Fixing an HP DV9000 with No Video (In Richmond)

The UBC student who sold me the DV6000 motherboard called me to see if I could do reflow for this HP DV9000 and two video cards. I accepted this job because it provided me chance to test re-flow.

Opening up this DV9000 was very much the same with the one that I keep at home for my wife. The only difference was on the fan which had been resigned for easier to open. Checking the motherboard, I found two factors causing the overhead of the GPU. First one was dust clogging the vent in the heat sink which was common after using the laptop for a while. Another one was on the mis-placed thermal pad which covered half of the GPU only. Both factors caused the GPU heat not dissipated effectively.

After I had taken out the motherboard, I did the reflow on 6 Oct 2011, following the last process with higher temperature and longer time on the DV6000 which lasted over 4 weeks as of today.

I had confident that the video would be back and therefore went straight to assemble the DV9000 before testing. When the laptop was back in one piece, I connected my home DV9000 AC adapter to it and tried to boot it up. It gave me 4 beeps without any video. From internet, I found that the 4 beeps was related to memory. I put in a spare memory to it and powered it up again. This time, there was no beeps and the HP logo came up on the LCD screen. I tested the power up several times more. The HP logo came up every time.

It is good to serve again. I further clean up the laptop as for other laptops before sending it back to the UBC student.