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I look at my computer where the magic disk is and I see that somehow 323GB of games have appeared there… It must be those viruses people are talking about that must have caused the trouble.
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What a lovely week… The laptop decided to act up. It won’t start at all; only the power LED is on, but there’s no life left. Even the fan isn’t spinning—it’s simply dead.
It will start once in a million tries, but it’s quite slow, and I feel like it’s stuck in a loop. Sometimes it even loads the OS, but when I try to shut down or put it to sleep, it seems to freeze at a certain point, and the fan just runs at 100%.
I’ve tested every possible option and combination… I’ve disconnected and reconnected everything I could, with no improvement or clear conclusion. The final step will be to replace the CMOS battery… I’m hoping this could have such a disastrous effect on the laptop, although the severity of the problem is quite unusual.
Right now, I’m almost certainly leaning towards physical damage to the PCB or some circuit, maybe a loose solder joint somewhere, or that damn battery… which I don’t have at the moment, and I have to order some, grrrrr.
This was supposed to be a quick OS service for a customer, but it’s like ~!@#$%^&*()
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Wait is it your laptop or a customers laptop?
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It’s not mine… but I treat every piece of equipment as if it were my own, i.e. with care and love. 
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I was not aware of that but that is about what I expect companies to use AI for. Someone sat in a meeting and then snorted a 10 inch line of cocaine and then declared let AI write all support articles. At least that is kinda my personal expectation how these things get decided.
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Well, it turned out it wasn’t the battery; after replacing it, the same thing happened.
It only boots up once in a million times.
Another symptom is a BIOS crash. When trying to do anything, it sometimes crashes, after a while, it goes to a black screen and quickly flashes “BlLInitializeLibrary failed 0xc0000185” 2-3 times.
But this is more likely a secondary anomaly than the cause, as it’s not a problem with booting the OS or its storage device.
I checked everything I could… 99.99% sure it’s the motherboard.
Cold solder joint. Maybe even one of the balls got shat under the CPU. I’ve seen miracles before where one popped out from under the GPU right before my eyes.
Maybe something with the power supply section on the PCB or some other piece of junk somewhere around the CPU or USB. Because the USB also had some anomalies.
Replacing the motherboard isn’t really worth it. Damn, soldered-in CPU/GPU/RAM.
Basically, the laptop is dead now; it won’t even turn on once, for now.
It’s like there’s no power going somewhere, because nothing’s getting hot. At least something’s working there, because the power LED is working.
I’d have to measure every section and search blindly. Even if I found it, I’d still have to play with hot air and a microscope… If I didn’t have a ton of other things to do. 
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Check the power switch.Ive had bad power switchs on desktops do that exact thing
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You mean the button? The power button? Or?
It seems okay… It’s the entire PCB with the headphone jack, the card reader, the main button with the LED, and the button you press from the Novo button.
They both respond when pressed with the same LED, meaning the power LED lights up. Actually, there are two: one in the button and the other on the side of the case, but the laptop is currently dead and won’t even turn on again.
The battery also charges, but the laptop refuses to post.
I considered a corrupted BIOS, but if that were the case, it would never post and boot even once.
I’m looking at the price of this PCB and it’s a shocking $55 for a used one. Buying it as a replacement and hoping for a miracle is out of the question.
It would have to be 100% confirmed that this is the culprit.
Now, it managed to POST and boot into a full OS once… then I rebooted… and died. It’s like it’s hanging on the sequence and trying to POST again. The only difference is that the fan is still running. A long press of the power button turns it off, then turning it back on and there’s no reaction, just the LED is on. Something is dying somewhere for some reason.
I have a Lenovo Thinkbook that did something similar. For a while if I gave it a few tries it would boot up, but eventually it would no longer post. When it was still booting I would see a self-healing bios screen for a second. It does charge and turn on. Once its on only the power LED comes on. If you press and hold the power button for about 10 seconds the fan will spin to max speed and when you let go it turns off. I have concluded its either a corrupt bios or something failed on the mobo. I did reapply the last bios update at one point, but it did not help. I thought about buying one of those chip readers, but I ended up replacing it. It had soldered ram, so the 16gb it had was not ideal. I do still have it.
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This Lenovo also has the first RAM chip soldered in and one slot.
Theoretically, there’s a way to disconnect the first RAM bank by re-soldering a few things in different places.
Supposedly, faulty RAM could be a symptom, albeit a rather strange one.
I’m slowly starting to lean towards the CPU and its BGA balls… Which would mean it’s a complete waste of money, because it’s not worth the price at all. And I don’t have a machine.
A used motherboard isn’t worth the price either.
Yes, there might be something small somewhere on the board, but… just go and find it. Without a schematic and reference voltages, it’s a guessing game.
I quickly checked the coils; they have power.
It’s interesting that if it somehow manages to POST and boot the OS, it usually works without any problems, or I haven’t noticed any yet.
I’ll probably decide to heat the entire board, especially the CPU, with hot air… I doubt it’ll do anything, because even if it does, the effect will be temporary. It would only confirm a cold solder joint.
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