HP N5470 wont boot

[Orion]

I have an HP N5470 laptop model F2407M, 1.0 Ghz Athlon 4 Mobile (palomino Core), Crucial memory (512 MB), and it has an ALi ALiMAGiK 1 Chipset, with the M1535 Southbridge. (it's in pieces, on my desk, that's the only reason I know that last, HP seems to not like people knowing what's in the laptops...)

The cooling fan went out-the bearings went bad, it would be noisy and eventualy the fan would just not run. this would let me use my laptop for normal things, like starting up and browsing my file structure (oooh....pretty trees....) but any time I did anything that stressed the proc, it would shut itself off to avoid overheating. So I opened it up to see if I could replace the heatsink/fan assembly. (a picture is available Here (http://h30074.www3.hp.com/csnOther/SPICatalog/photos/F2111-60949.jpg) ) first time I did this, I succeeded in fixing the fan, it ran fine for about 4 more months, and then had to try again. this time something went wrong.

I opened it up, and out of curiosity, I took the processor out, but I was clumsy when I did it, suffered a "rotational torque driven cross slotted plastic implement structural failure" (my plastic handled screw driver broke), and I beleive I may have damaged the proc. there is no visible damage from the sudden shock of the screwdriver scraping across the top, but when I put the 'puter back together, it refused to boot.

The logo does not show up on the screen. external monitor does not work. worst of all, it does not give me the POST beep. honestly, I don't remember if my laptop EVER gave me a beep, but either way, it's not there now. to add some more fun, the hard drive does not spin up, and essentially, the only indication that I have that the computer is on is the power led on the top, and the 10 second fan activity (the cooling fan spins up for about 10 seconds, then the computer dies into an ominous silence, reminiscent of the computer tomb...).

two questions therefore:
1: If the problem is, as I suspect, a broken processor, how far would the computer get in a post? IE, does it sound like I have a faulty proc? Or does it sound like I have a different problem-IE, something wrong with the motherboard, or something of that ilk? (the problem would be similar to anyone who has tried to mount a heat sink on one of the older AMD procs, and ended up cracking the die. what are the symptoms of that, and do they match mine?)

2: Assuming the problem is indeed a broken proc, what are my processor upgrade options? the socket is A, of course, the northbridge is an ALiMAGiK 1, as I said earlier, and I know the northbridge itself supports both 200 MHz FSB, as mine is, and the 266MHz FSB, as the Athlon XP Mobiles (thoroughbred core) are. I have noticed the availability of Athlon 4 Mobiles is approximately nil (there's ONE up for bid on ebay. $5 now, but it's got 3 days left... and HP will sell me one for $350.) and it would be nice to get a performance boost as well. so essentially, does anyone know if the motherboard in the HP Pavilion N5470 can handle the Athlon XP Mobile processors? just handle-I'm not too concerned with power consumption.

[malcore]

I know the alimagik 1 desktop board will support an Athlon XP, not sure about the MobileMagik 1 supporting Mobile Athlon XPs.

You could get a Mobile Athlon 1600 (http://www.emaxasp.com/compdoc/details.asp?item=AM36NA1600) (200MHz) for $120 which the board will support.

[Orion]

well, the athlon 4 is at 120 whereas the athlon xp-m on newegg runs 72-85...and it appears that the Athlon XP shares approximately the same voltage, possibly lower. the problem saphalline and I are running into now is that it's almost impossible to get information on the specs of the mobile cores. I know a little about the Athlon 4 Mobile. they almost all ran on the 1.2-1.4 volt scale, depending on Powernow settings. however, I can find no information about the Athlon XP mobile, even on AMD site (they list info about the Athlon 4 but not the Athlon XP-M.). perhaps I'm not searching properly.

On Newegg, the athlon XP-M 2200+ is purported to run at 1.8 GHz and a 1.65 V core. that would be a problem possibly, as my Mobo may not support that. however, there are a couple things which make me doubt the accuracy of the information there, such as the Athlon XP-M 2400+ being listed as running at 1.8 GHz as well, and a voltage of 1.25, as well as a L2 cache of 256. this does not match the Model Number, given as AXMH2400FQQ4C. the "4" at the end indicates 512 K L2. the voltage indicator, in this case "Q", is the same as the 2200, which is listed as AXMH2200FQQ3C. the only difference is the 3 versus 4. Also, the 2400+ is listed on other sites as running faster than that-2.0GHz, at 333 MHz FSB-basically it's listed elsewhere as a barton core based proc, rather than the t-bred.

Unfortunately, I only can find charts of the interpretation of the digits for desktop Athlons. that's how I know the cache difference-it is apparently the same between desktop and laptop. the voltage I have no idea what the letter Q means, but my current Athlon 4 is listed as a "V". anyone know where I can find charts for the mobile processor line from AMD as opposed to the desktop?

My current line of attack is going to be to attempt to put my Laptop CPU in my desktop mobo (apparently it will work so long as you adjust the voltage) to test to make sure it's the proc that's bad. if it is, then I will order either the 2200+ or the 2400+ from newegg-if it doesn't seem to work, I'll see if I can exchange it for the other. if that doesn't work, I'll see if I can get my money back and look for either an auction for an athlon 4 or buy that one on ewiz that malcore suggested. I really would like to know what the specs are though-anyone know where you can find info like that?

Orion

[malcore]

Try this pdf document (http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/24319.pdf).

I'm starting to think that a mobile Athlon XP will work in your board. The last Atlon 4's were the 1500 and 1600. I don't think there were any Athlon 4's with a 133x2 FSB. The fact that the AliMagik 1 chipset supports a 133x2 FSB would lead me to believe an XP-m would be ok.

[malcore]

Sorry, misread your post, can't find a spec sheet for the XP-m either, just a whitepaper.

I think the one concern you would have with a laptop is whether or not the BIOS will accept an XP-m chip. Might have to get in touch with HP to find that out. The 1647 Ali northbridge chip is compatible with the XP-m.

I found a chart here (http://www.geek.com/procspec/amd/k7_13mobile.htm) , but it doesn't list the voltages. This chart is also for the mainstream XP-m, there also being a low-voltage version.

Gets more confusing. Try to email or somehow get in touch with HP to find out if your BIOS is compatible.

Edit=The desktop Athlon XP 2400 runs at 2GHz with 256MB L2 cache. The mobile Athlon XP-M 2400 is actually a Barton core, and runs at 1.8GHz with 512MB L2 cache.

[Reid]

Originally posted by Orion
to add some more fun, the hard drive does not spin up, and essentially, the only indication that I have that the computer is on is the power led on the top, and the 10 second fan activity (the cooling fan spins up for about 10 secondsI tend to think that the hard drive not spinning up means something other than the CPU may be faulty. A bad CPU might pull the voltages down from excess current, but if that were the case, I do not think the fan would spin.

[Orion]

well, I'm going to be waiting to purchase till after christmas, I think-tis better to give than to receive, and darn it if my budget isn't big enough for both right now. oh well. either way, I'm going to be testing the cpu to actually see if it's the cpu or not-I found some references that indicate that the only difference between socket A laptop and socket A desktop is the powerNow! connections on a few of the pins. the practical upshot is that you can stick a mobile cpu in a desktop. so I am going to try that and see. also, I pulled the CPU from the laptop, and found that I have the same problem-there's no difference at all between with my CPU, or without. of course all that proves is that either the problem is with the CPU and it's damaged so much it isn't being recognized (IE completely gone, as opposed to slightly discombobulated) or that it's not the CPU at all...grr...

Malcore, I'll be taking your advise and trying to get ahold of HP techs to ask them...however, I tend to doubt my success, as from the other forums I have seen, they tend to discourage people from tinkering with Laptops-after all, why should they tell me to upgrade my proc for $80 to newegg, when they could get me to stay at the same performance for $350 for them? I have often been amused by the game of roulette that one often finds in trying to ask questions of techs at big companies-either you get a tech who knows what they're talking about, and you can trust them, whether yes or no, or you don't, and you can't trust them, whether yes or no. and how do you test the competence of a tech over the phone? ask them? I just don't see anyone answering the question of whether they are a competent tech with "well, actually, no, I'm just a duffer, but the job pays well, and they give me this nifty script!"

Reid, I was afraid that the problem may be apart from the cpu when I realized the hard drive wasn't spinning up, but when I looked at the Laptop Hard Drive pins, I noticed there was no separate power connections-the power must be delivered through the mini IDE interface or whatever they call it (while I know quite a bit about desktop setups, my knowledge is woefully inadaquate about notebook technology...guess I'll have to check out saint scotts book about them.). that would indicate to me that the connection of the hard drive may be controlled by the rest of the computer-in a desktop that wouldn't be the case, as power is delivered individually of the motherboard. however when I thought about it, I seem to remember that my laptop hard drive wouldn't start spinning until it either had finished the post or was at least well into it. the order seemed to be power on, 10 second cooling fan test, about 1 second after cooling fan spins up, show logo, go from that to the memtest and bios specs screen, and right about then start spinning up the hard drive-it wouldn't spin until well after there was stuff on the screen. the order is apporximately the same on my other compaq laptop. (if only they had the same type of mobile proc! then I could test my HP....) this indicates to me (if I remember the boot process correctly) that if the computer never makes it to the post, the hard drive would never spin up. that actually makes sense to me when I think about it, because with all the power saving and management on laptops, I would imagine the hard drive is partially at least controlled by the processor-at least to turn it on or off after certain amounts of time.

I also question if the computer can make it to the post without the proc. I don't remember that part of motherboard biology offhand, and I don't have my books here at school. anyone know if the bios chip acts as a mini processor, allowing a mobo to post without a proc, jsut to let you knwo what's going on with the computer? basic stuff, I know, but while my brain gives me fantastic memory specs, my internal memory controller is obviously poorly coded.

grr...I just need to find some data on laptops in general, I guess. I sense a trip to Barnes and Noble and a $60 check for the Scott Mueller book on Laptops is an inevitability...oh well...another post christmas expense...too bad I can't pay for books at B&N in sweaters and socks...

Orion