Troubleshooting and attempted repair of a HP Envy touch PC found in the dumpster. UPDATE: NO, it's not the RAM or the graphics card, have tried that. Forum: www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/dumpster-dive-hp-envy-touch-pc-repair/
There's a buzzer label next to the vertical crystal. Also, test the ram modules on other machines and check the voltage on the CPU VRM. Optical drive seeking and the fan working doesn't mean a working processor or a booting machine, because the power button and fan control are handled by the LPC bridge chip. The optical drive seek is made by itself when power applies to it so doesn't need the sata connector.
remove the mxm card. will force it to use the integrated. something might of forced current through the monitor into the gpu, or the gpu could of melted its solder balls as that is a piss ant cooler for a desktop CPU and MXM gpu..
That is what i thought as well. The internal GPU wont run when thers an external one. and if that reports ok internal but doesn't output (might even prevent the back-light from switching on) you still get black screen.
pull the ram to test the buzzer, aio usually have speakers and it pipes the buzzer to them. in the rare case it doesnt have int speakers connect the audio out.. secret usb is for the wireless kb+mouse usb dongle its a normal port.
Yea was just about to comment that, it won't use intigrated graphics unless the mmx card is removed And he wouldn't hear any beeps or get any error codes because the GPU has it's own bios and the computer wouldn't care if that part wasn't functional
The little odd-man-out USB port is for the wireless keyboard/mouse receiver. It tucks in the back there under a panel so it's easily swappable but not hanging out where someone can snap it off accidentally.
UMI input wont work as long as there is a dedicated graphic card connected. Also check for bad memory sticks. If all else fails, go back to basic. Disconnect anything non-essential, keep only power, ram and the monitor connected basically.
Use a laser instead of a torch.... you can see stuff easier (although you have to know where to expect stuff to appear on screen due to the laser beam's size).
The pin in the middle of that power supply connector doesn't pass current, it's just a supposed to have a resistor between it and ground to validate that it's the correct power supply for the device, all of the power goes through the inner and outer sleeves of the barrel connector.
Dave, Remove the MXM GPU Card and plug the monitor in to the built in port, the BIOS will always default to the added GPU if detected and present, it may be that the card is seen but not functioning correctly. Also you can verify if the computer is reaching any kind of on state by plugging in a USB Keyboard and checking the numlock.
I get these machines all the time and they suffer greatly with heat and im 99.9999999% Its Killed the Graphics card but i believe ive have had 1 or 2 before with faulty Ram/slot. The Backlight is logic controlled and when it passes all hardware tests it then initializes the backlight and LCD, with the card being dead it wont pass and thefore wont turn on backlight. If you wish to use the onboard graphics you MUST remove the MXM card and not just swap headers as bios detects the card in the slot and disables the onboard.
If its got a HP badge it will more than likely have thermal issues and a self distruct 2 weeks out of warranty, DV series of laptops springs to mind amongst a long list of others... Power no display on a HP = graphics failure nearly always, Their thermal solution is bare minimum from new and after time with dust build up it just pushes it over the edge and boooom dead GPU, worst combo in the world has to be a HP with an ATI Vision chipset, When i get handed that to fix i just laugh and put it aside for another day and fix something else i wont see back 10000000 times with the same fault.
It's joy of all in ones. "Let's put 77 W TDP desktop CPU and semi-decent GPU in LCD TV case, I'm sure it will go fine" ;) Only reason they have a reasonable lifespan is that they are bought mainly for office use (as they look cool and professional according to management) and just run a web browser and maybe Microsoft Word.
@@shana_dmr keep the cover off and a fan on the hardware, mine are actually working fine, all used; C450 Lenovo, Dell 9030, 2020 and 6000 Pro Core2 MXM HP, also a week before, I bought another Lenovo M73x iirc, the 9030 matches CPU closely or exactly with Haswell i5 at 3Ghz
He doesn't understand the terminology at all. Even if anything was working, it would have been the POST. I think its just garbage. It needs to be salvaged for parts and the rest tossed :)
the center pin is for Dallas 1-wire communications in laptops that support it-- some cheaper HPs don't care. the GPU probably failed. remove the GPU MXM card and try the internal video.
Yes, probably the ATI chip just failed, witch is common in this series of GPU's, but the computer still detects it and tryies to boot the MXM GPU up and gets stuck at Video Error in the BIOS. Removing the MXM module will force the computer to boot the UMA Intel GPU, and that would probably not be dead as well.
Just what I would bee trying. Some systems simply won't boot with the screen connected to the built in graphics adaptor when a separate gpu is installed.
Holy crap. There are diagnostic cards in mini PCI-e form factor that show you boot codes. This would be invaluable for this sort of "no boot" troubleshooting. (To see what stage it fails.) I noticed this computer had a mini PCI-e slot populated with a wireless adapter.
Weird PC problems like this are usually the internal PSU. I've lost count of the amount of weird problems like this I have fixed with a PSU swap. Nothing standard in here though, so Dave can get his EE hat on and fix it (has anyone said swap out the caps yet?? Do I win a prize for being the first??).
No, the presence of the card is what's detected. It also occurs to me that the HP Touchsmarts were really picky about the PSU used, they would at best flash an error sequence and display a warning on screen but refuse to boot, at worst they'd do this sort of thing and just act dead.
Hey Dave, it is possible that the PC is not fully booting due to the PSU not identifying itself (it is the purpose of the single wire bus that goes in the center pin of the DC jack). HP and other manufacturers use this approach with their PC's (especially laptops) to make sure the right PSU is being used with the device.
This on some machines (Did this on a 'dell' all in one last month) can be disabled. If it gets into bios there's usually a setting to disable the check.
What a great vid, this looks very similar to my Acer Aspire Z5771 23'' touch screen AIO running Win7 HP circa 2012 (ugly beast) that I stripped down last summer due to excess fan noise & overheating and sometimes crashing. After spending some half an hour trying to figure out how to get the plastic back cover off... what a palaver, sooo fidley and delicate. Eventually got it off and like the HP, it is covered with shields. When all shields removed, the fan and CPU heat exhaust were all clogged with thick dust build-up, so much so, I bought a new fan off eBay & whilst a had it all apart, I upgraded the Ram, put a new CMOS battery in, and best of all, cloned my OS system to a 1TB Crucial MX300 SSD. And 1 Crucial MX300 275 GB SSD used as a Misc storage drive. Best upgrade you'll ever do to a PC installing a SSD or M.2 (providing you're MB supports M.2) When powering up after the upgrade the system found the SSD's straight away and booted instantly...no BIOS adjustments at all (UEFI) except setting the clock. Now when I boot up, it only takes 23 seconds...fantastic, and running sweet as a nut. When I put it all back, I left the shield off to the M/B as these AIO's do get very warm. Didn't touch the CPU still CORE i5. Love your channel, love the humour and sayings you come out with, they crack me up. subbed ;0)
@EEVblog2 here is some things to think about Dave, 1st, the center pin is usually a comms pin to the psu,,, in dell they use it to tell what type of charger, without the comms it will power but not charge... you might have a 1.8 or 3v sense line going back from the BL board to confirm its on... the PC buzzer might be via the soundcard, plug some speakers in and see if you hear anything? have you got an old usb diag device that shows what commands going around the bus as its booting, it could be a courpt bios?
Dave, this barrel connector might actually have three separate pins. Outside barell, inside barell and center pin. This the case for dell power supplies, where power is transmitted over internal/external connectors and center pin sends data about type of power supply
GPU dead. That's common on these machines. I had one with a GeForce Go internal card and it died. The thermal management for these can be lacking under high loads. I checked the price for these replacements even used pulls, and it's cheaper to buy a new machine than to replace it. It would be better since you got it free. Thanks for showing us how to troubleshoot this!
HAHAHAHAAHAHHAAHAH this made my day, had a HP before this pc, $600!! what a scrap of trash!!!!!!!! didnt even mind selling it so just scrapped it for parts!!!!!!!!!!!!
It may well be that the bios is corrupted as some have commented. Last year, I found a Dell 27" i7-3770S AIO touchscreen 16GB without the hard drive but with a spare motherboard and a spare power supply. On the net, I found that people were complaining about the bios. So the first thing I did, was to find a bios for it. Instead of removing any of the bios chips, I piggy back to the first bios chip and was able to programmed it. After that, I pushed the power button and the system turned on. I added a SSD, re-installed the OS and I have been using it since then. I re-programmed the bios on the spare board but have not tested it or the spare power supply - I guess that they are probably okay. So it basically cost me a SSD since I already had a cheap programmer (not as nice as the one that you I believe you had on one of your videos) and a little time to get it working. So that lump of coal you have, may well turn out to be a diamond. :)
I fixed the same model by flashing the BIOS rom on the EEPROM chip on the motherboard with a BusPirate, should work here too. Could be some easier way, but that's how I did it.
Does your generic barrel connector have a third wire for the sense wire? I have an hp ultra slim that the power supply went out on that has the same style connector. Not wanting to spend the money on a replacement, I used a brick with the same power output as the oem, used the original connector and just sliced in the sense wire to the positive and it worked.
would the lcd image drive board not have master control of the leds so if that has failed it would explain the leds with no poweron drive signal and would explain the no image when backlight is overridden ???
Want the camera or other reflections in the video, or without? Place a circular polarizer on the front of the lens; it's able to selectively reduce or eliminate most reflections. Makes a majority of outdoor shots look better, especially with sky or water
The way that line fades out slowly on the LCD makes me think the screen is knackered. And of course if that's the case I doubt it would emit any error beeps as the display isn't something that it would detect a problem with.
Seeing a scan line is a really big tell, also the screen isn't black upon power up its gray. I guarantee its the decoder card for the LCD (Crossover board, Serial decoder) and I bet both nuts it sits behind the heat sink and the solder joints went. I noticed this on a TV I repaired and they even had it affixed in a way that there would be axial stress on the board via not level standoffs and being in the hottest place in the TV (the exhaust vent at the top) you get the idea. A heatgun may do the trick.
I think going after the backlight inverter was probably a red herring... The backlight enable signal would come from the board once it's done some rudimentary checks and initialised the GPU. A failed inverter is also easy to spot by shining a light onto the screen, you will see the LCD operating as normal but without any backlighting.
Because of the title I kept waiting for your success! I mean I'll keep watching your channel, I didn't know about this one Probably would have watched something else had the title been better, but it might have been a video of yours because your channel is great and unique. A little like AvE, but for electronics guys, and still with the detail and charisma I know and love. Different detail and different charisma, but both you and AvE make RU-vid much better.
Even with dead backlight you should still see some sort of image if you look at the right angle. It would be nice if you could fix it though, something for Sagan to tinker with
Hi Dave. Select the ram modules and tighten the rubber contacts on the modules. Then put them back and try turning your computer on! If this dishonor will be a faulty graphics, cpu or base plate.
You must take into account that many people watch these videos in different devices other than computers where the description is not visible, so, I still back my first comment.
lol you find such awesome things in dumpsters. Were I live it sucks because it's against the law to dumpster dive. I knew a guy who got locked up for it. When I was a kid we lived in a different town and I used to find all awesome things like you. For a little kid it made it feel like Christmas. I miss them days. But who doesn't miss their childhood. Love you're videos they make my day. Thanks.
Try removing the MXM card and connecting the LVDS cable to the UMI port. You could also test the processor in another system, that your are willing to part with if the processor is bad.
I had a non mxm version of this come through once, bad motherboard. Not excactly sure where the issue was but I could not get it to power on. It did smell like something went boom but no skid marks. Those power cords are used on Dells, if that center pin breaks they do not charge the battery on most models. PITA to fix since trying to solder on 3 wires to those barrels sucks when you want it to look decent.
12:30 UMA stands for "Unified Memory Architechture" and refers the fact that the internal GPU does not have dedicated memory. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit#Integrated_graphics
Great find, me and a friend found a similar machine a long time ago, but it was a Dell. The motherboard was busted, but it had the cpu and ram still in it. 16gb of ddr3 so-dimm and a i3 3.30 ghz socket 1155.
i picked up a skylake pavilion 560 someone bare-boned but i had a CPU from an NCR computer kiosk that was also free, but refused to turn on, by the way, even the HP 6000 Pro needs 150 watt adapter, though overkill in some regards I think, mine lacks MXM included, but the card port resides on the mobo
It looks like it's working at least somewhat by the disk access light, and usually on computers like this if there is a beep code it will come over the speakers. The only time I've had my computer (Pavlilion 23-f364) beep is when it's turned on with no RAM installed.
the HP Compaq vintage I got is an AiO with Core 2 Duo but circa 2010 if not 09, it definitely beeped LOUD with any AC input lower than 150 watt demanded, but more voltage did not complain hahaha
Dave, I would first hook up a PXE boot server to that Ethernet socket for diagnostics, then log everything and see it FOR SURE what works. Once you know that you could estimate whether it's worth the time and effort to move on with the repair. Also, in the log you might find useful information about the state of the GPU and perhaps the screen as well.
A lot of people are saying to remove the discrete gpu to use the integrated graphics, but I don't see how that could be our problem. Every time I've ever seen that be the issue, the integrated/onboard video port has always been enabled just to display a message saying to switch the cables to the discrete gpu. Thoughts? Corrections?
To elaborate on this the pc will only output its diplay on the MXM card so moving the connector had 0 effect even if the gpu is at fault. If you remove the card the system will often just fall back to the IGP thus possibly output something on screen if you remove the card.
This video got me thinking I should try changing the Bios battery for my unit which had the blank screen of death and it worked. My unit would not even start. After dusting and vacuuming off the years of dust inside my unit I replaced the BIOS battery with a new CR2032 battery and it sprung back to life. I am so happy. Maybe everyone should try that solution first. Also that separate secret USB port is for the wireless keyboard dongle. A bit of a crazy video, but fun. Thank you.
Try the vga pins @7:36. I would try connecting a headphone and trying to boot to windows just to hear the splash screen sound and to nail down the problem to the screen
I found an msi version of this the other day i5 4200s in white... the back is missing though and i dont have a power supply yet to test it, its also missing the hardrive but everything else is there...
Hello Mr. I have the same device that was sent to me from Europe. Briefly, it has been almost a year in the container, when I received it it was not starting, no led on the power button, no signal nothing at all. I opened it and cleaned the motherboard, now it starts up properly, the processor heats up, the rams are detectable but the problem is the display that I don't have. I have no display on the screen or with the keyboard. Can you help me do something please? some tips for me to have the poster thank you. Cordial,
Check the RAM modules. I have repaired some 2012 HP Pavilion G6 laptops that would power up with the fans at 50% speed, HDD activity was showing as well, but no image or back-light whatsoever so it can be as simple as swapping the memory sticks.
All you needed from the start was a new inverter to see if that was the issue, but i guess that's a way to go about it lol but you did prove that it needs a new screen. Can't determine anything else until that's replaced.
But because of your rig, if you want it to close up again you will need both the inverter and screen. I wish you luck if you do attempt replaceing the touch screen lol
my laptop done similar to this, the mother board will go, it semi boots but just sits there with lights on but no further, so sad it dosnt work because when they do they are a vary good laptop
It maybe checks for the backlight board, and the current that it's drawing, so maybe because it doesn't senses a functional backlight driver board it doesn't let the LCD work, so i guess you might need to try to repair the bl board, or get a replacement from somewhere.
The internal graphics output is usually completely completely disabled when a discrete card is installed. If the AMD card is bad, then neither output will work.
Up the clacker usb is for USB keyboard dongle, Also bios is corrupt happens with failed updates. You can reflash with an arduino but I just ordered a new bios from ebay
I had seen that when updating to Windows 10 the bios craps out and the screen won't work I have one right now I have to work on. They say to use Linux and a arduino to reflash the new bios to the chip and it should work after that.
That mysterious down-facing USB port was actually where the dongle for the wireless keyboard and mouse these things shipped with connected. Its just another USB port, just in a spot dedicated to fitting the USB receiver.
Several models of the smaller HP all in one computers used laptop mainboards which in some cases means they are skimpy on processing power to avoid generating much heat. This ENVY looks much better than those.
The 'secret squirrel' USB port on this series of HP AIO is for the bundled HP wireless key/mouse dongle, the machine complains if its missing. Also, typically check what the included video port actually is, on some AIO its a video OUT to connect a 2nd screen, on others its a video IN , so that the screen can still be used if the machine becomes trash.
The really annoying thing about those dongles is that if they break, the keyboard and mouse they're paired with are essentially junk as you can't re-pair them with a new dongle.
There was no sign it was booting. Check the mobo to see if there's speaker jumper pins, warning beeps are great to identify these kinds or issues. If this was a pc I'd be reseating gfx card first and check monitor, but it could also be ram or a dead cpu or mobo.
Surprised you didnt try pulling possibly dead accessories. Disconnect the tuner, mxm card, also possibly test with one SODIMM of known good RAM, and make sure to test each slot individually. Ive seen boards where one DDR3 slot has failed (bga chip not socketed) and it will refuse to display anything on screen until no dimm is present
09:30 Not sure if somebody already said this But my guess is that the port is for a dedicated port for a wireless keyboard and mouse USB receiver, might have came with a wireless key/mouse
Soft power control is done in hardware, not by the CPU or BIOS. So the fact that it does power on and off sadly only means as much as PS_ON works and the PWR_OK and +5VSB lines are good. Next, after soft power-on, the CPU should get come out of reset in which it is kept beforehand, and the clock for the CPU starts running as well. It is only then that the CPU comes into play and slightly later on, the firmware.
you could remove the graphics card out of the computer completely some bios will pick that as primary if still plugged in faulty or not and then try the ULA one instead??
For everyone who is saying to pull the mxm card, I really do not think that this is the issue. If the card was faulty, the backlight on the LCD would be coming on by itself and then not doing anything. It looks like just the screen panel isn't putting out a picture at all, not even asking for the backlight board to put on the backlight. Maybe the lcd tcon thing board is fried or something, I would expect the backlight to be coming on for a second if the video card has broken. I'd find a pin out for those dvi connections and create my own dvi cable for the back to test it and then probably turn it into a not all in one pc
