Acer 1680 Laptop - Almost Dead

[Gooseman]

In a vain effort to solve this problem I've signed up to this forum. We're beyond frustrated with our laptop.

Acer 1680 Notebook, Windows XP SP2.

Up until last monday we'd not had a problem with it (the machine was bought in Australia by a friend who sold it to us. It's now out of warranty and we're in the UK)

Then suddenly we got a blue screen of death and the machine reset itself (we had no time to read what it said) Now the machine switches on, and does nothing. The fan begins to whir for a few seconds, then goes off. The power light stays on but the machine does nothing. No HDD activity, nothing.

One in a while we'll get to the ACER logo allowing you to hit F2 or F10 to enter boot menu or bios but trying to get to either does nothing and the machine just dies again.

Once in every 20 attempted boot ups it'll actually make it into windows, but then die within seconds.

We've ran the machine with and without a battery (from the mains). We're removed the only USB device (mouse). We've removed the hard drive and memory and it still does exactly the same thing. We've done all the things above one at a time, then two at a time (i.e remove memory & HDD or remove memory and USB device) and still does the same thing. The power light comes on, the fan starts but within 2-5 seconds the machine just stops again.

One person we've asked said it could be the motherboard battery causing the problem. Could that be the case?

Even if I can't fix it, I'd just like some positive pointers as to what it might be so that if we take it in somewhere to get fixed we're not ripped off with a motherboard/CPU replacement when it's only a battery or something similar.

Many Thanks
Goose

[Chaky]

The faulty "motherboard" battery (CMOS battery to be technical) would cause cmos corruption. That's the BIOS settings and configuration. Once you "save the BIOS settings and exit" some of that corruption is gone. Some BIOSes even have the option to clear the CMOS. That would be the first aid your laptop needs. You can run the PC WITHOUT the CMOS battery, but you wouldn't be able to save any BIOS settings and your PC would boot with default setting. It usualy means that all of the enhnces your laptop is capable of would be turned off. As far as my knowledge of laptops go, most of them don't use the CMOS battery at all. They rely on the main battery, but I can be wrong there.

Try this:

Remove the battery and plug the power chord it in and try to power it up. It would rule out battery and the battery charger. I hear that some laptops with faulty charger would function only that way. Some batteries have the circuitry that controlled the cherginig installed in them. One series was recalled (HP's laptops) because of that fauty circuitry. Made the laptops go BOOM.

From what you've described I would say the power supply/battery charging is to blame. It probbably killed your last battery undercharging it (or made it look dead).

[jus_mi]

Hy,

how can I repair the

[jus_mi]

Hy,

Could you please explain me how could I repair "the power supply/battery charging".

thank you very much

j