XO Troubleshooting Guide

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This is a troubleshooting guide for the XO laptop. It is for troubleshooting production XO laptops running firmware version Q2D03 or greater. While this is intended for use in a repair center, most of the procedures can be followed by users to repair their laptops.

Problems powering on

If you are having problems getting the XO to power on, see Troubleshooting Power On. The Startup Diagnosis page also describes how end users (not repair centers) can debug power-on or boot problems.

Display problems

If you are having problems with the display on an XO laptop, see the Display diagnostics section.

Power and Battery problems

If you are having problems such as:

• the battery is not charging
• the battery is suddenly losing charge
• the laptop won't run from a power adapter

Then you should view:

• XO Troubleshooting Battery, if you believe the problem is contained within the battery itself, or
• XO Troubleshooting Power, if you believe the problem is contained within the laptop (e.g. charging circuitry, power input circuitry), or
• Both of the above, if you are unsure where the problem is localised.

Network Problems

If your laptop is having trouble connecting to other laptops or the Internet, see the Network diagnostics section.

Audio and Camera problems

If you are having problems with the audio (microphone, speakers, headphones, or microphone input) or camera on an XO laptop, see the AV diagnostics section.

Keyboard and Touchpad problems

If you are having problems with the keyboard or touchpad on an XO laptop, see the Keyboard diagnostics section.

USB problems

If you are having problems with the USB interfaces on an XO laptop, see the USB diagnostics section.

Debugging Procedures

The following are common debugging and test procedures:

• Rebooting the Embedded Controller - This completely resets a laptop
• A Hardware Self-Test is included in the XO laptop.
• Boot options - Different boot options are available through pressing buttons around the screen during the initial boot process (immediately after pressing the power button). A sampling (more at Cheat codes):
  • '✓' (check) game pad key: forces a more detailed display while booting. See Troubleshooting Power-On for more details. This is useful for debugging activation problems.
  • 'O' game pad key: alternate between the current boot image and a previous one. In laptops which have never been upgraded, there is no previous boot image to use.
  • Rocker left: invoke hardware self-test.
• A serial adapter is very useful for debugging dead laptops

Repair Procedures

The following are common repair procedures:

• Motherboard Handling Procedures
• Disassembly Guide
  • Getting at the display and motherboard
  • Replacing a keyboard/touchpad
  • Guide to screws
• Motherboard Guides: intro, or repair
• Getting a developer key for a laptop
• Turning an XO into a serial terminal
• Finding and fixing bad blocks of NAND Flash
• Replacing/Recovering the EC (SPI) Flash - Replacing the Embedded Controller Flash
• Fixing an RTC problem - Fix laptops which can't boot due to reset RTC time.
• Fixing LiFePO₄ batteries that stop charging
• A detailed description of the laptop power circuitry (XO-1)
• Memory Bit Mapping
• Refurbishing & Reuse Checklist