Acer 1350 powers up but won't boot (x 2!)

Hi, a friend of mine gave me their Acer 1350 laptop to repair - the fault was that the screen suddenly went blank, even though the power goes on and the fan turns. When I first looked at it, the screen came on, it started to boot into Windows (XP Home), it got past the loading screen (with the horizontal scrolling thingies) and then the screen went blank, and ever since I've never been able to get the screen to come on.
I tested it and couldn't hear the hard drive seeking, so I guessed that the mainboard or CPU had failed. I took it apart (using a service manual as a guide) to see if there was anything I could do to fix it, I removed the CPU and reseated it, used new thermal paste and put it all back together, but it still had the same problem. I had made sure that the screen cables were connected back correctly, as per the service manual instructions.
Also, the power light didn't come on, even though the CPU fan comes on when you press the power button (for a few seconds), and then after leaving it on for a few minutes the fan runs again for a few seconds, so something is working!

Anyway, I bought a second hand Acer 1350 off Ebay for £70, which was running fine, just didn't have the hard drive. As soon as I got it, I put the hard drive from my friend's Acer into the new laptop, and it booted up Windows fine, everything ran perfectly. Problem solved. Or so I thought.

After turning it off, I tried to turn it back on. Result - it now has exactly the same problem as the first laptop! When you press the power button, the fan goes on for a few seconds, but the screen remains blank. The hard drive doesn't seek.
I've also tried it without the hard drive, hoping that maybe that was something to do with it, but it makes no difference, the screen is still blank, so I can't even look at the BIOS.

I have been racking my brains over this - what could possibly have caused this problem in both laptops? Some kind of virus on the hard drive, which stops the laptop from even showing me the boot screen? The screen stays off no matter what I do. The power light doesn't come on, even though the fan has started turning, and the hard drive is running (but not seeking).

Many thanks in advance if any of you can shed some light on this - otherwise I have to explain to my friend that not only is their laptop not fixed, but I've just destroyed another one!

 

I just turned on the first laptop and it booted okay, so I put the hard drive back into it, it booted into Windows but after loading the desktop it turned itself off. I turned it back on and it's now in Windows and running okay, but I'm afraid that it could turn off at any moment!

The hard drive light was working fine while it was loading Windows, but the power light was off throughout. I haven't put the keyboard back in it yet, so I can see and feel the heatsink, and it isn't getting hot (and the fan is coming on every minute or two, like it normally did when it was working okay).

 

For god's sake do a reformat.
When the device can post successfully it has to be software issue.

 

The problem is that neither laptop would even show me a POST screen without the hard drive in, or with the hard drive in, most of the time, so I don't think it can be anything to do with the hard drive.

 

but you said that you could get to the boot screen for the first time, so it means it showed a POST screen. so it might be software, but i suspect the RAM.

 

But ram doesn't explain why the second notebook broke?

But yes you should reformat and maybe even update the BIOS if you can.

 

Seeing as the hard drive was the common link between the two failures, I'd boot each one without the drive fitted, and boot off something like the Ultimate Boot CD, and set a test (such as memtest, or prime95) running. I'd leave it doing that overnight and see if it was still alive come the morning. If it passed (best running a variety of tests to stress as many aspects as possible) then I'd very much suspect the hard drive was failing in an interesting and potentially catastrophic way. The UBCD also contains the majority of hard drive manufacturer diagnostic programs, so if you can get one of the lappies to boot with the hard drive it's well worth running that through a diag too.

I've got a duff 1360 (video card failing, my spare card turned out to be faulty too ) which every so often fails to POST never mind get any further with the original video card. Other times it gets into Windows and seems to run just fine. same machine sometimes swears at a resource conflict with the wireless card, other times doesn't. It wouldn't surprise me one bit to find the hard drive you're messing with is failing and sometimes bringing the whole system down, other times working well enough to load XP.

Why couldn't you be messing with a failing 1360/ 1520 with a good Nvidia card, so I could make you an offer...

 

Update:

I had to take the first laptop apart again because I had six or seven screws left over (so often the way!), and after putting it back together, and putting the hard drive back in, it booted up fine, and the power light does come on - it was working all along, I was looking at the three lights at the top of the laptop, above the keyboard, but the power light is at the bottom, below the mousepad.

It all works fine now, but the newer laptop I bought is still not working.
The power comes on, but the screen stays blank. I took the screen off it and tried it on the older laptop, and the screen works fine. As they are exactly the same laptop, I would expect that putting the hard drive from the older laptop into the newer one would work fine, but it doesn't help. I can't get a POST screen, nothing, although the fan goes on when you press the 'On' button, nothing else happens, the hard drive doesn't seek.

 

Thanks for your help, but I can't get the newer laptop to boot at all. No POST screen, nothing. It turns on, the fan turns, it's running in some way, because the fan comes on again after a few minutes, and every few minutes if I leave it on, but the screen is blank, and the hard drive doesn't seek.

 

I found the solution thanks to another forum member, ATG.
It was a duff stick of RAM, which I must have damaged while swapping RAM between each of the two laptops.