCB, have a failure, draw a conclusion about the
> wrong part being the defect, move one of the components to a
> second PCB and blow that one too. People on USENET, usually write
> in after the third PCB blows :-)

I think this is where I raise my hand and hide my face.

>
> *******
>
> Modern PCs, are getting more and more fancy, about internal
> sensors, and what they know about what you're doing. Early PCs
> knew nothing about operating conditions.
>
> [Picture] My AMD shows off its knowledge of what is going on...
>
> https://i.postimg.cc/XJbVph8f/power-control-recent-CPU.gif

That's a nice utility from AMD. I use Core Temp that gives some of that
stuff, but not as much as that I don't think. I'm mainly interested in
temps and total % used, as well as % of memory in use.

>
> That's an example of closed loop control, which should, in theory,
> make it harder to burn out a VCore via a swap of an i7. Both CPUs
> and GPUs have closed-loop controls now, and the GPU-Z application
> can show some info for a newer NVidia card.
>
> When a chart, as in the picture, casually says "your CPU temperature
> is X", in fact, there could be twenty temperature sensors at
> silicon die level. But they have no way of organizing the data so
> it makes sense to a human, so the results have to be simplified in
> some way to make it comprehensible. The increase in sensors, can be
> blamed on the ability to "have as many as you want, as long as
> they're inside a big chip". That is where they are getting added.
> Putting them outboard, costs money.
>
> And not all current/power sensors are honest ones. Some use engineering
> tricks. When my cheap video card reports it is "burning 35W at idle",
> that's just... bullshit. The power is a lot less than that. The proof ?
> The cooling fan doesn't spin, and the heatsink screws on the back of the PCB
> don't even get warm. That puts a "bound" on the power. As an engineer, this
> is part of my "reasonable-ness" testing -- when you observe something,
> do the other conditions you can see, back up the measurement ? In this
> case, No is the answer.
>
> Paul

I think I can take this to mean the answer to my question on whether or
not a faulty CPU can "break" a motherboard is a yes?

T's post and now yours has kind of changed my opinion on moving forward.
I priced out some stuff and I think I'll work one more time at board
and CPU swap. Probably should just give up and get something new, but
with as little as I use this laptop I think I'll take the cheap route.

Thanks!

--
Stand With Israel!
NOTE: If you use Google Groups I don't see you,
unless you're whitelisted and that's doubtful.

On 12/5/2023 6:51 PM, T wrote:
> On 12/5/23 14:34, sticks wrote:

>> As most of you know, it is a pain to keep taking these apart and the
>> ribbons and connectors get more delicate each time.  If a bad CPU
>> could harm the motherboard, I probably would not spend any more time
>> trying to do any more replacement parts.  I figure the drive is still
>> good, and could salvage that.  But I don't know how else to check
>> things if it won't even post.  It's disappointing since I did get Win
>> 10 working good on it, but it is what it is I guess.

> Usually that kid of damage results in a small blue cloud of
> smoke and a stink to go with it.  Sniff the motherboard up
> close as it will retain the smell.

I'm gonna try to repair again, and will give it the nose test. It
didn't smell in the room, we'll see when I get it back apart.

> Is there a used computer store near by you could get
> another motherboard from?

Ebay

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NOTE: If you use Google Groups I don't see you,
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On 12/6/23 12:49, sticks wrote:
> T's post and now yours has kind of changed my opinion on moving forward.

My experience may be different from everyone else's here as
I never get called when things go right. That being said,
it is my experience that people only sell their used computers
when they "hate" them. So buyer beware.

Also, whilst I am carrying on, Dell's warranties
are for used boards returned to them and put through
the parts cleaner. You have to go through several
before you get a good one (and you have to beg for
a new one). It is can be aggravating. And I do
realize this is not a Dell. But something
similar may be happening.

On 12/6/2023 3:49 PM, sticks wrote:

>
> I think I can take this to mean the answer to my question on whether or not a faulty CPU can "break" a motherboard is a yes?
>
> T's post and now yours has kind of changed my opinion on moving forward.  I priced out some stuff
> and I think I'll work one more time at board and CPU swap.  Probably should just give up and get
> something new, but with as little as I use this laptop I think I'll take the cheap route.
>
> Thanks!

OK, so what do we know for sure. i7 blows original board. i7 seems
to have blown replacement board. PCB part numbers the same ?
Visual inspection of PCB, de-pop list is the same, components
that are installed are the same ? No sign of a cost reduced
i3-supporting PCB, where portions of circuitry were removed ?

Some product lines, have a multitude of PCBs, some PCBs are AMD,
some are Intel, some are higher power than others. It can be hard,
when working with that laptop model, to be sure exactly what
you're buying. Models which have a smaller spread and no attempt
was made to deceive the public, are easier to work with.

The repair market using brand-new manufacturer-PCB is usually
ridiculously priced. People selling old machines have two choices.
Sell machine whole (a machine with busted LCD is a typical config),
or they part them out to maximize their profit (PCB with unknown
provenance, casing, LCD screen, CCFL tubes, optical drive,
you know, whatever was convenient to take apart and sell).
In that case, you can't really be sure what was broken on the
thing, to cause them to sell it. Whereas a natural assumption
would be, a broken-LCD-screen unit, was working before it
met its end -- dropping a laptop off of sufficient height,
can even crack a PCB/mobo, so if there are signs the keyboard
got damaged, larger masses or more forceful accidents could
be involved (laptop in car accident).

Just taking another i3 board and putting the i7 in it, that
sounds like material for a book about "domino failures" :-)
It might be better to shop for a PCB/CPU pairing, and change up
your game of roulette.

On some older laptops, the reason they're for sale, is the power
connector broke. Which was why manufacturers started putting the
power connector on its own PCB. So that if the power connector
area shattered or cracked, the replacement was a tiny PCB with
just the connector on it. Your machine could be modern enough,
that a power connector accident would not be the end of it, and
if someone broke the power connector, the "main" PCB might be OK
(since the two bits are separate, to reduce stresses).

Paul

On 12/6/2023 10:12 PM, Paul wrote:
> On 12/6/2023 3:49 PM, sticks wrote:

First, I was thinking about this and I think I should apologize for
putting this here in the first place. Yes, it is a W10 box, but it
really isn't an operating system problem, it is really just a hardware
issue. I'm not redirecting follow-ups, but will include
a.t.comp.hardware to the groups as I will probably report back there if
what I'm doing works. So, sorry for the off-topic stuff to the readers.

>>
>> I think I can take this to mean the answer to my question on whether or not a faulty CPU can "break" a motherboard is a yes?
>>
>> T's post and now yours has kind of changed my opinion on moving forward.  I priced out some stuff
>> and I think I'll work one more time at board and CPU swap.  Probably should just give up and get
>> something new, but with as little as I use this laptop I think I'll take the cheap route.
>>
>> Thanks!
>
> OK, so what do we know for sure. i7 blows original board.

I don't recall what led me to believe it was motherboard, but in
hindsight it could have been the CPU all along.

> i7 seems
> to have blown replacement board. PCB part numbers the same ?
> Visual inspection of PCB, de-pop list is the same, components
> that are installed are the same ? No sign of a cost reduced
> i3-supporting PCB, where portions of circuitry were removed ?

Boards were the same and should have worked. 99.9% sure the i7 must
have spanked the working board. Lesson learnt.

> Some product lines, have a multitude of PCBs, some PCBs are AMD,
> some are Intel, some are higher power than others. It can be hard,
> when working with that laptop model, to be sure exactly what
> you're buying. Models which have a smaller spread and no attempt
> was made to deceive the public, are easier to work with.
>
> The repair market using brand-new manufacturer-PCB is usually
> ridiculously priced. People selling old machines have two choices.
> Sell machine whole (a machine with busted LCD is a typical config),
> or they part them out to maximize their profit (PCB with unknown
> provenance, casing, LCD screen, CCFL tubes, optical drive,
> you know, whatever was convenient to take apart and sell).
> In that case, you can't really be sure what was broken on the
> thing, to cause them to sell it. Whereas a natural assumption
> would be, a broken-LCD-screen unit, was working before it
> met its end -- dropping a laptop off of sufficient height,
> can even crack a PCB/mobo, so if there are signs the keyboard
> got damaged, larger masses or more forceful accidents could
> be involved (laptop in car accident).
>
> Just taking another i3 board and putting the i7 in it, that
> sounds like material for a book about "domino failures" :-)
> It might be better to shop for a PCB/CPU pairing, and change up
> your game of roulette.

I found a replacement of the same model that has win 11 on it and is
shown booted up. Has a bigger drive and actually looks cleaner than
mine, and is just missing battery and charger/power cord, and has a
sticky keyboard. Couldn't pass up this one since it was only $50 minus
a $10 discount.

> On some older laptops, the reason they're for sale, is the power
> connector broke. Which was why manufacturers started putting the
> power connector on its own PCB. So that if the power connector
> area shattered or cracked, the replacement was a tiny PCB with
> just the connector on it. Your machine could be modern enough,
> that a power connector accident would not be the end of it, and
> if someone broke the power connector, the "main" PCB might be OK
> (since the two bits are separate, to reduce stresses).

On this one, a dead battery and sticky keyboard was probably enough for
someone to be talked into just getting something new.
Should be here soon and I'll post to A.C.H. the results.

Thanks!

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