Rebuilding the Envy 133

Hello gents, I've recently had some free time to rebuild my 133 that had undergone a bit of an accident with a bottle of water. Ryan (imaxx) was generous enough to donate a motherboard to the good cause however I've run into a bit of a problem. It seems that the Envy isn't booting into BIOS.

Here is the text of the message that is displayed:

IOS IS NOT INSTALLED ON YOUR SYSTEM OR THE INSTALLATION IS INCOMPLETE. TO GET INTERNET ACCESS WITHIN SECONDS OF STARTING YOUR COMPUTER PLEASE USE IOS INSTALLER TO INSTALL IOS.

And here is an image:



Pressing any key then gives the OPERATING SYSTEM NOT FOUND.

The interesting thing is when I first powered up I was able to get into BIOS. Now for some reason I am not. I thought I had the ZIF cable mixed up on the hard disk but after trying every possible combination I still get the same error message. The way it is now I can't even boot a Linux flash drive to pull data from the hard disk.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

When it initially allowed you into the bios did it say something like "date and time not set, press any key to continue" and then bring you into the bios or did you use the bios key/combination to enter the bios?

If its the former your keyboard may not be working properly.

You can probably temporally regain access to it by pulling the cmos and main system battery. You can then push the power button to drain any residual energy. For good measure let it sit a while before connecting the ac adapter.

I take it you had vista and ios installed before the accident so if your hdd isnt being detected and it isnt trying to boot into the old installation and you are sure the hdd cable is properly connected this means 1 of a couple things. Your hdd did not survive the water spill, Something on the board is shorting to ground shouldnt be (The chassis shielding) or the hdd controller on the board you installed is defective. Was the board new when Ryan sent it to you? If it was left over from a warranty repair this could be why the board was laying around.

Provided the envy 133 does not use an exotic key combination to access the bios (something like fn+f2) you can try to access the bios with a usb external keyboard. If you do need to use fn+f2 (or something simmular) to access the bios do you know for a fact both keys are working otherwise? When it says push any key to continue will f2 make it proceed to the os not found screen? Can you adjust the lcd brightness using the fn key?

Off the top of my head and without having the unit in front of me to work on myself that is about the best I can tell you.

Once you manage to get it working here is the voodoo ios should you need to reload it.

East! Thanks for the comprehensive reply!

Pulling the CMOS did it! I can now get into BIOS and have successfully booted into both my Ubuntu and Windows OS. A problem persists however. When I reboot, the system either reverts back to the IOS splash screen state mentioned in the OP or a new screen that says:

Code:

ERROR
0271: Check date and time settings
WARNING
0251: System CMOS checksum bad - Default configuration used

East wrote:When it initially allowed you into the bios did it say something like "date and time not set, press any key to continue" and then bring you into the bios or did you use the bios key/combination to enter the bios?

If its the former your keyboard may not be working properly.

You can probably temporally regain access to it by pulling the cmos and main system battery. You can then push the power button to drain any residual energy. For good measure let it sit a while before connecting the ac adapter.

I take it you had vista and ios installed before the accident so if your hdd isnt being detected and it isnt trying to boot into the old installation and you are sure the hdd cable is properly connected this means 1 of a couple things. Your hdd did not survive the water spill, Something on the board is shorting to ground shouldnt be (The chassis shielding) or the hdd controller on the board you installed is defective. Was the board new when Ryan sent it to you? If it was left over from a warranty repair this could be why the board was laying around.

Provided the envy 133 does not use an exotic key combination to access the bios (something like fn+f2) you can try to access the bios with a usb external keyboard. If you do need to use fn+f2 (or something simmular) to access the bios do you know for a fact both keys are working otherwise? When it says push any key to continue will f2 make it proceed to the os not found screen? Can you adjust the lcd brightness using the fn key?

Off the top of my head and without having the unit in front of me to work on myself that is about the best I can tell you.

Once you manage to get it working here is the voodoo ios should you need to reload it.

The cmos checksum error is releated to a bad cmos battery as is the fact it is not holding the date and time. Make sure it is plugged in all the way if it is the type with a wire and plug and check the voltage of the battery.

Glad to see you were able to get it to boot.

I figured, but that doesn't explain why the hard disk keeps going in and out. Also, stupid question: how is the Envy 133 grounded?

East wrote:The cmos checksum error is releated to a bad cmos battery as is the fact it is not holding the date and time. Make sure it is plugged in all the way if it is the type with a wire and plug and check the voltage of the battery.

Glad to see you were able to get it to boot.

Negative is present at various locations within the system. Exactly what is grounded varies model to model. Once the laptop is booted in if you move it around does it freeze like it looses communication with the hdd? Its possible the motherboard is not fully seated or not all the screws were reinstalled allowing it to intermittently contact gnd shielding. Check over the zif connections for the hdd. Pull the hdd controller board off the hdd and make sure it is dry on the side that is not normally exposed. Most drives have copper pads on the drive controller board that make contact with the read write head, spindle motor etc. make sure they are clean and free of oxidation.

Sadly, I can no longer boot into the hard disk anymore. I wonder if it's because I snapped the black tab that holds the ZIF ribbon in place on the HDD. I used tape to keep it secure and was able to successfully boot a single time. No longer. So frustrating. Perhaps it is a grounding issue, though? I've been trying to tech this thing without the shielding installed. Just to get it to work consistently before putting it all back together. Perhaps I am doing it wrong???

East wrote:Negative is present at various locations within the system. Exactly what is grounded varies model to model. Once the laptop is booted in if you move it around does it freeze like it looses communication with the hdd? Its possible the motherboard is not fully seated or not all the screws were reinstalled allowing it to intermittently contact gnd shielding. Check over the zif connections for the hdd. Pull the hdd controller board off the hdd and make sure it is dry on the side that is not normally exposed. Most drives have copper pads on the drive controller board that make contact with the read write head, spindle motor etc. make sure they are clean and free of oxidation.

The cable is most likely just not staying in contact with the board.