Acer Aspire 5517 - Not posting, new Mobo

[Avidist]

-I don't know why it wouldn't let me post this in Hardware, because I've been a member for over a month and have over 5 posts...-

Hey guys. I'm in some need of some advice. I have no idea what's going with this laptop, and it's supposed to be finished today.

The laptop was brought to me to fix about a month ago. It would power on but would not post, and then the fan would stop spinning. The hard drive spins audibly and the laptop stays powered on. I swapped out all the normal parts that you can for a laptop, including the hard drive and ram. I also swapped out the processor. Nothing would fix the problem. I concluded that it must be the motherboard.

The client needed his data then, so I hooked his hard drive to my computer, which caused me a big mess (That's here: http://www.technibble.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40208 (I tried a new motherboard and that fixed my problem.)). I did finally retrieve his data though.

So I ordered a working mobo on eBay, which took forever to get here. Now that it's here, and I've installed it, it's doing the same thing as before. When I turn it on now, the screen "flashes" for a second right after I let go of the power button. It looks more like the screen is just receiving power, because there is no color. I can't remember if it was doing that before or not. I'm officially stumped. The only thing I can think is that his hard drive is somehow making motherboards go bad (His original, my desktop, and now this new one) but I feel like that is too far fetched and I could be missing something basic.

I've checked all the connections, tried swapping parts on the new board and it's just not working. If you guys can think of anything, please let me know. Thanks!

-Avidist/Jacob

UPDATE: Before the new motherboard had been ordered and I was still troubleshooting the other one, I tried using an external monitor. It would not post. Before posting this I'd forgotten to try that, and after trying it, it DOES post to an external monitor, but not to the laptop screen. I guess when the motherboard went bad the screen went bad as well. There's not much else I can do I guess. Any ideas would still be appreciated.

 

[Bashfu11]

First and foremost, I have seen the lith ion battery on Acers cause problems like this. Sounds crazy, but I have seen it happen on similar models in rare cases, and popping out the battery fixed it right up. Probably not the case but worth mentioning anyway!

I have seen many acer computers that the fan doesn't spin shortly after startup, until the CPU temp rises. Has something to do with 'Stepping' and 'Cool n Quiet' and other power managment stuff. Could this be the case here?

So consider this possibility: The computer does produce a signal to an external monitor, but does not to the internal monitor. You have tried two different motherboard, so the chances that both motherbaord have the same issue is very small, especially considering the symptoms are different (Works on external now). You have also tried known good components thus confirming that the other usual suspects are OK. This laptop does not have a GPU integrated into the CPU (Correct?), so I would strongly suggest that you are correct in assuming that the LCD Panel had failed along with the motherboard initially(Could try disconnecting and reconnecting connection to back of LCD Panel, connections to inverter, and connection to mainboard, although I doubt it will help).

Without knowing the exact model, this is a 1366x768 15.6" display, correct? This is an extremely common acer display type, my suggestion would be to find a test LCD panel to install and test with to confirm. As long as they are the same res and backlighting you can typically use a variety of differnt models for testing(not a sure thing, as long as they are same specs and around the same age they should work), at least so you can confirm the problem. But from my POV what else could it realistically be?

Hope this helps!!

 

[NYJimbo]

When I turn it on now, the screen "flashes" for a second right after I let go of the power button. It looks more like the screen is just receiving power, because there is no color.

UPDATE: Before the new motherboard had been ordered and I was still troubleshooting the other one, I tried using an external monitor. It would not post. Before posting this I'd forgotten to try that, and after trying it, it DOES post to an external monitor, but not to the laptop screen. I guess when the motherboard went bad the screen went bad as well. There's not much else I can do I guess. Any ideas would still be appreciated.

I assume in this case POSTing is the same as BOOTING, if thats the case are you sure it was not booting using the internal lcd or is it that you could not tell ?

Audible sounds like fans, hard drives, DVD drives, can confuse you during a diagnostic. On many laptops the fan will not run at all, some will spin up and then down and other spin up fast and stay on during the boot process. Likewise many laptops DVD drives will spin up fully and it can fool you that it sounds like a HD. Same thing with a machine that is not booting but the DVD drive is seeking anyway on bootup, its kind of like its a zombie that doesnt know its dead. I've seen laptops with dead motherboards and the DVD drive is seeking for half a minute and it looks like its booting.

I think you have reached a point of frustration where you diagnosis is kind of falling all over itself. I doubt it that the LCD died because of the motherboard dying. If you cant figure this one out then call it a loss and investigate what went wrong in diagnosing this machine. You will get into this kind of situation again and its important to learn from mistakes. That's how I got started, every time a machine overwhelmed me I tried to figure out what was wrong or what I did wrong or what I didn't understand so I would not do it again.