help with dead laptop

Maxheadroom · 22 Jul 2010

my apologies if this is in the wrong area
my acer 4230 seems to have died, it was working fine then today it wont start up, i get no post beep at all, the fan comes on for about 20 seconds then stops and the lights on the lappy stay on but nothing shows on the screen.
also if i take the HDD out it does the same thing.
is there anything i can do to it? i have another acer travelmate somewhere that got sat on i think the screens bust and i think theres something wrong with the keyboard but i might be able to salvage some parts.
thanks

Kirsch · 22 Jul 2010

1. Unplug the power
2. Take the battery out
3. Hold the power button for 30 seconds
4. Plug back in the power cord and try booting

Petey7 · 22 Jul 2010

I'm not sure if the parts from the two would be compatible. Also, usually something happening to the keyboard effects the rest of the computer on a laptop. If you can connect the acer travelmate to an external moniter you can see if that computer is salvageable or not. Whats the model number on the travelmate?

I've gotta say this is my least favorite thing to say to somebody. It looks like the mobo on the acer 4230 has failed. Those are symptoms I have rarely seen on a salvageable laptop. I'm not sure how old it is, but I'm guessing if you still had the warranty on it, you would have contacted acer first. I decided to see if your were selling any acer 4230s on ebay for parts, and I found a motherboard for $130 (£84). Looking on line you might find something, or I can check to see if the two mobos on the two computers are the same.

Maxheadroom · 22 Jul 2010

thanks Kirsch but that had no effect mate

petey7 yes it does sound like a dead mobo, the other travelmmate is the 4500, it dosent start up properly and i cant get into boot options or anything cause the keyboard dosent work properly, the screen is broken but you can still see most of it, is there a poss of a mobo swap do you think?

Petey7 · 22 Jul 2010

When I found that one mobo on ebay, it listed multiple model numbers, but I'll have to check. You might be able to get the 4500 working if it had a decent screen and working keyboard.

Petey7 · 22 Jul 2010

It looks like the 4230 and 4530 use the same. Not sure about one that is just 4500. You might have to use the 4500 case. If not, there are other places online that sell them, but they're all around £125. (I hope I'm right that UK still uses pounds. Its been awhile since I checked).

Maxheadroom · 22 Jul 2010

i might just try swapping the mobos, would i have to do a fresh install of 7?

Petey7 · 22 Jul 2010

I'm not really sure. If the hardware is different enough, you might run into major problems with drivers. Doing a fresh install would prevent such a problem.

Maxheadroom · 22 Jul 2010

its a no go unfotunatley just looking at the back of the laptops togeather i can see the mobo must be different

, ahh well
thanks for the help

Petey7 · 22 Jul 2010

Thats a shame. Are you sure the keyboards aren't interchangeable? Since both appear to be dead anyways, might as well take the HDDs out of both and play around a bit. You might find an easy fix in the process.