Testing a Motherboard

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ellmo1

New Member
Hi Guys,

I run a small business in which I sell used laptop parts. I usually buy working laptops and strip them down and sell the parts individually (only been doing it around 1 month).

I have established a contact who sells broken untested laptops.

Obviously before selling the parts on as working, ill need to test them.

Can anyone please help/ give me a little advice and help me decide what sort of setup I would need to test motherboards?

Below I am going to list some of my questions I hope someone will be kind enough to answer:

I was thinking I could have one screen that I use to test all the motherboards, would this be possible or are the connectors etc different?

Will I need a HDD connected with a OS on to boot the motherboard into the BIOS?

I would obviously need a power source which would come from a charging cable. Are these universal between most laptops as long as they have the same plug?

Would I need anything else to test a motherboard?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

(see image attached, something like that)

Thanks in advance.
 

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Agent Smith

Agent Smith

Well-Known Member
Different computers use different power supplies. You're gonna have to know what MB it is and its power requirements and keep a box of AC adapters.

You don't need Windows to test the MB. Just booting BIOS and going through it should be enough to know it works.

Laptop motherboards could have a VGA connector or a HDMI connector.
 
E

ellmo1

New Member
Hi,
Thanks for the response. Would I need RAM connected? Some of the systems may have the RAM removed i think?

Thanks for your help.

Also, would I need to conduct further testing to test the CPU? Or generally if they boot up would this mean they are working?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
johnb35

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Need ram installed in order for machine to boot. Cpu is generally fine if machine boots up.
 
YourDigitalJester

YourDigitalJester

Member
Have a spare stock of DDR2 laptop ram, dispite the highest of high end laptops they all tend to have that. But in general if it hits BIOS youre pretty set that things inside work. On an apple hold down the power button until you see a screen come up that tells you the manfacturing date (my memory says about a minute). On any linux distro it doesnt have too much of a bios, just press the power button and cross your fingers
 
Laquer Head

Laquer Head

Well-Known Member
ellmo1 said:
I run a small business in which I sell used laptop parts. I usually buy working laptops and strip them down and sell the parts individually (only been doing it around 1 month)..
Click to expand...

If they work, why do you strip them down? Why wouldn't you format, fix a bit and flip em' as refurbs? Problem with alot of laptops is the proprietary internal components (aside from SSD/HDD, Ram, and optical drive..)

YourDigitalJester said:
havent seen a DDR4 laptop, but i guess you can call me outdated :p
Click to expand...

:eek:Outdated for sure.. I bought my MSI notebook with DDR4 in Q4 2015....:eek:
 
YourDigitalJester

YourDigitalJester

Member
Fair enough you two :p

Though i own newer laptops the one i tend to use is the acer aspire in my sig. More reliable than my lenovo (and not that much slower, dispite the massive age difference between the two), faster than my asus and overall stronger than both. Im in the market for a toughbook honestly, just for the sake of being able to say i can shoot it and it will still work
 
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