LE1600 - Crashing Issues

[Vorash]

Hi all,

I've got a Motion LE1600VA Centrino 1.5ghz, 30gb HDD which is about 2 years old. It has an additional 1gb of memory which I have added. I had it brought over from the US to Australia, I didn't opt for the extended warranty.

I have had a series of issues with it, as follows:

- At approx 1 year old I had issues with the power plug. It stopped charging unless I held the power plug firmly in (it wasn't loose, just needed a bit of pressure). I ended up getting this fixed by a Motion partner / distributor here called DH Technology - they ended up re-soldering the power plug to the motherboard and putting a blob of silicon in to prevent it happening again.

- At approx 1 year 2 months old I had issues with the power plug again, sent it off again, fixed again.

- At approx 1 year 4 months old I started having issues with random rebooting. After rebooting it would sometimes start up again fine, sometimes windows files would be corrupted and require me to re-format / re-load windows. Sometimes it would last a few weeks without rebooting. I reinstalled Windows XP Tablet Edition a few times and eventually put Vista on it.

- At approx 1 year 6 months old, I started having more serious issues - it would crash, either a complete freeze requiring me to hard power off, or a windows error box which would result in no desktop and a hard reboot. I also randomly started having low-level problems - when it booted up it would say "Operating System Not Found", but then if I restarted it would be ok (particularly had the problem after a crash). Sometimes in the BIOS it would just show random characters instead of the HDD name. I sent it up to get fixed and they were able to replicate the crash problem and recommended installing the latest BIOS (which I could have done myself). They claimed that it fixed the issue, and sent it back.

- Shortly after that I started getting even more serious problems - BSOD crashes. They seem to happen randomly, sometimes I can use it for 15 mins with no crash, sometimes if doesn't even finish booting up. I have tried setting it up with a fan blowing on the back (in case it is overheating issues), which seems to work for a while, but not consistently.

So I've booked it in to be looked at by the repair shop again. I have a feeling that the problems are hardware related. I've tried taking out the after-market memory to no result. I've replaced the hard drive, which hasn't fixed it either. So I suspect it is either the CPU, CPU fan, motherboard or internal cabling.

I'm wondering

- Had anyone else had similar issues? What was the cause?
- What can I do if the repair shop aren't able to come up with a solution?

Up until a year ago I was using my tablet every day for work. I work as a Software Consultant and found it immensely useful for taking notes in meetings, presentations, etc. I also got a lot of comments and questions about it from colleagues. I'd really like to start using it regularly again, but need it to be reliable - I can't afford for it to crash in the middle of a meeting!

Thanks for your help,
C.J. Ruggles

[sbtablet]

Just a random thought, C.J. Have you checked out your hard drive for bad sectors?

SBT

[Vorash]

SBT -

I did originally suspect that the problems were hard drive related, I have run scandisk to no avail - although usually it fixed some things, it didn't help. I also looked around for a low-level format utility (which would find and cordon-off bad sectors), however I don't think one exists for Toshiba drives.

I ended up getting a new hard drive, however I still have the same issues. In fact, I haven't even been able to install windows on the new drive because the tablet will crash during setup.

Currently my strongest suspicions is that it is:
- the motherboard
- the HDD connector on the motherboard, or
- the HDD cable

Cheers,
C.J.

[sbtablet]

Sounds like it's time to call the "end of life" hotline at Motion support. I'm told that there truly is such a thing. Bummer.

SBT

[John Hill]

The power plug problem is a known issue with the LE1600 tablets. As far as the other issues, we haven't had customers with those problems. The number of people who have had random crashes like thta are very, very small in my experience. I would try a complete system reinstall first (painful, I know). If that doesn't take care of the problem then I think the motherboard is the prime suspect.

We've had many, many customers use third party RAM with perfect success but if you send your tablet in to Motion with that installed they will blame it for all your woes.

[Vorash]

Well I am glad to report that my LE1600 is back up and running!

I sent it in for repair and it was diagnosed with the following issues:

Ran the tablet using the service LE-1600 test HDD.
Ran a CPU intensive application, tablet froze.
Cleaned the contacts on the CPU and northbridge cooler. No
effect.

Requires a replacement motherboard.


I had already contacted Motion support regarding the series of problems with the tablet - they organised to have the motherboard replaced and tablet shipped back to me in full working order.

Big thanks to the Motion guys - great customer support!

C.J.

[sbtablet]

Yea!