Well leave it to me to screw this up. I opened up my second iopener today and found that I had an epoxy version. I spent forever scraping away at the goo and finally removed the chip. I took the chip out, and put it back in abd it won't boot. When I apply power I see the green light inside the power button but nothing on the screen, not even the backlight.
I read some posts about reseating the BIOS chip slightly higher and I must have tried this about 50 times with no luck. I pulled out the SODIMM and remounted it about 5 times. I swapped BIOS chips with my other iopener and still no luck. I think I've narrowed the problem down to a couple of possibilities:
1) I messed up the BIOS socket somehow.
2) When I was scraping the epoxy off I slipped and ran the screwdriver across a small section of the motherboard. I examined it closely and it looks like all I did was scratch the green insulator off the top of a couple traces. The traces seem intact.
I've tried so many times to re-seat the BIOS or expand the contacts in the BIOS socket with no luck that I don't think this is the cause of the problem.
I know this blank screen on powerup has come around quite a bit. Does anyone have a series of tests I can do to see what the problem is? If someone has encountered this kind of thing before can they offer any advice?
If there is anyone in the New York City area that would be willing to look it over for 5 minutes I'd be very grateful.
Thanks,
Terry
