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Optical Drive Replacement and borken motherboard Express Card connector


Dakeryas

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Hello all,

I tried to replace my DVD drive by a Blu-Ray drive yesterday. The model should fit since it is a CA30N (the seller told me it was a LG but it actually looks like it is unbranded, "product of China" "March 2012" "ATAK7N0 CA30N").

While disassembling my computer using Dell's guide to remove the optical drive, I somewhat broke the connector and the latch on the motherboard that is used to connect the ExpressCard cable. I had troubles opening the latch, put too much force into it, and a few "pins" of the connector on the motherboard moved a little bit (not even by half a millimiter, but you can see that four or five pins are not aligned anymore). A plastic part that should hold the latch on the connector is also cracked.

I put the new Blu-Ray drive into its location, it went smoothly to tighten all the screws, the new optical drive sits perfectly.

Then I put back together the whole laptop, tried to plug the ExpressCard cable in it is damaged motherboard connector as best as I could. Now, when I power on the laptop, I have no display whatsoever.

The keyboards and all the other lights are correctly lit (even the Alien head is), the fans are running normally, but the optical drive does not seem to respond for instance. Pressing the lit eject button doesn't produce any sound when the drive is empty. Moreover, I have tried to put a CD-R into it, but the eject button doesn't work either, the disk is now stuck into the drive. The drive seemed to try to read the disk however, it was spinning and made some normal noise when the disk was inserted.

Could it be that the broken Express Card connector prevents the laptop from booting properly? Or could it be that the drive is not recognized (the eject button doesn't work) or even faulty?

Many thanks in advance,

Dakeryas.

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Do you have pics of the broken parts? Are Caps, Num and Scroll LEDs flashing or on?

Check the rest of your cables, the system won't power on if a fan is unplugged for example.

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Thank you for your answer.

The Caps, Num and Scroll LED are all off, nothing is flashing. They do not want to light on either.

Both fans are spinning, the GPU and CPU fans are turning normally.

I'll try to disassemble it again and take a picture.

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Ok, I have very good news for me: it was just that I had badly put back the two memory modules! I am writing from my M15x now :)!

Last time I repasted, I had badly put back one memory module, resulting in the computer going up to the BIOS, but with both badly inserted, you will have no display whatsoever!

Conclusion: the damaged motherboard Express Card doesn't prevent the computer from working otherwise. The BD drive is working as well and EAC, Foobar and Everest recognize as HL-DT drive, even though the sticker only shows an unbranded product of China!

Conclusion 2: no display, no working keyboard, no tray slot loading => double-check your memory slots!

Thanks for your help anyways!

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