motherboard died?

capeladie · 10-23-2009, 06:31 PM

I have a gateway laptop MT3422 less than 2 years old. When I turn it on the screen is completely black. You can hear it running and lights come on. I took it to a repair shop who said that the motherboard needed to be replaced but that it is impossible to find a vendor that carries this particular motherboard. Is this possible? And could there be a different problem other than the motherboard.

Thank you,
Capeladie

**grimx133** · 10-23-2009, 09:41 PM

The sound of it running, does it sound like windows is loading? Or just fan sounds?

If it does sound like it's loading the operating system, shine a flashlight/torch on the
screen to see if there is a real dim display. Could be a backlight/inverter issue.

edit - you can also try an external monitor, but that usually requires
a Fn+whatever key combination to toggle between interal/external display.
If it is a motherboard is required, they are certainly available, and if Gateway
doesn't have any new ones, used boards would be available on something
like Craigslist. Seems odd that a shop would say something like that about
a two year old laptop.

win98forever · 10-24-2009, 01:48 PM

I recently had a similar issue of determining if it were my mobo or the HD. I was linked to a Ubuntu site and made a bootable disc of Ubuntu. It will run the system from the DVD drive acting as the HD. I replaced the mobo with a used one and the system wasn't working properly. It turned out to be the HD
It took a long time to load itself, over 15 minutes. I thought nothing was happening and would have turned it off if I hadn't been distracted by something else and when I came back it was loaded to the Ubuntu desktop. If you can do this the MOBO is working. Here's the link to my thread.

[SOLVED] I've had to recover to out of box

I found out how to choose boot order better on my Toshiba Satellite, press F12 the highlight the drive you want to start from and press enter. On mine it shows 3 choices, HDD, CD/DVD, LAN

You may need an external monitor to make sure it isn't the LCD in the laptop. For mine I had to press the Fn key(between Ctrl/Alt keys) and the key in the F numbers with an icon of a computer and monitor on it. Mine was F5, F9 has the icon with a circle and slash in it which I think turns the external monitor off on boot. If the LCD has a glow in it that is brighter on bottom it is probably not the backlight.

here's some links for parts;
http://cgi.ebay.com/GATEWAY-MT3419-M...item563478286b

http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_kw=gate...rd&_ckw=laptop

http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_kw=gate...kw=motherboard

http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_kw=gate...rd&_ckw=MT3422

If you get the mobo number it will make the search more easy.

Good Luck

10-23-2009, 06:31 PM	#1 (permalink)
capeladie Registered User Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 1 OS: windows vista	motherboard died? I have a gateway laptop MT3422 less than 2 years old. When I turn it on the screen is completely black. You can hear it running and lights come on. I took it to a repair shop who said that the motherboard needed to be replaced but that it is impossible to find a vendor that carries this particular motherboard. Is this possible? And could there be a different problem other than the motherboard. Thank you, Capeladie

10-23-2009, 09:41 PM	#2 (permalink)
grimx133 Mentor Hardware Team Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Canada eh Posts: 3,163 OS: xp mce sp2, xp pro sp2, windows 7 beta My System	Re: motherboard died? The sound of it running, does it sound like windows is loading? Or just fan sounds? If it does sound like it's loading the operating system, shine a flashlight/torch on the screen to see if there is a real dim display. Could be a backlight/inverter issue. edit - you can also try an external monitor, but that usually requires a Fn+whatever key combination to toggle between interal/external display. If it is a motherboard is required, they are certainly available, and if Gateway doesn't have any new ones, used boards would be available on something like Craigslist. Seems odd that a shop would say something like that about a two year old laptop. __________________ Last edited by grimx133; 10-23-2009 at 09:45 PM.

10-24-2009, 01:48 PM	#3 (permalink)
win98forever Registered User Join Date: Sep 2009 Posts: 121 OS: w2k	Re: motherboard died? I recently had a similar issue of determining if it were my mobo or the HD. I was linked to a Ubuntu site and made a bootable disc of Ubuntu. It will run the system from the DVD drive acting as the HD. I replaced the mobo with a used one and the system wasn't working properly. It turned out to be the HD It took a long time to load itself, over 15 minutes. I thought nothing was happening and would have turned it off if I hadn't been distracted by something else and when I came back it was loaded to the Ubuntu desktop. If you can do this the MOBO is working. Here's the link to my thread. [SOLVED] I've had to recover to out of box I found out how to choose boot order better on my Toshiba Satellite, press F12 the highlight the drive you want to start from and press enter. On mine it shows 3 choices, HDD, CD/DVD, LAN You may need an external monitor to make sure it isn't the LCD in the laptop. For mine I had to press the Fn key(between Ctrl/Alt keys) and the key in the F numbers with an icon of a computer and monitor on it. Mine was F5, F9 has the icon with a circle and slash in it which I think turns the external monitor off on boot. If the LCD has a glow in it that is brighter on bottom it is probably not the backlight. here's some links for parts; http://cgi.ebay.com/GATEWAY-MT3419-M...item563478286b http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_kw=gate...rd&_ckw=laptop http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_kw=gate...kw=motherboard http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_kw=gate...rd&_ckw=MT3422 If you get the mobo number it will make the search more easy. Good Luck Last edited by win98forever; 10-24-2009 at 02:06 PM.