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CTX EzBook 800 No Power/No post

3lectr1c

3lectr1c

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2022
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Location
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This one’s been a pain. Got this laptop in great shape, working from the swap meet and took it apart to make sure it didn’t have any VARTA battery inside of it ready to cause doom. And it freakin’ did! Soldered barrel battery that had already caused some damage, surprised it was still working!

Anyways I clipped it out and then took it apart further to clean the damage. Then the left hinge snapped. Ugh.
I took the hinge as a loss for now as I’ll need to design new mounts to 3D print, originals are beyond repair. I reassembled and spot tested it before I got everything back on, and it did start. Wouldn’t display video but when I applied pressure to the CPU it did start producing video and I chalked that issue up to the heat sink not being installed, so I got the rest of it back together.

Now it’s dead. Fan doesn’t spin, HDD doesn’t start up, and of course no video or post. CPU doesn’t get warm at all, not even slightly. The only signs of life are some LEDs. Any ideas?
Video demo:
 
Hi!

I think I'll use this as an opportunity to post here, as I don't think I have in a few years. I'm surprised that my account still works!

I just looked up the only article (a blog post) I had ever found about this model (link), and it turns out I have the exact same model as yours!

When I got it (it was a gift from a friend), mine behaved exactly as yours does now (dead, except for some LED activity w/re charging status or something to that effect), except as I was attempting to poke at it, something happened and as I recall, I smelled something burn. I couldn't find what it was, but since it was already dead anyway, I wasn't too upset (in retrospect, it could've been the reason why). The fact that you now have one is a huge development, because I finally have something to compare mine to!! And the fact that yours worked at all is incredible!

If I can find it in storage if and when I get there, would you be interested in swapping some parts around?

The hinges on mine were (and as far as I know, still are) fully intact too.

c
 
Aha! I knew you had one of these years back. Wasn’t sure if yours was the same model or not though.No burnt smell from mine thank god, the DC board is my first suspect as the hard drive not even spinning up anymore is suspect. Worth noting my battery works and the system is charging said battery in this state, and the DC board appears to be getting warm which would be in line with it charging the battery.
I’ve got a couple stills here from a video I took of it starting when I got it - haven’t edited the full video yet but I will soon. Fairly decent system.
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Shame that all these will die off in the next decade or so because of that soldered varta battery. I don’t think that damage killed mine because it was literally just working, but who knows.
As for a parts exchange, don’t think so unfortunately. I generally don’t currently do trades/purchases on forums due to location related privacy reasons for the time being I’m afraid. If you need or can provide any troubleshooting though let me know! I can give you disassembly instructions for your unit if you need them, it’s a bit fiddly to take apart. You need to get the display assembly fully taken apart to get the keyboard surround/palm rest assembly apart. Not tricky once you know how to do it but getting there caused me to bust the hinge so it would have been good to know.

Anywho, tomorrow I’ll do the first obvious thing which is to take everything apart and reseat everything. After that I’ll go from there.
 
Welp, I just reseated all the things and no change. I’m really wondering what the problem is, it’s gotta be the CPU or some seating issue with it. Any idea how to get the chip out of this socket?
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I got the CPU out. It lifted out of the socket with a moderate amount of force. Now however, I can’t figure out how the locking mechanism works. If I stick the chip back in, it now lifts out effortlessly which obviously isn’t correct.
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I feel like this issue has got to be CPU related! It behaves exactly the same with the chip removed.
 
How odd!

Hopefully you can figure out that socket. Worst case, I suppose you could desolder the socket and just solder in the CPU directly? It's not like it's going to be upgraded or anything (do CPU upgrades even exist for this thing?)

c
 
I have a notebook with that socket as well. It works quite easy actually: put the CPU in and slide it (the CPU!) to the right to fix it. To remove, slide it to the left and then lift it out.

I hope you did not damage the socket by having used force to pull the CPU.

//edit:
since the socket seems to be rotated in your system: slide upwards to lock the CPU, downwards to release. Be careful, as it is very easy to bend all pins on the CPU when doing it wrong. You can use a screwdriver in the corresponding slot as a lever.
 
Last edited:
Ah ok. Thanks! I did try try pushing it upwards before as I thought that may be how it works but it didn’t move much. Probably didn’t use enough force though? I’ll give it another go.

I did notice something else though. The charger connected LED is one of the ones that lights up when I press the power button - but only sometimes. I’ve figured out that applying pressure to the logic board will always make it appear - and that more pressure in certain areas will make it go from off to dim to less dim to bright as I apply more pressure. Seems like there’s a bad connection somewhere but I’ve gotta figure out where that is.
Then there’s the matter of the bad traces that the battery caused. Maybe that’s causing this after all? I could look about fixing them but they are very very small…
 
To close the socket you push the CPU sideways using a screwdriver in the "close" pocket of the socket. Use a wide flat blade screwdriver that fills the pocket. Be careful since the plastic used has a tendency to break if forced too hard. It is possible that there may have been a flat plastic top part (with holes for the CPU pins) over the exposed pins that would slide along with the CPU. The many Chicony, Alpha-top and other Socket 7 laptops that I have worked on normally would have this cover piece as part of the socket. I doubt if it is missing that it is the cause of the failure to boot.
 
OBTW, I checked on my saved using the Wayback Machine and looked at what I knew about the CTX line way back when and I see that I only messed with the 700 series and even that was very limited. I think I have a few bits and pieces for that laptop somewhere in my stored stuff.
 
DeltaDon said:
It is possible that there may have been a flat plastic top part (with holes for the CPU pins) over the exposed pins that would slide along with the CPU.
Click to expand...
No, that's not how that socket was. It's missing nothing and I told him already how the CPU is locked/released.
 
CPU is in proper now. Thanks! Here’s an overall update video where I explain my current theory on the issue:
CTX EzBook Update
 
I’ve isolated the issue somewhat to this big connector which was damaged by the battery corrosion.
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When I apply pressure to the big daughter board that connects to it in the area above it, I get more activity from the lights. Clearly we’ve got broken connections here. I think I’ll try to reflow it with some fresh solder and see where that gets me.

And yes I’ve also got bad traces… but it was working fine with those before.
 
Well I can’t figure out how to get the motherboard out. Or even the floppy drive module, it’s stuck in place.
 
I'd suggest using a rotary rubber buffing wheel on those traces to get the solder mask off and see the status of them, if any are broken. You'll also want to neutralize the corroded bits, and probably replace whatever those components are near the socket in a line.

And the fact that pushing on the board makes it somewhat work leads me to believe that there are probably some disconnected pins on other chips on the board, I'd guess some of the larger ASICs, like the chipset and video chip. Those would need to be inspected.
 
I managed to finally pull the motherboard from the system, was really stuck in there. The battery ate through multiple pins on a large chip on the back, a few are broken. The chip in question is the PCMCIA controller. I really think that the issue lies in the connector visible in my photo, it's for a sub-board that the LCD cables connect to, as well as the power button. The LEDs lighting up when I push on that connector's area makes me thing it's the culprit really, the other chips besides for the PCMCIA controller (which shouldn't be necessary for POST I'd think?) look fine. However, component LN1, whatever it is, appears to have a broken leg.

Also reflowed the LN parts and the accessible side of the connector and it's only made the problem worse. I think this one is beyond my abilities unfortunately. I can't get at the other side of the connector since it's blocked by the VGA port.
 
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