Please feel free to start a new topic in the "Hardware" section for hardware issues; and any relevant section for drivers.

By "default driver", do you mean "DriverPacks_B_1107\D\G\I5  {DriverVer=02/07/2006,6.14.10.4497}"?

yes

No, I mean, tested, confirmed to work in multiple machines with no *noticed* problems for extended periods of time ;-P

ugh... lets never discuss this again (until i can afford some *active* suppressors)

thanks and *Easy-Bake* oven - ROTFLMAO

I'll test some of my junk mobo's tomorrow, not sure if it's an NV

PS:  I note that it is the electrolytic capacitors in the power supply that are tasked to "filter" low-frequency spikes also known as noise.  Ceramic capacitors in parallel remove high-frequency spikes (as on a chipset).  Should we therefore reexamine what a "known good power supply" is?  More importantly, is a brand new power supply automatically considered to be "known good"?  I note that a power supply's mass may be a seperate indicator.  I am also assuming the AC supplying the P/S is clean.  Passive surge suppressors (aka MOV's) have only a limited life-span and are therefore known by me, at least, as "consumables".  Consider Active Surge Suppression for your main equipment.  It is unknown to me how so-called Smart Meters gauge any excessive noise filtered out by surge-suppression (et al), yet one might infer that customers are indeed billed to clean their AC power.

PPS:  Just use the diode-test function on the meter to read the caps with the negative lead on a ground-plane & the positive lead on the chipset cap.  You might be astonished to see how many failed mobos, mostly with graphics chipsets, exhibit this type of reading (or not).  Was it an nV chipset, BTW?  If you find one, you may have a candidate for your "Easy-Bake" oven!

PPPS:  If i haven't said this before, congratulations on the successful laptop recovery!

As a follow-up to this topic, were you able to note the VideoBIOS revision, or more-importantly, which driver worked properly for that chipset?

v 3240 as reported by the intel graphics app

and it appeared that the default drivers did work with it.. the problem was as the drivers were copied to the HDD, the files were corrupted

It recieved a spike above the voltage of the TVS for an *extended* amount of time (not sure the amount of time, but if the TVS is blown, it definately received a spike?? would a short on the other side drawing too much power blow the TVS? or would it only blow if the PSU provided a spike?)

anyhow, the fan spins a few turns and it powers off (the PSU is going into overcurrent protect mode I believe, and yes it occurs with known good PSU's also)

a diode check on the SMD caps?? please provide a little more info.. I should note I don't have a cap meter.. just working with my somewhat decent (only)multimeter... and I didn't know you could diode check a cap.. am I understanding you correctly?

PS:  Now that you're more familiar with TVS diodes, what does the presence of a failed TVS generally say about the power it was supplied?
PPS:  If all else fails on that mobo, especially if it's a no-POST, do a bench diode-check of the SMD capacitors upon it, you may find a power rail with low readings.  One side of a cap will be ground.

And believe me i'm still learning something(usually 3 or 4 things) new everyday. I love what I do, it's like i'm still in school everyday(but I never learned this much in school). Most importantly I find I can do *anything* I get determined to do.. My newest project is a solder reflow toaster oven I am about to build for making my own boards and repairing ps3/xbox/laptop GPU's..

and after reading that info about the TVS diodes, I believe I have an emachines MOBO that may have a blown TVS on it, going to try to hunt that down and hopefully save a MOBO that was in the "solder practice/parts" box

See page 86 for an example of "popcorning".
I find a 24hr bake at 80°C most helpful to avoid this phenomenon.

Low-melt solder for removal intrigues me.  http://www.zeph.com/lowmelt.htm
(Note:  I have no ties present or past to that company; this is not a recommendation, only information.)

Have you seen any of the videos about chipquik? http://www.chipquik.com/

I wish I would have read that about 2 weeks ago... I popcorned a xbox GPU trying to do a reflow... lol

I read that sometimes, you can use the stick of a q-tip to rub the popcorned top layer back down and it will actually relaminate, if the damage isn't too bad....(don't know how bad mine is yet...)

That article about the diode theory is GREAT.. I always wondered why metal would act as the ground... I didn't know that solid's couldn't hold a positive charge... they can only "carry" it because of the way that the bonds occur.. It's a hard read, but very very informative...

I'm not an EE, and i've been learning about electronics and circuits on my own(making damn good progress though!!), but in the past year I have learned how to build circuits, use CPU's(and the busses they use), print my own PCB's, and repair stuff that I didn't *EVER* think could be fixed. I love learning new stuff!!!

BTW thank you sooo much for the great thread we've been dragging out here ;-P I think we are a little off topic, but it is one of the best threads i've taken part in, in a long time

Some info you might find useful from ONsemi (former division of Motorola):
TVS/Zener Diode Theory

Soldering and Mounting Techniques - Reference Manual

See page 86 for an example of "popcorning".
I find a 24hr bake at 80°C most helpful to avoid this phenomenon.

Low-melt solder for removal intrigues me.  http://www.zeph.com/lowmelt.htm
(Note:  I have no ties present or past to that company; this is not a recommendation, only information.)

A quick TVS diode-test with the digital meter yields 0.555V (- lead on striped-end - forward polarity) and only briefly measurable with reverse-polarity.
The other one is 0.676V forward & 1.60V with reverse-polarity.  Neither are shorted or open.

see here http://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_from_inside.html

another article http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Barracuda- … m-p/118908

Hope it helps!!

EDIT:: don't know if this applies to your PCB or not
http://forum.hddguru.com/noise-related- … t7986.html

PLEASE DON'T DO WHAT THIS GUY DID!!!! http://forum.hddguru.com/wd5000aaks-00t … 15491.html

I quoted him for a inverter, and it has taken a while for the parts(and the inverter didn't do it!!), and at this point I am aiming for a happy customer.

too bad that most people aren't as nice and don't care as much as I do... I would like to believe that some day it will pay off!

Thank you for taking time to respond!  This forum sees so little feedback.

A board swap is pretty-much pointless without a controller like the PC-3000 or similar.
My drive had only slight discoloration of the Head-assembly pads & ground-pads.  An eraser cleaned them up, including the reverse-side, without risking the protective coating with 2000-grit (and an isopropyl 'rinse').  In my case, the hynix buffer chip seems discolored yet cleaned up well.  Any advise for jumper settings before power-up?  I think 5-6 limits the interface to SATA-I.  For now, i'm leave no jumpers set & ditching the foamy for testing.

A quick TVS diode-test with the digital meter yields 0.555V (- lead on striped-end - forward polarity) and only briefly measurable with reverse-polarity.
The other one is 0.676V forward & 1.60V with reverse-polarity.  Neither are shorted or open.

Don't know about the jumpers.., haven't had to dig that far into it yet, but I would have left them factory set. as for the diodes, unless you know what they are and can look up the specs, your guess is as good as mine, maybe you can find some schematics somewhere(or ask on that hddguru's forum i mentioned).  But I would leave the foam... It is either to prevent shorts or act as a heat sink or both.. my understanding is that those chips get WWWAAAYYY too hot, and that is usually what causes the problems with corrosion or the chip failing, from what I read, when the PCB board is at fault, it is usually due to that chip failing.. if you have some liquid noclean flux, you could flux everything up and either stick in a oven to reflow, or use a hot air rework station, but that is a whole other thread...(and may not fix anything, and could make things worse!!!)..

go check out that thread, I read a post about someone having trouble, and one of the guys helped him trouble shoot with a youtube video, and they eventually fixed it!!!, I know a little about a lot of stuff, but they know a lot more about HDD behaviors and symptoms  than I do.. I suspect I just got lucky with what my problem was...(well, I wouldn't quit until there was no more options... hehe )

I wish I could claim I was more of a HDD expert, but I'm not..(yet..) But I still hope my couple posts help someone!!

A board swap is pretty-much pointless without a controller like the PC-3000 or similar.
My drive had only slight discoloration of the Head-assembly pads & ground-pads.  An eraser cleaned them up, including the reverse-side, without risking the protective coating with 2000-grit (and an isopropyl 'rinse').  In my case, the hynix buffer chip seems discolored yet cleaned up well.  Any advise for jumper settings before power-up?  I think 5-6 limits the interface to SATA-I.  For now, i'm leave no jumpers set & ditching the foamy for testing.

A quick TVS diode-test with the digital meter yields 0.555V (- lead on striped-end - forward polarity) and only briefly measurable with reverse-polarity.
The other one is 0.676V forward & 1.60V with reverse-polarity.  Neither are shorted or open.

I hope your efforts are not in vain on that laptop.  Have you been able to get any info on battery capacity / battery wear-level?  LinuxMint's System Profiler & Hardware Info should yield this info.  CPUID has HWMonitor for Windows, if the Chipset/Charge Controllers are supported (sometimes you have to start it on battery-power only to have these figures displayed, depending upon version, IIRC).

Perhaps post #19 to #21 could be moved into the "Hardware" section of the forum, Mr. Admin, say under "HDD repair"?

PCB repair?  I have a WD5000AAKS that has similar, if not the same, issue.  Should i be looking at the TVS Diodes?

I would probably suspect the Marvel chip due to what I have read and seen... on all of my drives, the thermal insulation foam appears burnt around the chip.. even when the chip is in a different location, furthermore, I see evidence of excessive heat, on one side of the ram chip, and the plates and pins where the PCB connects to the drive housing.

Repair may be a poor choice of words.. Cleaning would be better. however, I had 4 ( a WD5000AAJS, WD7500AAKS, a WD500AAKS, and (not sure model, but same line 1.0TB in size)) that all suffered from the 5-click, then spindown problem
It turned out to be corroded contacts where the PCB connects to the drive housing.

and a PCB replacement is almost pointless, there is either an 8-pin rom(or other flash device) or onboard storage on the marvel chip that stores drive specific data that is used to read/write to the disk... A board swap will fix the bad circuit, but the onboard controller REQUIRES the data from the old chip to access the drive. In order to swap the PCB if that is the problem, you need to either swap the flash/proccessor chip or get a data recovery company to adapt the new rom to your old data...

^ if the PCB even helps... I got lucky with my 4 drives ;-P

after you check the contacts CHECK OUT THIS FORUM!!!! (http://forum.hddguru.com)
In my case (4x different WDxxxxAAxS drives) the PCB had bad contact points to the drive...

I gently cleaned the contact pins and pads with a dry dish sponge(and GENTLY with the tip of my leatherman utility knife), and then cleaned them up more with 99% isopropyl alcohol and q-tips, and made sure it was dry before i reassembled. I was very careful to align and center the mounting tabs, and screw holes before tightening the screws.

BIG PIX!!!!

You are not the only one!
  Standing upon the backs of the Giants here is what makes me look taller.

I gotta run right now, just successfully completed a PCB repair on a WD 500gb sata drive ;-P !!!! Went from a click-click-click to a successful spin-up!!!!