Because this is a 7-8 year old high end gaming laptop and gaming = higher power consumption = higher heat , heat and power = shorter the lifespan of components depending on the usage eg: many hours a day usage or a lot of gaming typically shorter lifespan. The power adaptors on these were between 180-240 watts, many newer non gaming laptops power adaptors are under 35watts meaning far less heat and cooling required and hopefully longer lifespan. I have a 14 year old laptop still working but it isn't for gaming and likely a few hours per week usage and has Win11 24H2 IoT LTSC so supported to April 2034. If it was used 8 hours per day likely would have long since been dead.
Has nothing to do with design buddy, more so that operating systems get more demanding with each update, same with games etc so hardware can’t keep up!
@horseathalt :No its not planned obsolescence, this is a gaming laptop, they guzzle power, create a lot of heat and can often die and early death because of it. This one was looked after meaning cooling fins were not caked/blocked with dust and lasted 7-8 years, where is the planning in that. The video already said typically 5-7 years not for all laptops but for this model. I have a 14 year old non gaming laptop still working! where is the planned obsolescence?
So when I took BEE in the Navy our instructor warned us about FM. He called it effing Magic (well he used the actual profane word for F - you can figure it out). Anyway, I honestly feel the same way about motherboard repair. I did computer repair for awhile right after college, back in the days of the ISA bus (lol), and even then it wasn't always easy to troubleshoot. That was the days of 4.77MHz. Now take that, increase the complexity by several magnitudes (Moore's law), and shrink it by about 80%. That's the landscape of motherboard technicians. These guys are the true wizards of the modern age.
I've seen month old laptops that weren't as clean as this one. Someone's either taken very good care of it, had it serviced _very_ recently, or just hardly ever used it.
damn, it must suck for the client if they were watching when they found out the cpu probably survived but a burned trace is what made the laptop unsalvageable.
I've used Dell laptops and Dell desktops (I'm writing to you on a Dell G5 5090) and never had a problem where I had to see a tech professional. Just bought my wife a Dell laptop. FWIW...
Glad to hear, and that is how it should be. I see most Dells lasting more than 5 years no problem, but I have seen plenty of 10+ year old models still in use. I just upgraded one to Windows 11 a couple of days ago.
A 7th gen i7. FINALLY someone who understands saying "it has an i7" is meaningless. Drives me insane, so thank you for bringing a bit of sanity to my evening.
He’s worried about how much current and heat that coil has to handle going to the CPU, to just put bodge wires in, then warrantying his work. The wires would probably burn under heavy load.
I might dead bug the new coil, epoxy it in place, then run copper braid (like solder wick, but not impregnated with flux) from the one side down to the existing pad, and then run another one from the FET pins to the other inductor lead. But I wouldn't warranty it at all. 🙂 So I understand where he's coming from.
@@dellpartspeople You could get some thick copper foil and cut out a replacement track, but it'd be very difficult and probably require some high temperature glue to hold it all in place. But it'd be quite time consuming.
I have an Alienware M18xR2 that was preowned before it was gifted to me. Still alive and kicking. Never took the heat sink off but I do take open and clean it every 3 to 6 months, brush off the dust and use a lil vacuum made for it so the dust doesnt spread. Maybe twice in 6 years since I've had it have I taken it fully apart to do a deep clean but I don't do it often cause often there's not much to clean anyway. Did it once cause some memory sticks were going bad so I might as well clean it since I had it disassembled. In the past year, I've had maybe 3 BSoD randomly that I couldn't recreate so I know age is catching up to it and it'll break at some point but it's all I got for now so I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Thanks was another good video and helps me understand my laptop a bit more.
The wifi card must be removed to remove the bottom cover frame, and I usually leave it connected to the WiFi antennas. So that is why it is just sitting on the fan.
There are copper tapes on the market, similar to the ones that were used for shielding on older ThinkPads. They are relatively thick and could do the trick. Can' say how thick that trace was, but it is worth trying to fix it. Was left a bit confused on why you called it.
I love how he is explaning up front that this laptop is seven years old and the life span of those models is 5-7 years. I hope this person is getting a free repair. 7th Gen intel are not compatible with Win 11 and the clock be ticking...tick tok tick tok.
Why get a free repair (actually diagnostics)? the person sent it for a fix, the person knew it was 7 years old, it can be fixed but now a MB replacement, is that economical to do on an old laptop? That what the clients asks eg: how much for diagnostic, how much for MB replacement, warranty on either? A new gaming laptop is far from cheap so client needs to weigh up their choices rather than a third party claim its not worth it for them.
I dunno about i-7th gen, but a Xeon E3-1276v2 runs Win11 just fine, and it's what, glorified 4th gen? (not sure of equivalence, but that'd be close, it replaced an i5-4xxx.)
Well, there wasn't anything really there to grind down. If you were to grind where the old track was, you would start getting into the layers of the motherboard.
How on earth is there so little dust in the fans? I have a ROG zephyrus with 2080MaxQ and damn tjis thing sucks dust like crazy I have cleaned the fans twice in 5years and every time is pretty bad.
I think the voltage was back-feeding through the COIL from the other MOSFETs because that MOSFET was shorting out. From the color of it, you can tell it got really hot, and was probably melted internally.
Back around the year 2000 a person had his Alienware laptop burn the mobo into a very crispy state. Fully loaded at a cost of $5K. That posting didn't last long at all until it was removed. I was wise enough to save it, not good for business I would think. Gaming laptops are known to burn up for decades now.
Hi i'm currently using the same laptop same i7 7th gen. how do i prevent this and other board failures from happening? i already cleaned and repasted with mx-4 only the thermal pads i haven't changed yet.
Maybe planned obsolescence? Plus if it a performance driven gamer laptop, it will fail due to high the electrical stress on the power supply components.
I think the voltage was back-feeding through the COIL from the other MOSFETs because that MOSFET was shorting out. From the color of it, you can tell it got really hot, and was probably melted internally.
@@dellpartspeople Or maybe copper tape - but if the board is that charred there is a risk of internal shorts... Maybe removing the charred insulating material would be best. And are there any other connections or vias besides the connection between chip and coil? I'd guess the coil was the original culprit (internal shorted turns?) and the heat from it fried the chip. Very unusual failure.
That is a certified KFC right there. I still think the laptop will POST and run without that power stage, but if one power stage gets that bad, there is no warranty to the repair whatsoever.
I have a 7th Gen 4 core i7 7280HK Asus ROG G752VSK OC edition GTX1070, running dual channel 32Gb of DDR4 3200Mhz memory, it features a DVD rom drive, it's a behemoth however it was the bee's knees back in 2017 it's something I use very rarely and it's also in perfect nick. Originally I purchased it to replace a desktop pc as it has all the ports inc thunderbolt 3 USB C and all the power I needed for content creation, I don't play games so frame rates aren't an issue for stuff I do, however if one thing I would upgrade is the pathetic 120Hz screen. My recommendation to the Dell owner/client would be just weigh up the cost of a replacement board with no less than the i7 7820HK OC cpu paired with GTX 1070 - 1080 or invest in a more up-to-date laptop for under a grand.
My bet is the part was bad from the factory, or probably marginal. I think the current generation of laptops run way to hot. I have it on a blower now most of the time when at my desk which pumps are through the case lowering the temps by 10C no matter what it is doing. I use it as my work computer.
This is the kind of stuff that tech TH-camrs need to pay attention to. They always focus on the bells and whistles of the new hot laptop, but none of them care about reliability and longevity. Watching this channel and Salem tech has taught me to stay away from Dell/Alienware and HP for the most part. But as I said before, TH-cam reviewers are sorely lacking when it comes to stuff like this.
Umm, well, I think watching my channel gives you a skewed view of Dell and Alienware laptop reliabilities. My company specializes exclusively in Dell and Alienware laptops only, so yes, you will see a lot in for repair on this channel, but this does not mean they break more than others. If you watch NorthridgeFix, he gets a lot of ASUS, MSI, and ACER gaming laptops. They all have these same issues. Also, this laptop was 7 years old, which would make it pretty reliable.
@ Ah, I did not realize that you only specialize in dell. I actually guessed you named the channel that because of how many dell laptops you end up fixing. Thanks for the clarification. And that laptop was very well taken care of. What would have caused a coil to explode like that? Physics 2 was a while ago, but a coil is like a solenoid, right? So was the delta in amps too large for the coil to handle? Why would that happen? I am guessing a short.
@@dellpartspeople Considering there are umpty-bazillion Dell laptops out there... I've got several that were business castoffs, and the only fail is one that got all confused after a RAM upgrade, and now believes it has none. It's about 14 years old, but still saw occasional use.
Shorted Mosfet on the CPU which took the CPU with it....have only watched 2 minutes so far. These things almost all died the same way. EDIT: At the end. Well I was close :p Can't see it being worth replacing that board, too old at this point, especially if it was the 7820hk/1080 variant.
Yes, you were close. Great job! Yeah, he ended up scraping the laptop, but I had someone replace a motherboard on one of these the week before, so you never know.
@@dellpartspeopleSomething like a nickel strip for welding batteries should work just fine, remember that the copper layer on pcbs is really thin. Also there isn't that much current going from one FET around 30A (seems like a ton but the jumper is very short so almost no resistance = almost no heat Or you can rip the track out of donor board
We have been specializing exclusively in Dell laptops for over 20 years. We stock more than half a million genuine Dell OEM laptop parts in our warehouse, ready to ship the same day. partspeople.com
Dude, this was doable with a lead on the outside of the coil, on the MOSFET all connections which face the coil are inter-connected as one so a 1,5mm² copper lead soldered to all joints would made this, conformal coating on that thing and a little bit of glue in the center of the coil would fix this definitely. You could afterwards check it with the FLIR if it was suitable, now not even an attempt is being made, what an e-waste....
The MOSFET had a dead short going straight to the ground, and the COIL was burned. I think the MOSFET partially shorted first, and then the voltage from the other MOSFETs back-fed through the COIL, burning it up.
I'm gonna go ahead and say it: The greatest Dell technician that's ever lived!
Who has never desoldered a coil? =)
Great diagnoses on this one. Unfortunately the cleanliness of the laptop didn’t save it, but better to keep them clean regardless.
How is it that 20 year old laptops still work but now they only last five years ? Sadly poor design and cheap components are the norm today.
Because this is a 7-8 year old high end gaming laptop and gaming = higher power consumption = higher heat , heat and power = shorter the lifespan of components depending on the usage eg: many hours a day usage or a lot of gaming typically shorter lifespan. The power adaptors on these were between 180-240 watts, many newer non gaming laptops power adaptors are under 35watts meaning far less heat and cooling required and hopefully longer lifespan. I have a 14 year old laptop still working but it isn't for gaming and likely a few hours per week usage and has Win11 24H2 IoT LTSC so supported to April 2034. If it was used 8 hours per day likely would have long since been dead.
Has nothing to do with design buddy, more so that operating systems get more demanding with each update, same with games etc so hardware can’t keep up!
Planned obsolescence. They do this though using parts designed to fail at a specific point in time or amount of usage.
@horseathalt :No its not planned obsolescence, this is a gaming laptop, they guzzle power, create a lot of heat and can often die and early death because of it. This one was looked after meaning cooling fins were not caked/blocked with dust and lasted 7-8 years, where is the planning in that. The video already said typically 5-7 years not for all laptops but for this model. I have a 14 year old non gaming laptop still working! where is the planned obsolescence?
@ The earlier laptops were not designed to fail as quickly. This thing was clean and still failed. It absolutely is planned obsolescence by design.
Thanks for the video! SO SAD - I have one of these units I use everyday. Feel like I'm on borrowed time. Thanks again for the videos!!!
They are great machines over all, though!
So when I took BEE in the Navy our instructor warned us about FM. He called it effing Magic (well he used the actual profane word for F - you can figure it out). Anyway, I honestly feel the same way about motherboard repair. I did computer repair for awhile right after college, back in the days of the ISA bus (lol), and even then it wasn't always easy to troubleshoot. That was the days of 4.77MHz. Now take that, increase the complexity by several magnitudes (Moore's law), and shrink it by about 80%. That's the landscape of motherboard technicians. These guys are the true wizards of the modern age.
Still, what you did back then was impressive! and thank you!
I love how clearly you explain each step🤩. Super helpful!
Thank You. I am still trying to find the balance of how much info to include. I want it to be entertaining, and I do not want people to get bored.
I've seen month old laptops that weren't as clean as this one. Someone's either taken very good care of it, had it serviced _very_ recently, or just hardly ever used it.
damn, it must suck for the client if they were watching when they found out the cpu probably survived but a burned trace is what made the laptop unsalvageable.
Yeah... and he ended up scrapping the machine.
I've used Dell laptops and Dell desktops (I'm writing to you on a Dell G5 5090) and never had a problem where I had to see a tech professional. Just bought my wife a Dell laptop. FWIW...
Glad to hear, and that is how it should be. I see most Dells lasting more than 5 years no problem, but I have seen plenty of 10+ year old models still in use. I just upgraded one to Windows 11 a couple of days ago.
Another great video! I’m not a technician. Nevertheless I like watching the troubleshooting and the repair process.
A 7th gen i7. FINALLY someone who understands saying "it has an i7" is meaningless. Drives me insane, so thank you for bringing a bit of sanity to my evening.
Could you make a jumper wire/replacement trace?
He’s worried about how much current and heat that coil has to handle going to the CPU, to just put bodge wires in, then warrantying his work. The wires would probably burn under heavy load.
I could, but the current is very high, and it will burn up again. It really is not a good solution.
I might dead bug the new coil, epoxy it in place, then run copper braid (like solder wick, but not impregnated with flux) from the one side down to the existing pad, and then run another one from the FET pins to the other inductor lead. But I wouldn't warranty it at all. 🙂 So I understand where he's coming from.
@@dellpartspeople You could get some thick copper foil and cut out a replacement track, but it'd be very difficult and probably require some high temperature glue to hold it all in place. But it'd be quite time consuming.
I have an Alienware M18xR2 that was preowned before it was gifted to me. Still alive and kicking. Never took the heat sink off but I do take open and clean it every 3 to 6 months, brush off the dust and use a lil vacuum made for it so the dust doesnt spread. Maybe twice in 6 years since I've had it have I taken it fully apart to do a deep clean but I don't do it often cause often there's not much to clean anyway.
Did it once cause some memory sticks were going bad so I might as well clean it since I had it disassembled. In the past year, I've had maybe 3 BSoD randomly that I couldn't recreate so I know age is catching up to it and it'll break at some point but it's all I got for now so I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Thanks was another good video and helps me understand my laptop a bit more.
That is great to hear you are still rocking an M18xR2 and doing regular maintenance! That sure is a huge beast!
It might be a good idea to replace the thermal paste. They do get old with time. Maybe replace it with PTM if you want to avoid doing it again.
@@crazyelf1 whats a TPM ?
My Alienware 17R2 is still going strong. Got it in 2014
01:55 why that WiFi adapter just laying on the fan housing?!
The wifi card must be removed to remove the bottom cover frame, and I usually leave it connected to the WiFi antennas. So that is why it is just sitting on the fan.
There are copper tapes on the market, similar to the ones that were used for shielding on older ThinkPads. They are relatively thick and could do the trick. Can' say how thick that trace was, but it is worth trying to fix it. Was left a bit confused on why you called it.
I love how he is explaning up front that this laptop is seven years old and the life span of those models is 5-7 years. I hope this person is getting a free repair. 7th Gen intel are not compatible with Win 11 and the clock be ticking...tick tok tick tok.
Why get a free repair (actually diagnostics)? the person sent it for a fix, the person knew it was 7 years old, it can be fixed but now a MB replacement, is that economical to do on an old laptop? That what the clients asks eg: how much for diagnostic, how much for MB replacement, warranty on either? A new gaming laptop is far from cheap so client needs to weigh up their choices rather than a third party claim its not worth it for them.
I dunno about i-7th gen, but a Xeon E3-1276v2 runs Win11 just fine, and it's what, glorified 4th gen? (not sure of equivalence, but that'd be close, it replaced an i5-4xxx.)
I have to admit that you do a better job and then Northbridge. So, whereabouts are you located?
That thing is a relic!
Hi. Great videos!
I ask myself if you couldn’t have polished or grind down the burned area to be able to see the traces better and maybe fix them?
Well, there wasn't anything really there to grind down. If you were to grind where the old track was, you would start getting into the layers of the motherboard.
How much u charge for a no fix?
Diag charge of $79, which includes return shipping. If I fix it, it is $249.
How on earth is there so little dust in the fans? I have a ROG zephyrus with 2080MaxQ and damn tjis thing sucks dust like crazy I have cleaned the fans twice in 5years and every time is pretty bad.
I have a feeling that it was not used much.
What do we think the failure was? Shorted turns in coil or mosfet shit the bed?
I think the voltage was back-feeding through the COIL from the other MOSFETs because that MOSFET was shorting out. From the color of it, you can tell it got really hot, and was probably melted internally.
Back around the year 2000 a person had his Alienware laptop burn the mobo into a very crispy state. Fully loaded at a cost of $5K. That posting didn't last long at all until it was removed. I was wise enough to save it, not good for business I would think.
Gaming laptops are known to burn up for decades now.
Good job fixing the alienware
He didn’t even fix it
😏
Hi i'm currently using the same laptop same i7 7th gen. how do i prevent this and other board failures from happening? i already cleaned and repasted with mx-4 only the thermal pads i haven't changed yet.
Maybe planned obsolescence? Plus if it a performance driven gamer laptop, it will fail due to high the electrical stress on the power supply components.
I like watching the video. It's a shame there was so much damage. 😌
What would've caused that much damage in there?
I think the voltage was back-feeding through the COIL from the other MOSFETs because that MOSFET was shorting out. From the color of it, you can tell it got really hot, and was probably melted internally.
Coward... You called it quit. You could have just welded a wire to rebuild the track.
I guess I could have done that, but do you think I could still include my 1-year warranty on motherboard repairs?
@@dellpartspeople Pole, ten feet, air gap. I was wondering about the gunk around the others, too, like maybe they'd all been hot.
that laptop had a good owner. most laptop owners get their laptop dirty
and dont clean inside.
Very true!
You can make high current pads with solder Wick wire and mask. Easy job
Interesting IDEA! I might try that!
@@dellpartspeople Or maybe copper tape - but if the board is that charred there is a risk of internal shorts... Maybe removing the charred insulating material would be best. And are there any other connections or vias besides the connection between chip and coil? I'd guess the coil was the original culprit (internal shorted turns?) and the heat from it fried the chip. Very unusual failure.
Hey FOLKS. Has he ever recommend any SPECIFIC dell model for college? Are the new XPS good ?
That is a certified KFC right there. I still think the laptop will POST and run without that power stage, but if one power stage gets that bad, there is no warranty to the repair whatsoever.
Yeah, you are probably right, and yes, no warranty.
I have a 7th Gen 4 core i7 7280HK Asus ROG G752VSK OC edition GTX1070, running dual channel 32Gb of DDR4 3200Mhz memory, it features a DVD rom drive, it's a behemoth however it was the bee's knees back in 2017 it's something I use very rarely and it's also in perfect nick. Originally I purchased it to replace a desktop pc as it has all the ports inc thunderbolt 3 USB C and all the power I needed for content creation, I don't play games so frame rates aren't an issue for stuff I do, however if one thing I would upgrade is the pathetic 120Hz screen. My recommendation to the Dell owner/client would be just weigh up the cost of a replacement board with no less than the i7 7820HK OC cpu paired with GTX 1070 - 1080 or invest in a more up-to-date laptop for under a grand.
Great advice!
Nice Video
I thought it was one of the protection MOSFETs on the main rail.
Good guess! Because of the low resistance... I really never see the CPU Vcore MOSFET shorted to ground. And don't get me started on that coil. Wow
My bet is the part was bad from the factory, or probably marginal.
I think the current generation of laptops run way to hot.
I have it on a blower now most of the time when at my desk which pumps are through the case lowering the temps by 10C no matter what it is doing.
I use it as my work computer.
dells never fail to fail
... after 7 years.
Sir i want dell adapter dc machine support
damn this burn looks really bad, i wonder for how long it was going on
I wonder the same thing...
The cleaner they are, the higher the breakage is concentrated 😛
Alienware PCs were awesome before Dell got a hold of them, oh no... 😞
Very clean, but dead laptop. Those Alienware laptops weigh a ton.
Oh, yeah. Like 12 pounds!
This is the kind of stuff that tech TH-camrs need to pay attention to. They always focus on the bells and whistles of the new hot laptop, but none of them care about reliability and longevity.
Watching this channel and Salem tech has taught me to stay away from Dell/Alienware and HP for the most part. But as I said before, TH-cam reviewers are sorely lacking when it comes to stuff like this.
Umm, well, I think watching my channel gives you a skewed view of Dell and Alienware laptop reliabilities. My company specializes exclusively in Dell and Alienware laptops only, so yes, you will see a lot in for repair on this channel, but this does not mean they break more than others. If you watch NorthridgeFix, he gets a lot of ASUS, MSI, and ACER gaming laptops. They all have these same issues. Also, this laptop was 7 years old, which would make it pretty reliable.
@ Ah, I did not realize that you only specialize in dell. I actually guessed you named the channel that because of how many dell laptops you end up fixing. Thanks for the clarification.
And that laptop was very well taken care of. What would have caused a coil to explode like that? Physics 2 was a while ago, but a coil is like a solenoid, right? So was the delta in amps too large for the coil to handle? Why would that happen? I am guessing a short.
@@dellpartspeople Considering there are umpty-bazillion Dell laptops out there... I've got several that were business castoffs, and the only fail is one that got all confused after a RAM upgrade, and now believes it has none. It's about 14 years old, but still saw occasional use.
That is a shame for that board. Good try though.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say the problem is: It don't work.
10min later....We have picture...I can't believe...It's loading the Windows...
LOL. 🤣 Well... Wait for it...
@@dellpartspeople At least you have a sense of humour! I love the vids. Awesome content! Keep it up! Subscribed from S. Africa.
Shorted Mosfet on the CPU which took the CPU with it....have only watched 2 minutes so far. These things almost all died the same way.
EDIT: At the end. Well I was close :p
Can't see it being worth replacing that board, too old at this point, especially if it was the 7820hk/1080 variant.
Yes, you were close. Great job!
Yeah, he ended up scraping the laptop, but I had someone replace a motherboard on one of these the week before, so you never know.
Just fix it for the video 😊
I don't know; that was pretty burned. I do not think there was anything I could have done that would have lasted.
@@dellpartspeopleSomething like a nickel strip for welding batteries should work just fine, remember that the copper layer on pcbs is really thin.
Also there isn't that much current going from one FET around 30A (seems like a ton but the jumper is very short so almost no resistance = almost no heat
Or you can rip the track out of donor board
Please send me link sir web
We have been specializing exclusively in Dell laptops for over 20 years. We stock more than half a million genuine Dell OEM laptop parts in our warehouse, ready to ship the same day. partspeople.com
Dude, this was doable with a lead on the outside of the coil, on the MOSFET all connections which face the coil are inter-connected as one so a 1,5mm² copper lead soldered to all joints would made this, conformal coating on that thing and a little bit of glue in the center of the coil would fix this definitely. You could afterwards check it with the FLIR if it was suitable, now not even an attempt is being made, what an e-waste....
Blown Out / Dead Short.
The MOSFET had a dead short going straight to the ground, and the COIL was burned. I think the MOSFET partially shorted first, and then the voltage from the other MOSFETs back-fed through the COIL, burning it up.
Hey
First comment
Nope😂 first commenter. 3rd comment😅
can get the whole laptop used for 200....i wouldnt bother....7 years is more than enough...