p751dm2 bringing a Clevo P751DM2 that doesn't boot back to life

[dude-137]

Hi everyone! ☺️

 

 

 

I'm struggling with bringing my Clevo P751DM2 (i7-7700K, GTX 1070, Prema BIOS) back to life, and hope to find help here.

It turns on but doesn't boot.

 

It hasn't been my main PC for like 5 years, and has been unused and stored in the box until about 1 year ago.

 

Here is what happened.

 

 

 

A) ~1 year ago.

 

I decided to re-use it as a secondary PC, took it out from the box, booted it into BIOS and checked the settings.

Then, I decided to open it and re-paste the CPU and GPU.

I removed the heat-sink and took the CPU out to clean it from the old thermal paste better.

 

Suddenly, the IHS fell off.

 

First I panicked, but after a short internet-search and some reddit threads i thought that this is nothing critical, and some people actually detach it intentionally for delidding.

 

So I just cleaned the CPU and the IHS from the old thermal paste, applied Arctic MX4 on the naked CPU, applied the IHS on top back where it was, applied the paste on it, fixed the CPU in the socket, cleaned/re-pasted the GPU, and assembled everything.

 

A few weeks later, I decided to start preparing it.

I booted it into BIOS a couple of times.

Then I changed the RAM configuration, replaced the CMOS battery (included waiting for a few minutes to reset the BIOS).

At some point, it supposed to re-POST (and get back to BIOS after self-restarting several times) as RAM configuration changed, however it didn't happen.

 

Here's the behavior that started:

When turning on, the screen remained black, no BIOS, no anything.

The laptop stayed powered on, with the lamps on, but with zero activity and black screen without lit.

And when pressing Fn+1, the fans didn't start blasting at the maximal speed (which I thought is a very low-level thing that should work at all times as long as the laptop is powered on).

After some minutes (~3-5 minutes I guess), the fans suddenly started to blast at maximal speeds, and a minute later the laptop turns off.

When powering on again, the same stuff repeats.

 

I had to stop and postpone doing anything with the laptop.

 

 

 

B) Now.

 

A few days ago I came back to the laptop with the aim to find out what the hell is going on, possibly fix it and start using it.

 

I powered it on several times, with the same result as before.

Tried removing all RAM and keeping just one brick, removing the battery and using only the adapter.

 

I opened ChatGPT, described the situation, and asked what it could be.

But when I mentioned that IHS fell off, ChatGPT raised a red flag, stated that this is bad and the best would be to get a new CPU instead of trying to re-apply IHS back. It also claimed that simply re-pasting the naked CPU and re-apply IHS back is not quite ok, can cause various issues, and a special high-quality thermal adhesive must be carefully applied instead.

I checked other AI chats (Duck, Proton, etc.), and they didn't rise any red flags and even listed re-applying the IHS back as one of the solutions.

 

But at least now I got a candidate that potentially zombied the laptop.

 

Before checking the online markets, I decided to give the original CPU the last try.

I opened the whole thing again, detached the IHS, re-pasted the naked CPU, applied the IHS back on top, re-pasted the IHS and fixed the CPU in the socket.

 

The laptop didn't get back to life.

 

However, the behavior changed:

Now, when powering on, the laptop stays idle with the lamps on and screen turned off like before. A few minutes later, the fans don't start raging like 1 year ago and the laptop just reboots itself. This repeats several times. After several such repetitions, it stops rebooting and just turns off.

The situation with Fn+1 remains the same - nothing happens.

 

What I also noticed, is that the battery takes about 1 whole day to be fully charged, according to the lamp colour.

I started charging it yesterday afternoon with the unknown current battery charge, the lamp has been remaining orange until the late night, and only today in the morning it was green.

I decided to re-plug the charger and see what happens.

I re-plugged it, the lamp still remain orange after 5 hours have passed. What the hell's happening with the charging.

I'm not sure if this situation was the case 1 year ago. I think it wasn't (but i can be wrong).

 

 

 

Does anyone know what's going on, what could be causing the issue?

Could it be indeed the CPU, and is replacing it worth a try?

Or is the situation worse than that?

 

I would be thankful about any advice or help with getting it back to life.

[Kastner]

2 hours ago, dude-137 said:

A few minutes later, the fans don't start raging like 1 year ago and the laptop just reboots itself. This repeats several times. After several such repetitions, it stops rebooting and just turns off.

I think you should try more just turning on the laptop.

When RAM is replaced in p775 or p870 it takes a lots of reboot and turning on and off for me. (It takes so much time you start considering the status of the new components but after it starts. It looks the same like a new bios flash)
FN+D is the default settings you can give it a try.