>Hi,
>since one year, my asus L8400B laptop has a strange problem: at boot
>says that SMART indicates imminent failure and the boot stops.
>impossible to disable smart feature from the BIOS. month after month
>the problem happens much more often, sometimes needing to restart
>20-30 times to make the system start. indcation is false, because
>disabling the smart support with the harddrive utility it happens
>anyway, and also it happens with different disks. when it happens
>floppy and cd-rom are not detected by the bios.
>I suppose it's a motherboard problem.
>any similar behaviour?
>thank you.
>
>david

>On Thu, 07 Apr 2005 23:23:21 +0200, dave
><SPAMdavide.cavaleri@libero.it> wrote:
>
>>Hi,
>>since one year, my asus L8400B laptop has a strange problem: at boot
>>says that SMART indicates imminent failure and the boot stops.
>>impossible to disable smart feature from the BIOS. month after month
>>the problem happens much more often, sometimes needing to restart
>>20-30 times to make the system start. indcation is false, because
>>disabling the smart support with the harddrive utility it happens
>>anyway, and also it happens with different disks. when it happens
>>floppy and cd-rom are not detected by the bios.
>>I suppose it's a motherboard problem.
>>any similar behaviour?
>>thank you.
>>
>>david
>
>
>See if the laptop has a bios upgrade available.
>Had you ran the HDD manufacturer's diagnostics and
>general-installation-check utility to see if it found
>anything unusual?
>
>Has it been used in harsh environments?  I'm wondering if
>the connectors/contacts/etc are damaged or dirty.
>Due to the mechanical integrity necessary for proper
>function of a laptop, if you don't feel inclined to
>disassemble and troubleshoot the mechanical connections and
>related electrical portions you might take it to a qualified
>repair shop...  after trying the bios update if possible.
>
>Any correlation between ambient temp or how long it'd been
>off, it's internal temp relating to the frequency of the
>problem?

>no BIOS upgrade in the last 2 years.
>HDD diagnostic passed succesfully, nothing unusual.
>something strange: after enabling and disabling the SMART from the HDD
>utility the problem doesn't appear for few days. than back again.
>I've completely disassembled the laptop up to the motherboard.
>contacts are clean and I didn't notice anything strange. any
>suggestion on what to check? why do you think that when the disk is
>indicating the problem, all the other units are not detected?
>according to temperature I didn't notice any correlation between
>neither ambient temperature nor internal temperature (rebooting after
>long usage): looks like that when it works if I do RESTART it works at
>the first time. If for some reason I need to do a hard reset then
>often the problem appears. after being off usually it takes even 30-40
>trying to get it start, obsiously without doing anything different
>between the start trying.
>...any idea?