Fix for dead AAO (NOT the BIOS issue, not powering up)?

Hi there.

My AAO seems to have died.

Symptoms:

• No signs of life at all when power button is pressed
  When battery is removed, and replaced, briefly the battery light and power indicator flash on, then dim until they disappear.
  Same as above the instance the AC adaptor is plugged in (without the battery in of course)

I had this issue before, but after a day it just turned back on again. But its been a couple of days now and no luck! No chance of returning this machine, as I've messed up the case by replacing the wireless card.

Anyone out there with a fix?

Thanks, Ryan

 

The power switch is a surface mount switch on the daughter card.

The switch could be bad.
The daughter card could be bad.
Or the motherboard could be bad.

Sense you had this problem once before and it went away on its own, my guess would be the switch is the problem. I would locate a daughter board, swap the board and then see what happens.

 

Thanks, I'll see what I can do!

I would have thought if the switch was bad, I might not be seeing the odd 'lights come on then dim' issue though?

Still, I'll give it a shot!

 

On and then dim when installing the battery is normal on my AAO.

 

Ah, thanks, that makes sense then. I don't think I conciously ever checked that when my One was working. Cheers!

 

Thanks for your help jerryt, but sadly I just tried swapping in a new daughter board and no luck!

Just had a thought though, do all the connectors and cables have to be plugged in for the machine to start? I hadn't connected the keyboard, trackpad or wifi when I was testing the new daughter board. I'll give it one more shot when I get home.

Before I give in and accept that the motherboard is toast, I'm going to try and get my hands on a replacement cable that connects the daughterboard and motherboard, just in case.

Once again, thanks for your help!

 

The AAO boots fine without Keyboard, Trackpad and WiFi card.

 

Fixed a AAO today that won't do anything when the power button was pressed.

Used the Macles Bios recovery - http://macles.blogspot.com/2008/08/acer ... overy.html

Surprised me...

 

Fingers cross! I never even thought about doing that, though I've recovered my BIOS before using that method. It'll be a nice surprise if it works for me as well...

Once again, many thanks. I'll try tonight and report my findings.

 

Have you tried plugging the battery and the ac adapter?
When AAO is overheated, it'll auto shutoff and it won't start up again until it's pluged in both AC and battery.

 

Cheers for the advice guys, still no luck.

Jerryt, did you get the power light turning on when you held FN and ESC? I get nothing....

Might have to give up soon and sell this for parts!

 

Held FN and ESC, then pressed power button. The power light started flashing and I pressed again and waited for reboot.

Wish you the best of luck.

Please see my request for a dead motherboard if things don't work out,
viewtopic.php?f=43&t=12605

 

Another update (though I'm not sure how useful these posts are, I'm probably the only one with my exact problem!):

Well, I took apart my AAO tonight again, I thought it couldn't hurt as it still had no signs of life. I took apart EVERYTHING, except the fan as the screws weren't being helpful, thought I disconnected the power cable for it. Put the motherboard and the daughterboard together, lo and behold when I connect the AC and battery, the charge light stayed lit and it booted.

HOWEVER, when I powered it down and put it all back together... it was back to its old ways. Pressing the power button did nothing. Taking it apart again, this time I attempted to power it up every time I removed a screw/component. Strange thing is it powered up again after removing the keyboard. I replace the keyboard, and it continued to boot fine, until it died again. Then I took it all aprt AGAIN, and when it decided to work again, replacing the parts I had just removed had no consequence on its ability to boot. (though I had to BIOS restore the first time to get it to work properly.)

I was using it happily for a while last night, shut it off to go to sleep...

Well, as you can guess, no luck this morning. My point is, I can't seem to pinpoint what the problem is, it doesn't appear to be the result of any one component. Perhaps something on the motherboard is becoming loose every so often, or there is short that appears once in a while. Going to be very methodical in testing tonight.

 

Cracked solder connection. Use a 14x loop and visually inspect the board for cracked solder joints. With the board removed and booted, gentle flex the board between mount points (screw holes). If you locate an area where the board becomes intermittent, that is where the bad solder connection is.

You would be surprise how often you can find a bad solder joint visually and how well it stays fixed, simply by resoldering the joint.

 

Time for a trip to the hardware store!

Thinking about it, one of the times it booted, I had infact not reseated the board correctly. I'd left the top corner, where the AC adaptor is found, lying above the piece of metal it usually slots into. So the board was bent slightly, but booting.

There might be light at the end of this tunnel!

 

Jerryt, sorry to bother you again. I'm not having great luck. Still not sure where the problem is. Managed to get it to boot, but flexing doesn't appear to cause it to die. Its seems screwing the top plate on does interfere with things though.

I'm going to keep looking for cracks or anything that looks out of place. Any specifics on what to look for? Internet isn't being a great help, I'm trying to find examples. Will the cracks be obvious? Am I looking more at the soldering of the chips onto the board or the very small resistors? Probably both right?


 

hi!

Maybe idiot but who knows:
I assume your powersave is correctly set and when fed by AC, the veil is not set at 0 or a few minutes.
I had myself an issue with a new aspire one with powersave not set.

 

Hi Chef Borjan, I know you asked Jerryt, but I can offer some information here for that question.

Personally, I would be looking at anything that has a solder joint into the mainboard. Capacitors, ICs, resistors, triacs, molex connectors, and even connections to other boards. I had a laptop that wouldn't boot, but if I pressed on the keyboard just above the touchpad, I could get it to boot and it would stay running. It just wasn't very stable. I started looking, and I realized a connector was actually missing off the mainboard. I looked at the component that it went to, and realized the connector was actually on the other part of the connector (it came off the mainboard). I took my soldering iron, replaced the connector onto the mainboard, and it's been fine ever since. I actually have no use for the notebook anymore as it was only a PII 366. Still working though.

So as you can see, it can be anything really. Good luck mate, I really hope you get it fixed.

 

There is a product which you can buy, that cools whatever you spray. Electronic repair shop use it (instead of flexing), and it will also pin point intermittent components.

http://www.action-electronics.com/freezespray.htm

It will also pin point cracked solder joints.

With a 14x loupe the solder will appear to flow very evenly, a crack shows as a ridge or line in the solder joint. I did a LCD inverter board where out of 8 inverter there was like 25 cracked solder joint, from expansion.

 

Well, now its something else.

*sigh*

I shorted the board by accident, touched a screwdriver onto the motherboard with the mains attached. I've been in an out of that machine so many times I think I got careless.

The good news is that the machine now runs 100%... when on the battery. When I connect the Ac however, I cannot boot the machine (unless the battery is in place), and I get a constant ticking sound (about 1 a second) when the AC is connected by itself. If I try to power it on in this state, the ticking increases to two or three a second. Also, my battery doesn't charge. So it seems like my AC power isn't getting recognized, and is shorting out. Great.

I luckily know exactly where I made contact, it was on two resistor looking parts underneath the fan and I'm hoping that if i can somehow replace those parts carefully, I might be okay.

THE DRAMA. THE MORAL OF THIS STORY, LIKE SO MANY OTHERS, IS DON'T BE AN IDIOT.