Killed Asus A7S Require Assistance

[bobbytomorow]

I disassembled an Asus A7S-A1 2 nights ago for a BGA reflow. Following reflow I inserted a stick of RAM, had the heatsinks re-seated with fan, attached the power button to motherboard and then connected the battery to test if reflow attempt was succesfull... good so far but heres where it all went wrong, lastly I connected the display data/video cable to the board, and a faint pop then burning smell and now no power AT ALL, no post, nothing.

Obviously I should have had everything connected AND THEN lastly the battery.

Anyway thats where I am now. It wasn't the inverter because the loogicboard would still get power im assuming and fans would still spin up etc...so I am guessing that its something on the motherboard (possibly around where the display connects as that is where burn smell seems to be)

What should I be looking for exactly? I realise its, "look for something burned", but anyone know specifically? I can't visually see anything burned.

Should there be some kind of embedded fuse perhaps?

For the record I have a solder station, multi-meter etc...and am not afraid to dig in.

[Rik from RCE]

What exactly do you mean by BGA reflow (I know reflow refers to solder reflowing)? Need to know exactly what you have done to the mobo!
I also repair electronic items so may be able to help with more info!

[bobbytomorow]

Hey Rik,

BGA stands for ball grid array, most GPU's are BGA's and thus attached to the motherboard rather than being on a separate board and plugged in like say a MXM board. What happens is that after heating and cooling (expanding and shrinking) they lose contact ith the motherboard and require a reflow. This is very common with Nvidia GPU's and especially 8400 and 8600's.

I have reflowed a few notebooks, typically I will add a copper shim to keep them from separating off the board once repaired but in this case I did not as it did not require a shim, the copper heatsink made good contact.

I hope that helps some.

[Rik from RCE]

It's possible the reflow has caused a short!?!

[bobbytomorow]

Thats a possibility, albeit slim, like I mentioned I heard a faint pop when I connected the display to the logicboard so I am thinking that is what caused the short. There was also a faint burn smell near the area when the display connects to.

I tore down the cooling assembly and (heatsink/heatpipe/fan) inspected the area around the gpu, where I reflowed and did not notice anything.

[Rik from RCE]

Hmmm, it's gonna be hard to find the problem I suspect!

[bobbytomorow]

any pointers on where to start checking with a volt meter?