Bad CPU?

I am working on a Pavilion DV6 for a friend. He replaced the hard drive (thinking he had a hard drive problem) and ran into problems reinstalling the OS. It gets about 75% of the way through the process and freezes. It acts like a heat problem. I reapplied thermal compound and made sure the fan was working. Also used a cooling pad. Tried again. Same problem. Did a diagnostic on the cpu and the only problem it showed was rtc. Then after posting the above to this forum determined it has to be the board. I replaced the motherboard and now it shuts down after about 2 minutes. I emailed the people that sent me the board and they sent another. Same thing. I put the old board back in. It does not shut down, but it does freeze. Can anybody help?

 

You might want to try reseating or replacing the memory before you go buying another processor, which would be a much more expensive resolution. I've seen RAM do very strange things.

 

Thanks, I tried that. No luck. Here's the weird thing, If I start the laptop with no RAM in it, it will run for about 2 minutes with the replacement board in it or withthe old board in, it will stay on until I turn it off.

 

I've had a few older HP DV series notebooks come in my shop with the identical problem.

From what my notebook tech tells me, this is a common issue on some DV models, especially if the PC has overheated at some point in its life (a bad fan that was later replaced, heavy dust buildup in the cooling fins, smothering the PC by setting it on a pillow, etc.).

Some used motherboards are "reflowed" in order to attempt to bring them back to life. My luck with reflowed boards has been dismal - only one out of the past three has survived past 30 days without repeating the symptoms you're describing.

Based on this, I'd return the board for a refund if possible, cut your losses and help your friend find a decent used PC (preferably not HP or Compaq).

 

Thanks for the advice. You are right. It is time to cut my losses. I have put enough time and money on this. Don't think I can get a full refund on the board, but may be able to sell the laptop for parts to break even. If this was not a friends computer, I would not have gone this far in the first place.