[Amilo M3438G] Near-impossible to start the computer

[pddfactory]

I had the same problem in my M1437G, today i have got it back from repair. They said that graphic card was at fault.

[KountZERO]

Ok, so i removed the gfx card and it boots no prob. >< However i flashed the card with newer bios and it seems to spark into life with fewer button presses. Is this a job for the oven bake you think? Other than the cold start issue the gfx card runs great and fairly cool at 60c

[KountZERO]

Ok, so as soon as its cold the symptoms return. When its warm it works great.
Is this behaviour likely to be fixed by reflowing the card. The area around the switcher coil would seem to be the most suspect.
has anyone had similar and fixed with the oven method?

tnx

[lilo913]

I had to solder a cold solder joint behind the AC-in jack after the laptop died; it should have been running off the mains and had used up all of the battery power - no joy though. I then found a faulty 10a surface mount fuse and replaced this - still no joy.

Running out of options - anyone help?

Tried to find a replacement pcb, but, the part numbers have been drilled out.

[KountZERO]

Ok, i've baked the card and there is no change On further investigation a faint tick can be heard when pressing the power button which i have tracked down to the area of the coil and caps next to the mini-pci slot, if you hold down the power button the tick turns into a fainter buzz. Could this point to the coil or caps being bad? the caps look ok to me by sight and the solder to the coil looks good too.

[Bopy]

I have this problem to on my M3438G. On the beginning was only few click, but from several months it takes sometimes about half of a day. Now i cant power up him anymore.

Someone contacted fujitsu?

[KountZERO]

After exhausting every option, from reflowing the gfx card, to changing all the electrolytic caps on the mobo. I had to resort to changing the GFX card.
Its running fine now with a salvaged ati x1400 from a pi3650.

It seems like the old GO 6800gt was drawing too much power at switch-on and was triggering the short protection on the mobo. Ill try the old card in a working pi3650 mobo i have coming this week and see if it does the same.

[Tuffgong]

Hi evryone,

I'm maybe a little late for this, but I did find a solution for this frequent trouble with this Laptop.

First, unplug the GFX card, and try to power on the computer. If it does'nt, then it's probably not the GFX card. Try next step. If it does power on, then best change the GFX card for a new one. You may try the heat gun tip, or baking, but these do not last very long. Prefer graphic cards that don't over-heat too much.
Second, remove the CPU. If it starts, then it's the CPU which is faulty, and you better change it for a new (worth 20$ at max.). If not, then it's something else (motherbaord, power supply circuit, memory modules).
Third, try the same thing with memory modules.

Hope this can help

P.S. : sorry for my english, but I'm french