Hello all, I will preface this post by saying I usually don't turn to forums for advice, as I usually never have anything to repair that is this irritating. This one is strange enough that I created an account and figured I'd ask around to see if any of you have had similar issues.
That being said, there's no need for layman's terms or anything else like that in responses, I am a certified technician.
Now that that's out of the way, on to the fun part.
The machine in question is an Inspiron 17R (N7110), Core i5, 8GB, Intel graphics.
I had purchased it from a friend who desperately needed cash, and upon receiving it, I conducted hardware tests, and wiped it clean. Everything was in order, it ran like a million bucks. So I went to resell it to get my money back out of it.
Sold it to a guy, and the day he came to pick it up, the machine booted up with an RTC error. Needless to say, I took the first reasonable approach, and replaced the CR2032 under the palmrest.
It then booted up just fine, and I shut it down, pulled the battery and power supply, and then hooked them back up and booted again, just to make sure. All was well, it booted up just fine again.
He took it home, used it for a while, and just brought it back now, two weeks later, throwing clock errors at boot again, along with 5 beeps. Since it was so soon after sale, I said I'd help him with it.
Diagnostics went as follows-------------------------------------------------------
Took the device apart, replaced the battery again, in case the first replacement battery was a dud.
- No different. Machine instantly boots to 5 beeps and a clock error (00C08270).
- Discovered that it only throws the error (and wipes the clock back to 2010) when the power supply is pulled and subsequently plugged back in. (even when the main battery remains connected)
Looked at the Dell Diagnostic tool, which informed me that even though the power supply was connected, the machine didn't register it being plugged in.
Tried a different power supply of the same rating, diagnostics now register the power supply as being connected.
Diagnostics continue to run through, but nearing the end, the computer randomly shuts down, as if it were overheating. (Lovely, another problem)
I ask the owner if he's had trouble with it shutting down randomly, and he says yes.
Noticing that the CPU temp (as shown in the diagnostic utility) is consistently around 60C, I investigate cooling problems. Absolutely no dust in the heatsink.
Since the laptop is very easy to disassemble, I go ahead and pull the CPU cooler, and wipe clean the processor and cooler, and properly re-apply thermal paste.
Get it all back together, and it behaves no differently, though it's running about 5 degrees cooler, at 55C.
At this point, it's shutting down ~60 seconds after boot. After the clock error, a reboot will allow it to properly boot into Windows, but it only lasts a minute.
BIOS is reporting that it's version A13, (newest), CPU cooler is completely clean, thermal paste was applied possibly better than I've ever done before, RTC battery is new.
Pulled all CRUs, but one memory stick, still exhibits the same behaviour. Switched to the other memory stick, same thing.
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I've figured out some really strange issues in my time doing this job, but never seen anything like this that has no real explanation.
I hope that someone here has some insight as to what might be a possible solution.
I'm fearing motherboard failure of some degree, however now I'm in a dilemma as to what to tell the guy. He purchased it used, and I knew nothing about its history. He used it for weeks just fine, and when it malfunctioned, before he brought it to me, he had another shop check it out, and tell him it was the clock battery. So another tech has had his fingers in it, and who knows what happened with it since this guy bought it. What course of action should I take, if it does turn out to be a mobo? Help the guy out of my own pocket for something I had no knowledge of? Or tell him to screw off because he already had someone else digging through it?
Thanks in advance guys, I appreciate your reading of this post.
