i-Buddie 4 Desknote Review

[Francisco Lima]

I am stuck with the same problem. I have a A928 Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz and yesterday I was compacting it's HD. It disconnected from the power cord and when I connected it again it was with this very problem: power led on and the whirl of the fan, nothing more. It comes to life sometimes, for some moments, but soon freezes again, but showing for a moment an error message saying the setup (or bios) is incorrect. Any way to reset the bios without opening the case? This kind of thing only happens in holidays!!!

 

[BeachDevil]

Well I think that my A929 is toast. I believe that I need a new MB and they run about 150 bucks.

I know from taking my A929 apart that there is a bios battery. If yours isnt completely fried like mine might be, try taking it apart and find the round battery and pop it out and wait a few seconds and put it back in. I suggest you put the desknote and all the components back together but do not replace all the screws at this time. If you put it all together and it doesnt work and you feel there is another option you are going to try, you will have to take out all the screws again. Its a pain.

Adam

 

[Francisco Lima]

As my A928 is still under warranty, I decided not to open it. I left it yesterday at an ECS representative. At first, they didn't know they worked for ECS. I had to show them the warranty list. They called a guy and took the computer. I told them about the bios battery. They will call me in 72 hours.
Thanks,
Francisco

 

[BeachDevil]

Well thats good that you were able to get help. Let me know what you find out.

Can someone tell me if the A928 MB will fit into the A929?

Adam

 

[joestine]

Hey you guys, thanks for all the help here, I was having a problem that was saying CMOS/SNMV bad error, contacted a place and they said my motherboard was bad, because I dont have a battery for the CMOS on the 928 board (they were mistaken with mine) anyways, I was reading about the negative pin on the power adapter and thought that was weird, and when I looked at power plug, there was the elusive pin hangin out. I took apart my laptop completely (This was a drag) for all of you who do this, take your time and diagram which screw came from where, I ended up with mass extra screws, but its working again. When you take all your screws out it seems like its still connected in the middle somewhere and you cant get to it, this is where you remove your keyboard to find the other screws. This is done with a flat edge screw driver and place them in between the bottom arrow and the edge and twist slightly to undo it from the snap lock. There are two others, one in front of the space bar and the other is by the left control key. Lift slowly to undo the ribbon. After that, its gravy, then do exactly what Frognipples had posted earlier, mine is working like a charm im on my computer right now. A lil extra info, I never twisted the Coaxcable, it was fine when doubled, then push into the cable. then when you insert it into the power apadter, make sure to remove the housings behind the power adapter so that you can push the co- ax cable up (support the power plug housing its flimsy) then bring the coaxup to the top of the power adapter housing and then solder on to the housing. Remove the plug and solder it really good, dont be afraid to smell a little plastic,because you will need it strong to push the new negative pin up cause it will wont to bend towards the power pins. (again supoprt the housing when you do this) Thanks Frognipples, good fix. I forgot this site and Googled and put "a928 frognipples) pretty funny. Thanks again, a928 boards major flaw, will never buy again. Good luck all

 

[rg77houston]

well i ended up saudering the ground pin, and it is hell putting it back together, anyone taking the laptop apart i recomend labeling ALL screws, there are so many, different lengths and thicknesses, and if your not careful, you may put one in an inproper place, which may mess up your mother board.

Anyways, now that this ordeal is over with, i was wondering if anyone could tell me how to use the multimonitor function as the tv as the 2nd monitor. do i have download another driver from SIS? I want to watch DVDs on my tv

 

[jin]

i have had my ECS Desknote A928 for at least 1.5yrs and until its minor problems were tolerable...i'm not sure what the problem is but at one time it would not load windows and after resting it for a few minutes, it worked again but now the lcd is just blank, i don't know what is wrong with it, can someone please help me?

 

[Azreal911]

In regards to the people with the problems with the prongs getting stuck in their power adaptor and the loose cable.

I think the main problem here is the power cord with the end of it connecting to the computer, nothing really to do with the motherboard. I was a rc car enthusiast and know of the problem here. the cause of the male plugs desoldering is not because of the hot air coming from the fan in the motherboard blowing on it all day, or else all the other solders on the board would melt too! think about it. the main problem with the plug is that normal users would pull the plug once they are done with the computer in a long session. The plug on female side is still very warm and loose on the grip to the harder plastic it's wrapped around. Pulling this while the plug is still warm probably would stretch and probably detach some of the wire strands around the solder joints on the 3 female prongs. Over time fewer and fewer strands will be left connected to the solder joint, with my electric rc car experiences a thin wire (high gauge rating) produces alot more heat than a thick one (lower gauge rating). those few strands left on the female prongs produces alot of resistance for the electricity going from the adapter to your computer and thus like a resistor produces alot of waste as in heat. with 90watts going through a few strands the wire is probably heating up hotter than the temp of a soldering iron! which through the physics of conduction heats up the female prong greatly and also heating up the male prong. When you pull it out after a session the male prong is probably very hot after long and heavy use and the solder is melted off already. the female side has a lesser chance of coming off cause it's probably fused to the hard plastic encasing by now (funny burning smell is probably detected by now). The only way i know to remedy this once you notice your plug is getting harder to pull out is don't trying use your computer anymore but instead cut open the female side of the plug and resolder the joints with silver solder for best electrical conductivity (joints will stay cooler!) and rewrap the whole plug with electrical tape. easier than soldering your motherboard male prongs back in! Another rememdy is just don't pull the plug out and let the plug cool back to room temp, that way it'll regain it's grip when you pull it out. And if you don't have time for this and gotta go and use a non standard laptop bag like my backpack, do it like me and just put the whole computer in the backpack without unplugging the adapter, just leave it in permanently. that way you'll never have a problem with the wires fraying. This was mainly a bad design on the power adapter.

I hope this was helpful for all of you and if someone proves me wrong please states your evidence cause it would be helpful for us all. or else this system rocks! i picked it up off someone for $850 CDN. where else can you have such a small system the size of a laptop and be able to play warcraft smoothly with most of the settings on (P4 cpu). for several hundred more i'd end up with only a celeron cpu laptop, not gonna handle it with the low Frames per second rating it gave in a test i read compared to amd's and p4's. ahhhh!

 

[Azreal911]

If you guys also noticed that the older ibuddie model power adapters are metal on hard plastic! not this rubbery cheap plug that we have now. very different!

 

[xander]

Hey Guys!

Changed my user (was neilsheddan) and as I said have had no problems at all with my i-buddie but would like to ask if anyone has put a 1GB DIMM DDR mermory in theirs and if it works ok? Am interested in upgrading. Also I only have a 20 GB hard drive in mine and am thinking of upgrading too so is it possible to have 60GB or so... Thanks again guys!

 

[kcamerud]

My A928 was 2+ years old and working fine until I poured hot soup onto the keyboard. I removed the keyboard and cleaned it the best I could, replaced it, and most keys again became functional though a few remain stubbornly "dead". I connnected a Compaq USB keyboard and the computer itself remains in tip-top condition though the dangling keyboard is a very awkward addition. Does anyone know where I can purchase a replacement keyboard?

 

[Matt Jason H]

Originally posted by kcamerud
My A928 was 2+ years old and working fine until I poured hot soup onto the keyboard. I removed the keyboard and cleaned it the best I could, replaced it, and most keys again became functional though a few remain stubbornly "dead". I connnected a Compaq USB keyboard and the computer itself remains in tip-top condition though the dangling keyboard is a very awkward addition. Does anyone know where I can purchase a replacement keyboard?

I doubt you'll be able to purchase one, athough you could email the manufacturer about it and see if they will help. I think that your best bet is to try and find a 'scrap' one from ebay or a computer show, somewhere like that, for cheap then remove the keyboard and put it in yours.

 

[ultrafob]

pic

Not sure if these are helpful, but people have been asking...

http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4287734459&code=8287911&mode=invite

 

[klax]

Any EE or electronic hobbyist out there interested in finding a plug that would replace the one distributed by ECS? Any plug with 3 pins that would solder onto the A928 MB that supports 20V, 6.0A, 120W would work right? Granted that you'd have to buy a new power supply, but it might be cheaper to be able to choose one rather than buy the one at ECS.

I haven't seen the internals of the motherboard, so I'm not sure if this is really possible. Any takers?

 

[phishinfan]

i was wondering if u could help me i stupidly opened my desknote a928 unfortunately a metal
piece fell off and i have no idea where it goes theres is a red 6 or
9 printed on it, could u please tell me where it goes. heres a pic of
the piece im reffering to circled in red, please follow the link http://www.angelfire.com/linux/ecs/piece

 

[cybertech]

A929 suddenly died after bios (latency) modification

I made the same mistake (change of the latency in BIOS) and my A929 stopped to work!!
I decided to open the box (what a nightmare) and was able to reach the bios battery. Removing the battery to reset the bios was totally unsuccessfull!
I tested the CPU on another Mother board and discovered the CPU was dead!! I installed another working CPU...
The A929 did not start and the CPU was killed too!!
I think something was destroyed on the MB when making the latency modification..

Patrick

Originally posted by BeachDevil
I have a A929 and I recently changed a few things in bios to help with the performance. Normally if I mess something up it just doesn't come on and I reset it and the bios returns to defaults. Well I messed with the Latency of the ram and I believe that has rendered my DeskNote useless. Now when I power it up it just sits there with a blank screen. No LED lights flash at all, the only thing that is on is the power LED and the whirl of the fan.

Is there some way I can reset the bios externally?

Thanks for the help.

Adam

 

[btg2004]

Hi there,
I have the same problem with the power cord of A928, it was melt and a pin was off with power cord when unplugged. I repaired it by myself but then could not reassemble the mess. I had to send it to a technician and was told the motherboard had to be replaced.
Does anyone have an idea for the cost of the motherboard? and another question is that is there any used A928 available for sale.
Regards.
BT Giang

 

[Rita]

Hallo,
obviously my problem with my desknote is not new. The third prong of the power connector came off. After I've read some articles here in the forum, I've decided to repair it myself.
I am trying to open the Laptop for 2 hours now... but I still can't get it open!!! There is one screw on the back, which I can't release! Does someone know a trick?!
Or does someone know another way to open the laptop? I have released all of the screws on the back except one, which I can't even turn a bit!

I am grateful for any help!!

 

[Rita]

In fact you can buy a new keyboard in an online-shop in Germany:

http://www.desknote-shop24.de/

Until 22. April 2004 they are closed. Unfortunately the site is in german, so if you are looking for a new keyboard you have to click on "Ersatzteile" on the left side and then choose "Tastatur" from the list.

greetings,
Rita

 

[Otto]

Rita,
There is a screw inside the housing where the memory is, be sure you take that one out.
Phishin,
The little metal plate goes back inside the memory compartment, it looks like the one that slides in on the top, not the bottom one. You should be able to push it back in without taking out the memory I think.
Others,
There are some A928's and other i-buddies on ebay from time to time.
All,
I had to fix my power prongs too. Took apart the WHOLE computer, labelled all the screws and even then it was hard to put back together! I had to resolder the 3rd prong, which is the ground, back. It's hard to get to, but if you're careful you can do it without desoldering the whole little unit that has the 3 power prongs in it. If you DO desolder the whole 3-prong unit, make sure you clear out all the solder from the 5 places it attaches back to the MB, or else it's real hard to get it back in straight.

I can find some a928's still for sale for about $1000 us on various web sites.

MAIN ADVICE:
Make sure you open the CPU housing and suck the dust from the heat sink, it gets dirty easily after about a year. Even better, take off the heat sink (undo the 4 screws, my CPU came off when i did that, and i had to take it loose from the heat sink, open the CPU latch, put on some new glue/goop, then seat the cpu again) and clean the fan. When the fan and the heat sink get too dirty, it can't cool the computer properly, and that's why some of your units have shut down, then when they cool off they start up again. But when the cord gets too hot, it melts and changes shape, and it doesn't pull out properly, and it grips the male connectors, so you pull harder, then eventually the prongs come loose and you have the mess we've all experienced!

the little feet on the bottom are cheap and break off, that also creates less air space to cool the computer, and then with the dirtyy fan and heat sink, the poor cpu gets too hot and melts the power connector. other than that, it's a great computer!!!

Otto