Update on the seeming Acer doorstop.

Last night after arriving home I decided to try a few things to get the piece of !!!! running. Removed the battery, unplugged it from the power adapter and then held the power key for 30 seconds. Put the battery back in, attached the power adapter and, voila, nothing. Power key is still glowing blue and with the battery back in the batter LED is also glowing blue.

Opened it up and reseated both RAM modules as well as the hard drive. Cleaned up the fan which was slightly dusty but not too bad. Tried powering it up again and, voila, nothing.

Needless to say, I have tried everything I can think of to get the laptop up and running again, all to no avail. However, I think it's time to call it a day with this Acer junk box.

For the 2 years I had it running it really was a nice laptop. The 17" screen has a very sharp resolution and the Intel Core Duo was spunky. However, I think I'm going to give Acer a pass in the future. For a laptop, or any machine for that matter, to go belly up after 2 years is unacceptable in my view. I've had Dells which have run well over 10 years as well as 1 or 2 HP laptops which were dogs but at least had longevity.

Lesson learned.

Apples and Lemons?

Yes, Apples and Lemons for sure!

Mac Book Pro sure sounds tempting right about now. Especially with the new Retina display. Hmmmmm.

Dear? I'm home!!!!!

"unplugged it from the power adapter and then held the power key for 30 seconds."

Amazing how often you see that piece of advice repeated on the web. Its supposedly to "remove static from a charged motherboard"
I have never yet seen it work, nor seen anyone report it as working, yet it gets trotted out on help forums ad nauseum

Actually, Milo, I got that bit of questionable advice straight off of Acer's support web site. I did find it of dubious value but at this stage of the game I'll try anything. (Short of pouring a glass of water over the insides of the laptop and then plugging it back in. The thought of which I had entertained. Would definitely ensure its demise then!!!!)

At the risk of tempting fate, my 5 yr old 9300 is still soldiering on, agree with comments earlier about screen, processer etc. But it is an earlier one, will now be circumspect when it come to replacing it...

Older = more reliable
 

Wonder if that has anything to do with manufacturers being forced to change over to lead-free solder ?

It is in some cases - e.g. the well documented nVidia chipset problems

With Acer laptops it seems to be more to do with the switch to multi-layer PCBs, though they also seem to have suffered more than most with poor quality motherboard components. I wonder if their buyers are more naive when buying parts....and getting fakes?

Milo:

Is there anyway I can absolutely ascertain whether or not it's my Acer's motherboard which is at fault? I would hate to pack it away, or turn it into an aquarium, thinking in the back of my head that it's still in a self-induced coma.

Umm, without the sucking eggs thingy here, are/have you gone down the complete bios reboot/os install/ etc? :O

Mustpost:

Kind of hard to do when the system is apparently dead in the water. Even a power-cycle doesn't do any good.

rgbrock1

not a lot of options open to you
you can swap out the memory
you can remove the hard drive and optical drive and see if it powers up to a startup screen
If you can get at the BIOS jumpers you can reset those
or even replace the BIOS battery if you can get at it
you can remove any wireless / modem /bluetooth modules from the motherboard
you can visually check to see the USB ports aren't shorting

But beyond that, thats it. Everything else is motherboard related

I don't think its a software issue, because powering it down and removing the battery should have resolved any abnormal "sleep" problems: it should have powered back up with a warning message about hiberfil.sys or similar

looks like the boards are available for these
e.g. ttp://www.laptopcpufan.co.uk/Laptop-MotherBoard-ACER.htm

I've never used this company, just found them on Google, so caveat emptor!!!

Update on the Acer. Arrived home from work last night and just for !!!!s and grins I decided to hit the power button on the Acer. Presto, chango... it powered up. In between tinkering with the insides the night before and last night I had do nothing else to it.

Sat down in front of it and proceeded to do a little investigation via the 'Event Viewer'. Lots and lots of entries related to 'kernel power down' i.e., sleep.

With that in mind I modified everything possible to preclude the laptop from ever going to sleep again. Also did a bunch of Windows Updates as well.

This morning it powered up just fine but not from sleep: from a shutdown which I did last night.

So, it appears to me this is NOT a motherboard issue but the infamous Windows 7 sleep problem. Which I've mitigated by never allowing the Acer to sleep again! (Poor bast**d)

I hope you're right but I reckon it'll go again

And I hope you're wrong about it going again, Milo. I remain optimistic however.

Milo:

You are correct. Got home last night, after powering the piece of cow dung off the night before, and there was the power button glowing blue again, as well as the battery LED. No response
to depressing the button aka, dead as a gold fish in a bowl.

I'm beginning to think the piece of doo-doo is possessed. Perhaps a good drop on its' head, from about 50', will do it in permanently.

Oh well. I guess it's time to scavenge parts from it. That's about all it's worth now anyway.