Intro

My Solo 9100 has given me problems ever since I bought it 2 years ago. For the last year its been completely dead, no LEDs, no nothing. Laptop parts can be expensive, proprietary parts can be almost non-existant. In many case one must consider what the price of fixing current equipment is vs. the price of purchasing faster, newer, more capable equipment. 

Gateway

The first year I owned my laptop I sent it in for repair twice. Both times I was without my laptop for a month. I've downloaded several documents off the Gateway Support site but for the advanced technical person these documents contained very little information. With the amount of problems I've had with my Solo 9100 I find it hard to believe that I'm the only one whose had trouble with this machine. Many of my laptop's problems have been centered around this area.

When swiveling the Flat Screen a lot of tension is transferred to this area. That's because one of the main supports for the flat screen is screwed directly into a circuit board. This board sits above the power adapter and below the Solo 9100 DVD Decoder Card. This circuit board contains all the Video/Sound/Multimedia features. I wouldn't want to replace it, I haven't run into anybody whose selling it. A very sensitive 27-pin VGA connector sits right next to this support. On more then one occasion my laptops powered off while I was swiveling the flat screen because of the location of this connector. Problems in this area can result in catastrophic failure of the Solo 9100. I believe that its this support that's been causing many of my problems. Solution: I removed the screw from the swivel bracket. This should lighten up the tension on my VGA/Multimedia board. I noticed that last time the laptop was in for repair they replaced the plastic VGA connector with a metal one. Make sure if your purchasing a new VGA/multimedia card to check to see if it has a metal connector (the older ones have plastic). I personally prefer metal parts to plastic because of their ability to absorb wear and tear. 

Catastrophic Failure

It wasn't the swivel bracket that did my laptop in and I can't say with a 100% certainty that I know exactly what happened, but I do have a pretty good idea. Some how or another I think my cooling fan came unplugged. The laptop had been in for repair only a month before, its my belief that the warranty technicians that repaired it forgot to plug in the fan.  Before the laptop finally crashed I’d been having terrible problems with it. Looking back it seems pretty obvious to me that my laptop was overheating, causing lockups and power failures. When I called Gateway and told them this they said that since I’d opened the laptop case, all warranties are void. As a A+ certified PC tech I felt completely comfortable opening my machine and taking the time to fix it myself. Now I’m more intimately familiar with the machine and its capabilities.

Update Apr 3 Tuesday 12:40 PM PM Control: My laptop may have failed because I turned off the Power Management feature in the system BIOS. Hit the <del> or f2 keys when you see the system statistics during system startup, select "Power", Make sure PM Control is not set to "disable" Disabling PM Control disables the cooling fan, running the system without a functioning cooling fan can result in CATASTROPHIC FAILURE. My recommended setting PM Control: ALWAYS.

The Fix:

Fixing my Solo9100 was surprisingly easy once I got my head straightened out. For a year I'd thought fixing it would be too expensive so I let it collect dust on my shelf- I was still making payments on it though. In 1998 I bought my Solo directly from Gateway's website for $2600.00 (Big Mistake!). It came with a one-year warranty parts and labor. I've seen Solo 9100s on ebay being sold for as little as $700.00 as of this writing. I bought two parts off Ebay, a Power Adapter board ($21.50) and a p166 Intel MMX MMC1 processor module ($45.50) from adeal.com. Parts shipment was very fast and I'm very pleased with my experiences on Ebay so far.  After swapping both parts the laptop booted up just fine. I was amazed. Unfortunately the Li-Ion battery has been sitting for to long and seems to be out for the account. The battery Status light is red, meaning that there's a critical error with the battery. It won't accept a charge. I also handled the left speaker connector a bit two roughly. I'll need to sodder the connection one of these days. 

Update Apr 3 Tuesday 12:40 PM Li-Ion Battery: Even though my Li-Ion battery was flashing an Red Status (battery not functioning or excepting a charge) I left it in my computer, over the next two weeks it turned from red to orange to green. Now the battery excepts a full charge and is functioning normally , this problem took care of itself. 

Troubleshooting Tips:

When I replaced the power board and plugged in my Solo I noticed the LED on the power supply faded. That proved to me that the new power board was probably working. Previously that LED had 0 reaction when the laptop was plugged in. 

If you're having problems booting your machine (No Video) try placing gentle pressure 4, E, and R keys or swiveling the laptop flat screen. Be very careful this can be a very temperamental machine. Pushing on the 4,E, and R keys with gentle but firm pressure may help to reseat some of the circuit boards. Swiveling the laptop screen gently may help close any shorts in the VGA connector.