Working on a friends Armada M700 PIII 700mhz W2000 with intermitent shutdown problems. Got it home and semed to be working OK with a few little quirks but nothing major. Shut it off one night with no problems and went out the next morning and booted to the windows screen and then went dead. Here's the symptoms:
1. Turn unit on and num, scroll, & cap lights come on solid.
2. Only way to "shut it off, hold hibernate button and push power button.
3. No fan, clicking or anything when the lights come on.
4. If you remove battery and plug in the AC adapter, the three lights come on by themselves in about 3 seconds.
5. Tried removing every removable item and still same result.
6. Tried the Fn+F11 keypress on startup...nada.
7. Tried removing the CMOS battery and letting unit sit for 24 hours, nothing.
From the research that I've done on the web, this seems to be either a "voltage converter board" problem or a motherboard problem. I got it stripped down except removing the motherboard and looked the VCB over real good with a magnifying glass and see nothing. The owner said he would be willing to put a VCB in but not a motherboard. Any thoughts or guesses on this one?
OHHHH...one more thing. The first night I had it and was running on the battery, I decided to plug in the AC adapter. When I did, I heard a little snick/arc sound. It still does this the first time you plug the adapter in but it won't repeat until you unplug the adapter and let it sit for awhile. Obviously there is a "load" or "short" somewhere.