Lights but that's it.....

Hi all,
Just joined, have done a search here but nothing matches my problem.

I bought an Ativ 9 Lite in a sale.

The problem I have is it the LED lights up when turned on, it also lights up when adapter is plugged in and changes colour when battery is charged.

But that's it.... nothing else, rest of it completely dead, no fan noise, hard drive noise, nothing.
I was hoping there may be a magic keyboard combination that might wake it up!!
Anyway if anyone has ever encountered such a problem or could shed a bit of light.
Many thanks in advance and anticipation!

 

It' been bought in a sale second hand.
Thanks.

 

Hi, and welcome to NBR, when you say nothing else does this mean even the Samsung logo does not show when you power it on?

 

Yes that's what it means.
But more than that there is no power apart from the two LED'S I mentioned earlier.
I have seen people having issues where the laptop will not turn on but I have not come across this problem anywhere before.
Thanks.

 

Biggest issue here is you are not familiar with the history of the machine. It could range from where it dies one day to where it was taken apart and just not put back together properly. Since you have no HDD spin up there is a power issue to the main board. Now it could just be where the on/off button is not working.

Is there any way to go to the seller either to return it, or if you plan on keeping it, at least the history behind it?

 

Unfortunately that is not possible.
I was hoping as there is at least some sign of life I might be able to trace it through to the source of the problem.
If I had an idea which parts I could test that can be replaced but there are just so many parts and not sure which does what!
There is a great site that does complete breakdowns of stuff, phones laptops, loads of stuff but the Ativ lite is not on.
Thanks.

 

Well you say the light on the laptop is on showing charging and then charged. So we know the brick is ok along with the power board and battery. The rest is an issue. Myself, I would have to pull it apart and that is still no guaranty it can be fixed. Same thing goes if you give it to someone else. You could be putting more good money after bad.

Common issues like bad ram will not stop the system from a HDD spin up. A bad HDD can, it could also stop the system from even looking like it is powering on. A simple and free thing to try is pull all internal storage and then try a power up. Otherwise it may be time to dive into pulling it apart and praying. Just a heads up, even with a fried CPU or GPU you should still get HDD spin up. Then again if it is a SSD there would be no spin up.

 

The Book 9 Lite has an mSATA SSD so you won't hear anything spinning except the fan. The biggest symptom is the lack of the notebook appearing to load the BIOS.

At this stage I would assume that the notebook is not dead, but in a coma. The problem you have encountered has similarities to the problem discussed, and eventually fixed, here. The Book 9 Lite was shipped with Windows 8 and the UEFI implementation should be more resilient than on the older notebooks. However, if, for example, the original owner decided to wipe Windows 8 and try to install Windows 7 then there could be consequences. There are also also other threads about trying to resurrect the Samsung notebooks.

John

 

@TANW Thanks for that.
I already have it apart, just to see if there was anything obvious.
When you say pull internal storage do you mean memory?
It has 8Gig soldered to MB

 

@john,
Thanks but most of those threads appear to relate to bios etc but I can't get power to HDD so not much to do there.

To both of you do you think, in your experience it is likely to be the hard drive gone or dead MB.

 

if it is a msata there is no hdd to spin up.

 

I think it is mSATA looking at it yes.
How does that have any bearing on my question regarding whether you might think it could be a bad drive or the motherboard being faulty?
Is it because if it does not spin it can't be known if it's faulty or not.
Thanks.

 

with msata you will hear no spin up normally, so this can not be used as an indicator of the system being dead. Also it eliminates HDD mechanical failure causing a power overload preventing power up. So a couple of things to check off the list.

A concern is you said it will show going to a charge, then the lights indicate it being charged. This would then look like there is some power drain causing the battery to accept at least some charge. So the next question is to what this drain is? With either bad ram or CPU or even GPU you could be experiencing your issues, not all fans spin up before a bios initialization, so this can not be used as an indicator yet. Maybe someone else here can chime in on that who owns the laptop? That is do the fans spin as soon as you hit the power button and before the Samsung logo comes to screen.

 

I would imagine there are quite a few with this model but maybe not many have had to, or not chosen to take them apart so maybe would not know much about the subject.

Just curious about another thing.
While I have it apart I just noticed there is a connecter that has no cable attached, i have seen other motherboards like that so might be in the design but why put it there if it's not needed?
I have attached a picture with an arrow pointing to the connector.
Thanks.

 

Could be just about anything. Usually it is for main board supported options not included. This could be just about anything , like a backlit keyboard option etc..

 

That makes sense now, thanks.

 

You should see the BIOS screen when the computer is turned on. A bad connection to the RAM can stop the BIOS loading but since the Book 9 Lite has soldered RAM then that problem shouldn't arise.

If the SSD has died then maybe that is the problem. Did you try starting the computer without the SSD installed? That might get the BIOS screen to show (but I'm not sure what happens with a UEFI-enabled system where some of the boot info is stored on the drive).

John

 

Hi,
No screen, no sounds no nothing.
I have tried removing the SSD and power up, same thing nothing apart from the power on light.

Couple of day's ago I thought I would charge the battery, fully, the light starts at amber then green when full, it charged no problem and is still charged now.
So from what I can see, unless I am wrong it is not a short circuit, rather something stopping it powering up?
Thanks.

 

My concern, what was draining the battery? A short would usually be from a HDD or ODD. Since you have neither that should not be an issue. As it is, without the systems event history, we can only throw things against the wall to see what sticks. Even with the system in hand we would be almost in the same spot.

 

But that's the thing, as I mentioned in my previous post, the battery is NOT being drained, I charged it a couple of days ago, it i in situ in the PC still showing blue when I turn it on.
Thanks.

 

But if you charged it then something prior to that drained it. I understand it is not being drained now but what did drain it before?

 

Oh well,
As I don't know anywhere near enough about laptops in general and this one in particular I will have to put it down to experience.
Thanks for everyone's help and suggestions, much appreciated.

 

I'm sorry we haven't been able to fix it although I still wonder if it is in a coma, not completely dead.

The process for clearing the NVRAM and resetting the BIOS isn't easy at the best of times.

There might be a market for some of the parts.

John

 

That could well be true, I would not know how though to wake it up so at minimum it could hit the USB for the crisis bios recovery. would have to have it in hand and again that is no guaranty. It is even possible that I could make it even worse, if that is possible.

 

Thing is I bought it second hand, knew I was taking a chance so even trying something radical is worth a shot.
Problem is I have not got a clue what radical steps to try!
If there was some linear process, the power at DC jack has tested as good so what could be the next place to check and so on, to see where the power stops, has to be some point where it has quit.

 

The power is apparently good. The power board is most likely transferring charge to the battery and registering a charge to the LED. Next step is power to the main board. Unfortunately without being thee it is hard for me to tell you what to check. If I had a similar system then maybe. even then little I could tell you to check for. about the only thing is once you power on is there even a slight kick to the fan and or the screen? Usually the Caps need to charge before the gates are shut and this can stir some ever so slight activity.

 

Nope.
Nothing.
I'm trying google for a schematic of the board, might help might not but worth a shot.
I wouldn't mind betting that at the end of the day it is something really simple!
Or is that wishful thinking.

 

If you are in the US then you can get the service manual from Samsungparts.com. However, I don't know if they will ship to other countries (if the manual is electronic then it should be emailable).

John

 

I am in the UK but will look into it.
Thanks for that.

 

Just a quick update.
I know I should give up on this but it has become my new hobby, getting it to work!
The fan has never worked but after doing a lot of connecting and re connecting the fan has burst into life, wonder if that means anything, apart from power now getting to the fan?
I have ordered a mini VGA adapter to see if anything will show on an external monitor.
Wish me luck lol

 

I've known notebooks that spin up the fan as part of the BIOS hardware test and, if the fan doesn't work, then the boot process stops.

This made good sense in the days before CPUs had built-in thermal protection but would probably still be in the BIOS unless removed.

John

 

Thanks John,
Forgive my ignorance
When you say "would probably still be in the BIOS"........ what would?

Forgive my ignorance again.
When you say "in the days before CPUs had built-in thermal protection" does that mean no thermal paste is used in modern laptops?
Like in a lot of the utube video's I have watched where they renew the thermal paste when doing repairs, just curious about this.

But what I was trying to get at in my post, my question, does the fan spinning offer any hope there may be life in the laptop or is it irrelevant, just trying to learn as I go.
Thanks.

 

I will clarify:

1. "In the BIOS" means that the fan test routine (probably written in the latter part of the previous century) is still in the BIOS program (the BIOS is the program that runs when you turn on the computer).

2. The incorporation of thermal sensors into the CPU package, together with the ability of the CPU to slow / shut itself down if it gets too hot (typically 95C or 100C) are relatively recent innovations (ie this century). It's not directly related to the thermal paste but is backup in case the paste is absent or badly applied, the fan doesn't work properly, or any other cooling related problem.

I would consider the fan spinning up as being promising and might mean the BIOS is trying to get going.

I forget if we've been there already but RAM problems can stop the BIOS loading properly but is usually indicated by some flashing lighted before the computer turns itself off.

John

 

Thanks for the lesson John, seriously, learned a lot there.