HannStar mobo

[rjfvillarosa]

I have a goosed Medion notebook on my workbench and I cannot track the mobo down.
Medion notebook bought from Dixons in the UK
Model number FID2030
MD2592
MSN.....30000990
It is a socket 478 pentium 4
The mobo has the number M785 on it in many places, on the back it has HannStar K MV-4 94 V-0 0305
All the searches I have done for HannStar tell me that they make LCD monitors and nothing else, also I cannot find a web site for them.
Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.
Thanx guys.

[EzyStvy]

You have probably seen this Dutch web site: http://www.medion.de/

[rjfvillarosa]

Thanx Stvy, there is a UK version of that site and I have emailed them three times for information.
BTW your link goes to the German site (Deutschland)

[Moose on the Loose]

That's German, not Dutch

Medion is a company that sells computers very cheaply in the cheaper supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl. Many people buy their desktops there, because they are much cheaper than most other places, and they have pretty good specs. We owned one at home, a P3 667mHz, and it did its job pretty well.

[rjfvillarosa]

Hey Moose... how you doing? so far my wanderings in search of information have taken me around the UK, Germany, Belgium and many East European countries, (oddly enough nothing in France which is where my friends father lives and uses this machine).
As you say it is sold by the Aldi and Lidl stores but not in the UK, originaly in the UK it was sold by Dixons, but they seem to have dropped it for some reason, UK sales and service are from Medion's web site only now.
It is giving me BSOD's constantly, all with different causes/results, I almost got it to launch windows yesterday but that was after it had sat all night untouched then started cold, it seems to be heat related, the more times you try to start it the less response you get from it. At first it will start in safe mode but any attempt to start safe mode with networking just brings up a BSOD and then a few more tries and it BSOD's even before safe mode, all the BSOD's are different and don't follow a pattern. I have had PFN failure, Less Than Equal too and loads of just random numbers. I have just ordered a new hard drive adapter so I can fit the hard drive to one of my towers and run some tests on it (my old adapter has gone on strike for some reason).

Thanx guys all the suggestions are appreciated.
I was sent this site by one of my suppliers, not sure if it is fully operational yet but it really helps with identifying hardware with no labels.
http://www.idhw.com/

[TheJackal]

Do you know what caused it to suddenly begin to have all of these problems, and die?

Have you made sure that all of the fans are in good working order, and clean of dust and dirt?

Was the machine always used while plugged into a surge protector?

Could you record all of the different BSOD messages that you get, and post them here?

I personally cannot see how heat would cause all of these different parts of your machine to fail. The one thing that does come to mind though, is a power related issue. It could be a power surge issue, or it could be a power supply issue.

[rjfvillarosa]

Originally Posted by TheJackal Do you know what caused it to suddenly begin to have all of these problems, and die?.

The problems started after the notepad had been left in standby one night.

Originally Posted by TheJackal Have you made sure that all of the fans are in good working order, and clean of dust and dirt?.

Both CPU fans are working perfectly and are spotlessly clean as is the rest of the inside of the case, one of the fans automatically switches off when you boot into safemode in order to preserve battery life.

Originally Posted by TheJackal Was the machine always used while plugged into a surge protector?.

I can't give you an answer to that one because I have no idea of the circumstances of where this notebook is kept.

Originally Posted by TheJackal Could you record all of the different BSOD messages that you get, and post them here?.

When my new notebook hard drive adapter gets here and hopefully I can establish that there are no faults on the hard drive, I will reassemble the machine and try and get some BSOD quotes

Originally Posted by TheJackal I personally cannot see how heat would cause all of these different parts of your machine to fail. The one thing that does come to mind though, is a power related issue. It could be a power surge issue, or it could be a power supply issue.

From memory most of the BSOD's were different, ranging from memory problems to graphics problems which is what led me to believe that a chip on the mother board is breaking down under load/heat and hence my opinion that it is heat related.
One result that sticks out in my mind was once the BIOS reported only 640kb of ram installed, the ram chip was tested in another machine and is perfect and has since been corrected in the BIOS of this notebook.

[mc2phat]

Might be an FIC board. They've got an M785 notebook model.
http://www.pcg.fic.com.tw/marketing/

HannStar builds notebook screens.

[rjfvillarosa]

Originally Posted by mc2phat Might be an FIC board. They've got an M785 notebook model. http://www.pcg.fic.com.tw/marketing/ HannStar builds notebook screens.

Thanks mc2phat I have emailed their support for any information that they might have, I also found that HannStar were LCD screen manufacturers.
As of yet, I still have not received a reply from Medion themselves, but we live in hope.

[rjfvillarosa]

Originally Posted by rjfvillarosa Thanks mc2phat I have emailed their support for any information that they might have,

I received a very polite email from a guy named Ted in fic's tech support and he also attached the manual in pdf for that M785 notebook, it is the same motherboard (for all intents and purposes it's the same notebook), with a bit of luck if it does turn out to be a mobo fault and not a virus maybe he can help me find a new mobo. Hopefully my new harddrive adapter will be here in a day or two and I can test the hard drive before going any further, I still haven't figured out why my old adapter is not working must be a broken connection somewhere.

[mc2phat]

Well, all right! Isn't it a good feeling when the bird dog points?

[rjfvillarosa]

Originally Posted by mc2phat Well, all right! Isn't it a good feeling when the bird dog points?

At the moment you are my hero.......you are sitting up there along side Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix and Timmaay from South Park.

[NokiaYes]

Hi, just wondered if you ever got your board sorted out as I have very similar symptons.

[gizmoman]

This seems to be a common problem with this model, i'm having the same trouble. Did you ever resolve it? Mine now won't restore XP (locks up with graphic corruption), does the same when trying to install win 2000 too. (clean install). However it will install and run win 98se perfectly! Will also boot from a
linux live cd and run perfect too. It's really got me stumped. Have checked
hard drive and memory and they're ok. Any ideas?

[rjfvillarosa]

Sorry Gizmo but we actually threw the towel in with that laptop, everything pointed to it being a mobo fault and the only way to replace it was to buy several dozen of them direct from the manufacturers.
Everything in the machine tested perfect, all the drives, ram and cpu.
Sorry I can't be of any more help.
The problem we were up against was that nowhere supported or serviced the machine any more and hence the reason for buying the mobo direct from the manufacturer plus they wanted to sell us a consignment of them and not just one mobo.

P.S.
Just a thought, I will be back in Puerto Rico soon and if I still have it I can send you the manual in pdf for that machine.

[gizmoman]

Thanks for the swift reply, looks like i'm stuck with Windows 98 or linux! At least
its not totally gone (yet). Thanks again for your help.

[rjfvillarosa]

If I am correct the machine I was trying to repair died in a heartbeat so it sounds like your problem maybe different, if I do still have that manual I will send you a copy but I won't be back in PR for about a month and it is on my machine over there. ( if I still have it that is)

[fp3755]

Hello,

I had all the BSOD problems you describe for two years, and finally resolved them by installing the updated 2006 driver for the SIS650 VGA from the SIS website http://www.sis.com/download/ you need to select your OS then IGP Graphics ...

There was a fault in the original driver.

Hope this helps.

Does anyone know where I can download the FID2030 service manual? I really need that ...

Thanks,

Ben.

[low1969]

please HannStar K MV-4 94 V-0 0435 driver

[prawlin69]

Originally Posted by rjfvillarosa Sorry Gizmo but we actually threw the towel in with that laptop, everything pointed to it being a mobo fault and the only way to replace it was to buy several dozen of them direct from the manufacturers. Everything in the machine tested perfect, all the drives, ram and cpu. Sorry I can't be of any more help. The problem we were up against was that nowhere supported or serviced the machine any more and hence the reason for buying the mobo direct from the manufacturer plus they wanted to sell us a consignment of them and not just one mobo. P.S. Just a thought, I will be back in Puerto Rico soon and if I still have it I can send you the manual in pdf for that machine.

I also have a Medion MD2592 with BSOD blue screen crash on XP boot up. Many different error codes get thrown which are all meaningless as they are never the same twice. Many peeps seem to have this very same issue with this machine. I can say it is not bad memory, hard drive, CPU etc. as I have replaced all these and tested them too. It seems these laptops all gradually start to show this problem at some point after 2+ years service. It is as though something is gradually "wearing out" on the motherboard. Chips, transistors, diodes, resistors, SMD capacitors and inductors *generally speaking* do not wear out gradually yet this BSOD issue seems to gradually get worse as the machine gets older. It does seem to have some temperature dependancy, but that is not the only cause. Sometimes it is better when cold, sometimes better when hot.

I am a retired EE and believe the only gradual "wear out" parts on the entire mobo are the many PSU electrolytic capacitors. They also have some characteristic changes with temperature changes. These are very highly stressed components in laptop switching boost/buck PSU circuits and do have a limited lifetime. Perhaps surprisingly, at their max temp and rating they are only specified for 2000 hours expected operating lifetime! This will be hopefully be somewhat longer providing they are run cooler and at lower ripple currents. The original parts are Chemicon KXG series 2,200uF and 1200uF all 6.3v. These are quite special low ESR type.

However, capacitor technology has moved on since these machines were manufactured a few years ago. I have ordered at full set of Super Ultra low ESR new replacements from Hong Kong via Ebay. These are very high grade Rubycon MBZ series 3,300uF and 1200uF 6.3v . When these arrive in the next few days, I will replace them all and I *hope* it might fix the mobo and restore the machine to it's original reliable condition.

This is an old laptop now, but it is still perfectly fast enough for some general use with it's 2.4GHz Pentium CPU. I cannot bear to just scrap it as it is such a waste. It very nearly works OK so if this single fault can be fixed it will still have some useful life left in it.

I will post back here my findings in due course. If this fix attempt fails then almost certainly it will be consigned finally to the scrap heap as I have put way too many hours into trying to fix it. Medion UK support deny there is any design problem or epidemic failure of this laptop. Clearly there is an issue as a simple web search proves. Also I have seen many of these machines for sale as faulty on Ebay. They often have the same fault symptoms described as we are talking abouty here.

regards

Peter

[rjfvillarosa]

Hi Peter.
For me this is no longer an issue as that laptop was scrapped a few years ago when I had to buy several hundred motherboards just to repair one laptop. I am back in Puerto Rico now and highly unlikely to ever see one of these laptops again, BUT. I would be very interested in hearing about what happens when you change those cap's.

[prawlin69]

Originally Posted by rjfvillarosa Hi Peter. For me this is no longer an issue as that laptop was scrapped a few years ago when I had to buy several hundred motherboards just to repair one laptop. I am back in Puerto Rico now and highly unlikely to ever see one of these laptops again, BUT. I would be very interested in hearing about what happens when you change those cap's.

OK I understand. BTW, what was that manual pdf you mentioned? Does it have schematic circuit diagrams in (doubtful) or is it just disassembly instructions etc?

I shudder to think how many folks mind numbing and frustrating man hours/days/weeks must have been spent endlessly reinstalling OS, bios, drivers and replacing memory, HDD, CPU etc. whilst trying to fix these things. Yes I think many/most of these laptops will have been scrapped for this issue by now which is a shame. whilst it was not the best machine around, it was reasonable when new. The one I have here was bought new by me for my son to use at university about 3.5 years ago. It worked fine for first year of very heavy use, (often overnight downloading stuff etc. also DVD watching and so on) then gradually started to fall over. Just occasionally at first but then with increasing frequency. At around 18 months age he stopped using it and I bought it from him just to help him financially towards buying a new HP one which has been 100% faultless for 2 years so far AFAIK. So financially, I have paid quite a lot for this darn thing, so I am sort of hyper determined to fix it still.

It has been lying around here in pieces for well over a year now. I am quietly confident it might be the caps as it all makes sense to me. I have scope'd the DC supply rails and there is some switching ripple. Perhaps 25-50 mV pp. Also some surge variations. However I do not know what is normal for this. On the 1.5v rail for the CPU core there are 7 x 2,200uF caps in parallell making total of 15,400uF! (with new caps, but they do age and capacity may have reduced) replacing these with modern 3,300uF will boost this to a healthy 23,000uF so this may help, perhaps?

To anyone else attempting this type of thing, please note that standard cheapy capacitors will be useless even if value/voltage/size is matched. They *must* be low ESR, very high ripple current types which match or exceed the original ones in performance. They are usually designed for this specific application in PC voltage regs.

The specs for the original chemicon caps can be seen here.....
http://www.chemi-con.com/files/KZG.pdf

the upgraded Rubycon MCZ ones I am replacing with are here.....
http://www.rubycon.co.jp/en/catalog/.../e_MBZ_MCZ.pdf


and I whilst searching for the above just now, I just found this excellent run down article on mobo caps here. The stuff I just read on here is quite encouraging that I may well be on the right track! These things are known to fail and the symptoms we have match perfectly....
http://www.capacitorlab.com/capacito...-electrolytic/

I will update my results here when known.

regards

Peter

[glc]

You know, I admire your tenacity, but I can't help but think you are beating a dead horse. Medion has never been a well supported brand. When a computer is only sold through a grocery store chain, that should raise the warning flag. I've worked on Medion desktops, and I am less than impressed.

Just my opinion, I'm not trying to disparage you.

[prawlin69]

Originally Posted by glc You know, I admire your tenacity, but I can't help but think you are beating a dead horse. Medion has never been a well supported brand. When a computer is only sold through a grocery store chain, that should raise the warning flag. I've worked on Medion desktops, and I am less than impressed. Just my opinion, I'm not trying to disparage you.

Yes I know and agree - partially. I bought it direct from Medion UK as it was cheap (at the time), reasonable spec and 2 yr warranty. Also I have a friend who had a Medion desktop which had been fine. Anyway, I have the time to tinker and unfortunately have about £550 already invested in this thing. I mean if it works, who cares what the brand label is. Medion don't actually make the stuff AFAIK. They source their products from OEM noname manufacturers. These particular MD2592 units are made by a Taiwan company FIC.....
http://www.fic.com.tw/

The next Medion PC you look at may be made by some other original maker etc.

Medion support is non existant and I would not buy another Medion product after this saga for that reason alone. However, if I can make this thing work again, I may as well. Also I get a bit of a buzz from fixing things that are often described as beyond repair :-)

Having said all that, if this cap change operation fails to fix it then I will probably give up on it.

regards

Peter

[prawlin69]

Hmm. Nice shiny Rubicon caps arrived. Replaced all 15 radial caps on the mobo - no change. Still crashes almost every boot up

Occasionally it will boot into XP and work OK. One noteworthy thing is that if I power it from the battery pack instead of the mains adapter, it sucessfully boots much more often though not every time

not sure what I will do next. Bin maybe?

Peter