Dead! EeePc 701. R.I.P. (2008-2012)

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aarf

Dead! EeePc 701. R.I.P. (2008-2012)

#1 Post by aarf »

Doesnt respond to cardiac massage(reset button) or to the off switch. Have to remove the battery to switch off the green light. Smelt burning plastic on plugging it in then it went to its present state. No more burnt plastic smell. Fan started purring couple of weeks ago, so i would switch it off when the fan came on.
What are the options?
Can i pull the SSD out easily?

musher0
Posts: 14629
Joined: Mon 05 Jan 2009, 00:54
Location: Gatineau (Qc), Canada

#2 Post by musher0 »

Hi aarf.

It's probably your last desktop taking its revenge for having dumped it for a sexier "girl"... :twisted: (hehe)

BFN.
musher0
~~~~~~~~~~
"You want it darker? We kill the flame." (L. Cohen)

aarf

#3 Post by aarf »

musher0 wrote:Hi aarf.

It's probably your last desktop taking its revenge for having dumped it for a sexier "girl"... :twisted: (hehe)

BFN.
never owned a desktop but did dispose of/dismember/eviserate my previous toshiba laptop while staying in the same hotel. Yes, could be its ghost taking revenge, we were very close. Thinking of going single for a while or at least until i get to somewhere where they sell novo7 again. Amazing how much free time i will have. Just my 3g phone for company.

aarf

#4 Post by aarf »

EeePc pangs have arrived. This cold turkey stuff aint easy. :oops:

rokytnji
Posts: 2262
Joined: Tue 20 Jan 2009, 15:54

#5 Post by rokytnji »

Can i pull the SSD out easily?
I can on my 701SD model easily. If yours has the big back access door look for

Image

Those 2 screw holes on the back are all that hold it in place. 701 eeepc uses pata mlc pcie ssd drive.
The 8GB versions of the 700 series leave the SSD area on the motherboard empty and connect their SSD as an internal PCI Express Mini Card. Replacing the SSD requires only an SSD compatible with the connector. The SSD area on the motherboard may also be used to install other devices, or accommodate physically larger SSDs, or even to hard-solder an SSD salvaged from a 2GB or 4GB 700 model. As this requires only soldering on a new device without removing an old one, the risk of doing so may be acceptable to some users. See #Storage below for configuration details.

Another reason the 700 series units may require modding is to replace a soldered in SSD that can no longer be written to as a result of exceeding the maximum number of write cycles to the drive.
If yours is the soldered in ssd model.
In the 2 GB and 4 GB models of the 700 series of the Eee PC, the SSD is permanently soldered to the board.
Then no it's gonna be a bitch. If you don't have the right soldering tools, solder wick, solder sucker, and grounding strap and skill set. Time to find a electronics buddy I guess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asus_Eee_PC#Eee_700_series

aarf

#6 Post by aarf »

rokytnji wrote:
Can i pull the SSD out easily?
I can on my 701SD model easily. If yours has the big back access door look for

Image

Those 2 screw holes on the back are all that hold it in place. 701 eeepc uses pata mlc pcie ssd drive.
The 8GB versions of the 700 series leave the SSD area on the motherboard empty and connect their SSD as an internal PCI Express Mini Card. Replacing the SSD requires only an SSD compatible with the connector. The SSD area on the motherboard may also be used to install other devices, or accommodate physically larger SSDs, or even to hard-solder an SSD salvaged from a 2GB or 4GB 700 model. As this requires only soldering on a new device without removing an old one, the risk of doing so may be acceptable to some users. See #Storage below for configuration details.

Another reason the 700 series units may require modding is to replace a soldered in SSD that can no longer be written to as a result of exceeding the maximum number of write cycles to the drive.
If yours is the soldered in ssd model.
In the 2 GB and 4 GB models of the 700 series of the Eee PC, the SSD is permanently soldered to the board.
Then no it's gonna be a bitch. If you don't have the right soldering tools, solder wick, solder sucker, and grounding strap and skill set. Time to find a electronics buddy I guess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asus_Eee_PC#Eee_700_series
thanks
rokytnji. Appreciate it. now have to muster the courage to take a look. Did buy my first ever soldering iron a couple of weeks back. It is still in the packaging unopened. One day . . . one day :-)., when the correct focus arrives i will break new ground. Lol.

rokytnji
Posts: 2262
Joined: Tue 20 Jan 2009, 15:54

#7 Post by rokytnji »

If Ant (site administrator, like John Murga) ever gets new IPB forum site figured out.

http://wiki.eeeuser.com/eee_pc_701

http://wiki.eeeuser.com/

These sites plus
http://forum.eeeuser.com/

which I am a moderator at plus all the AntiX entries in the wiki are mine has been up and down intermittently since Feb. of this year. I don't know what the hangup is except I know that Ant is traveling worldwide and I guess has no way to fix this yet from where he is located.

There is tons and tons of info in the wiki and forum there for trouble shooting and modifying eeepcs just going to waste right now. My upload links of Puppeee 4.4 are just going to waste there for now.

Just a passing Question. Do you get a bios loading, (the Amritrend loading screen I think), screen when the power button is pushed. I am on my Amrel Police laptop right now so I can't check for exact name of initial boot screen.

Your ram stick might be bad maybe also or need reseating maybe also. Just pull the ram access door (I am hoping it is not the soldered in ram model also) and pull the ram stick.
I use a pencil eraser to clean ram contacts. Then reseat ram module and see if that fixes it. I abuse mine riding motorcycles and I know vibration does funny things loosening up plug in modules. Worth a try or look see to see if ram is also soldered in type also.

That was why I researched eeepc 701 and 900 before I bought mine refurbished from Mwave. Both my 900 and 701 are easy maintenance quick change plugin ram and ssd models with a big access door on back. The dual drive ssd 900 I have has the 4gig ssd soldered in. The secondary ssd 16gig is a plugin like my screen image I posted.

I have had mine for a long time now. I like them both for my Motorcycle trips.
Antix and Puppy, (on SD flash), flies on em and I can watch movies and cartoons (Futurama) just fine on them.

aarf

#8 Post by aarf »

Thank you for the additional info.
The only sign of life is the green LED, screen is the black.
Am moving around for a few days myself so that is mainly why i dont want to dive into the EeePc right now. Got other cats on my mind so cant give EeePc proper focus that will be needed for a newbie tinkerer.

cthisbear
Posts: 4422
Joined: Sun 29 Jan 2006, 22:07
Location: Sydney Australia

#9 Post by cthisbear »

aarf:

You have done the old

unplug power >> disconnect battery >> hold down Power button 30 secs.

If you can take out the ram

pull off the little connection to the round battery...assuming it's just like any other laptop

and disconnect the hard drive

as well as the redoing the first steps altogether>>>for 30 seconds

and then leave it all disassembled for another hour
it might help reset the bios.

Did that with a Dell once.

Chris.

mini-jaguar
Posts: 597
Joined: Thu 13 Nov 2008, 13:45

#10 Post by mini-jaguar »

aarf wrote:
musher0 wrote:Hi aarf.

It's probably your last desktop taking its revenge for having dumped it for a sexier "girl"... :twisted: (hehe)

BFN.
never owned a desktop but did dispose of/dismember/eviserate my previous toshiba laptop while staying in the same hotel. Yes, could be its ghost taking revenge, we were very close. Thinking of going single for a while or at least until i get to somewhere where they sell novo7 again. Amazing how much free time i will have. Just my 3g phone for company.
Oh no, don't say that. I got mine to replace a Toshiba of similar specs (also 4 GB hd), but 9 years older. Still have it actually but in pieces.

Anyways, what I don't like about the eee is the cheapness of the power switch and of the button below the touchpad.

aarf

#11 Post by aarf »

Thanks cthisbear, sounds like good diagnosis about reflashing the bios. Would have tried it had it been possible on the EeePc but i think not. Still cant see the battery that i would have to decap even though i now have the parts of EeePc totally viewable from all angles. I was offline for a few days and did the dissection deed then. Your post came in that time.
Still cant identify what is the SSD even though i have read all readable writing with a magnifying glass.
At a guess it is the big square in the center. Images to come.

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RetroTechGuy
Posts: 2947
Joined: Tue 15 Dec 2009, 17:20
Location: USA

#12 Post by RetroTechGuy »

aarf wrote:Thanks cthisbear, sounds like good diagnosis about reflashing the bios. Would have tried it had it been possible on the EeePc but i think not. Still cant see the battery that i would have to decap even though i now have the parts of EeePc totally viewable from all angles. I was offline for a few days and did the dissection deed then. Your post came in that time.
Still cant identify what is the SSD even though i have read all readable writing with a magnifying glass.
At a guess it is the big square in the center. Images to come.
Well, the burnt smell is not a good sign.

The question is, did the smell come from the unit or the battery (or the power supply)?

I was given a Asus eee900 that my nephew found in the trash. It appeared that the power supply failed (and then the battery went dead), and they tossed it.

But you said you have a green light...so you probably have power.

Did you try hooking it to an external monitor? If it was only a screen problem, you might be able to see what's happening.

Or perform a reset on it. Another way to potentially do that is to unplug it, pull the battery and let it set for a couple days... Mine resets the BIOS when I do that (I have adjusted my BIOS to use the 4GB SD card as the "primary HDD").
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aarf

#13 Post by aarf »

With the burnt smell and the nonprogressing past just the first green LED i figured it was more than just the screen. The disk activity LED (SSD activity) never made an appearance.
Didnt check it though not that i know how or have the required cables/monitors. Only possible burning looked to be around the fan but not absolutely sure about that though. Could be just dust. And the fan doesnt usually start immediately when it is switched on so as to be a source of burning on startup.
Althought the fan had been making not encouraging noises consistently. Will give the fan a sniff test when i extract it from its new place at the bottom of my travelling pack.
Last edited by aarf on Fri 04 May 2012, 15:53, edited 2 times in total.

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RetroTechGuy
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Location: USA

#14 Post by RetroTechGuy »

aarf wrote:With the burnt smell and the nonprogressing past just the first green LED i figured it was more than just the screen. The disk activity LED (SSD activity) never made an appearance.
Didnt check it though not that i know how or have the required cables/monitors. Only possible burning looked to be around the fan but not absolutely sure about that though. Could be just dust.
My eee900 has a VGA port on the right side. I just plugged it into my desktop monitor, and on boot it fired up (I have a KVM, so I ran it sharing the monitor with another machine).
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aarf

#15 Post by aarf »

pictures of autopsy. tools 1 small philips head screw driver.
SSD is at front left and not able to be seen through back cover.
and not able to be removed all those small wires that you see clearly in rokytnji photo are attached directly to the mother board. more fullsize pictures at :tobe noted at some much later time.
sniff test of fan was inconclusive. dont know if SSD failure was a factor.
put it back together. probably not if it is the first eeepc you have taken apart. but perhaps could do with the second one. ear phone sockets give problems and there is a lot of breaking of plastic sounds. i wasnt being gentle as i has decided before hand that i wanted a new netbook.
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