FW 16 in general state of unbootable with annoyingly vague light indications: hopeless or not?

Community Support
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I have an FW 16 with 32GB ram, integrated graphics, 2 ssd’s, went through one battery replacement. Out of warranty, and tech support form was not accessible with NVDA, so posting here. Here are the short details, with explanation to follow:

  • Windows 11 23h2 was working fine the night this happened, apart from intermittent Windows didn’t shut down properly’s following reboots that were resolved via bitlocker recovery key entry/startup repair.
  • Machine locked up midWindows session.
  • Machine won’t boot at all from here on, but for the fans and steady white light on the charging/power indicator.
  • Attempted mainboard reset+battery removal/reconnection/ram reseating.
  • No luck.
  • I am totally blind. Any assistance with LED’s was obtained courtesy of Aira, Be my Eyes, etc.
  • Liquid metal failure is ruled out - see below.

What Happened

Windows was working ok the day this happened. I encountered a machine freeze, so did a full shutdown with the power button for 10 seconds. The fan stopped after 3 of those seconds. From then on, I powered the machine up, and received the following:

  • Steady white light near AC connection.
  • Power button light
  • Keyboard, not sure what’s up with it, but it possibly lit
  • Screen: Completely black, not even the FW logo from what I can gather. Do have an illumination from a light of some sort, on or near the screen.
  • No 12blink cycle even after several minutes.
  • My wireless headphones dongle is recognized by the usb port, because I hear its own prompt announcing that a device is connected upon boot. Can a fried mainboard pull that one off?
  • Fans work. They rise and fall, but they work, and don’t sound dead.

What I did

  • Battery removal according to instructions.
  • Pressed a flimsy switch below the memory which, I believe, to be the reset button. 10 times, 2 seconds each, with a second-long break in between.
  • Reseated ram. The left side ram stick is completely flat, no gap between it and the mainboard. Right side ram is very, very slightly elevated but feels secure nonetheless.
    • Already tried booting with only the left side stick. NO luck.
  • It’s kind of hard for me to tell what’s up with the display wiring, but it doesn’t feel loose - could overheating have melted the wires? For the record, the device is in an open location - not in a closed bag or anything - the lid is never fully closed during operation - and there are no permanent obstructions placed dead-close to the fans.
  • After everything, the booting behavior still happens as usual. Steady white light, no blinking cycle can be observed after more than 10 minutes of running.

Questions

  1. What, if anything, is fried? Why is it that the usb port can recognize my headset dongle in this state? I assume the ssd’s are ok because those from a reads standpoint can’t outright fail overnight, and there was no actual hint of data corruption before this point.
  2. Am I correct in assuming there can’t be a liquid metal leak, because were the liquid metal compromised it would not even boot to the state that it’s in currently and the fans would hit 100% and never spin down?
  3. Any hope beyond a mainboard repair at this point? Parts are out of stock and ram is obviously out of hand, but it’s also hard to tell which is the failing component. Any hope here?
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Update, all tests being performed on another machine:
The 2230 drive bitlocker decrypts and displays data fine in my usb enclosure, though I’d rather not keep it in there since that enclosure was designed for 2280s and the 2230 is thus forced to suspend at an angle when inside the enclosure. This makes it only ideal for a short test run to ensure all’s intact. **Update: Figured out, clumsily, the mounting bracket system for this enclosure, and that precious 2tb drive is now well protected.
The 2280 though, that one shows up as a drive letter but doesn’t seem to initialize the partition table. Is this simply because even a high-powered usb c enclosure can’t provide sufficient power to the 2280 the FW16 ships with? I can’t imagine the entire data failing overnight, particularly when the 2230 is closer to the machine being below the 2280 and its data is workable.
Needless to say, this officially rules out the drives as the problem cause, figured as much since we weren’t even getting past the earliest stage of boot, which kind of indirectly ruled it out to begin with. The 2280 is a concerning case but I have to believe the data still exists and the drive simply isn’t getting enough current.