Acer 1362 WLMi - dead, black display, fast fan

Was just happily surfing away and suddenly the screen went blank and the DVD drive made a sound like it was resetting. Thought the thing had crashed and rebooted, but now it just sits there with a black screen and the fan is on at maximum speed.

Held down the power button to switch it off, turned it back on and the same. Black screen and maximum speed fan.

Tried removing the hard disc just to at least see if I could get as far as a bios screen, but same. Also same with and without battery (latter on mains obviously).

Tried plugging it into an external display but nothing either. Keys don't do anything, even trying to swap to the external display. Caps Lock etc don't show up their respective lights.

So I'm thinking this is dead.

Could this be just the back light, and if so would it prevent it from booting and cause a reboot?

I've got extended warranty which is still running so hopefully I can get it fixed, but wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions for obvious things I'm missing and can try (without doing anything to invalidate the warranty).

 

no your motherboard has had it. call acer support.

assuming you can not hear the hdd, it's done. Acer will rebuild it
hope it works out.

 

Turn it off for a few hours, then boot it up and see if it works.

It could of been overheating, but I doubt it.

 

I left it for a while and it did get as far as the bios but I didn't have the hard disc plugged in at the time, so powered off, put in the disc and then it was back to the same. Pulled out the disc and tried again and still the same.

Another time I tried it made a long loud beep.

I've left it overnight and I'll try again, but I think it's fried. If it's overheating, it's not because it was doing anything stressful at the time.

 

Okay, after leaving it some time, it's powering up okay.

I thought then perhaps it's overheating, but I found it suddenly went blank again just by lifting the laptop to move it. Sounds more like a dodgy connection?

I've fiddled about with the memory bay cover as that moves if I lift it and my hand is under the cover, and got it working again. Okay for the moment, but I haven't risked moving it again.

Though looking at the core temperature it's reaching 60C, but then I'm not sure what this laptop would normally run at (it's a Sempron 2800 CPU by the way). Obviously laptops don't have the same kind of cooling as a desktop has so maybe 60C is okay.

 

60C is usually ok for any CPU AFAIK ... I aways have a backup i.e. with TV out setup just incase the primary display acts all strange which has saved me a few times much labour and toil.

Does Acer provide an OSD for CPU temp? I removed all the Acer bloatware opting for Everest instead but wouldn't mind a little exe app that monitors key temps and CPU speed. You know those excellent little apps that weae around the open source communnity .. like 300k whereas M$ would need 45MB :EEK:

Oh and sorry for derailing your thread

 

Motherboard Monitor was the one I used to use for years to monitor this kind of stuff, but I'm using RightMark CPU Clock Utility now which not only gives you the monitor but also does efficient stepped throttling of the CPU, better than the OS. Keeps the fan from racing away when the laptop is essentially idle but delivers power when needed.

P.S. It's around 600Kb and it's free . Though they have started doing a pay option but I can't see what extra benefit you get for the 'pro' features.

Anyway, I'm beginning to suspect it's the memory sticks at fault not the laptop.

The reason being is after looking at the memory cover, I decided to swap the memory around and it's been booting okay for a bit, but then it all falls over again after a while. Starts with a crash and reboot and then refuses to boot up or will die a short way into booting up. Just swapped the memory out and replaced with the original memory and it's booted up fine and still working.

Surprising as the memory I put in to upgrade it is Crucial brand and matched to the laptop so I expected it to be good quality. Also in my experience I've not come across memory failing when in use, especially when it's been fine for half a year.

Still, Crucial do warranty on the memory I believe so if it's the case I'll send it back to them.

If the original memory Acer supplied (Samsung branded) still fails then that rules out the memory I guess.

 

Hi.

I have an Acer 1362WLMi and this is the first time it has gone badly wrong. DeadKenny, you mention that you have removed your hard drive. I have removed all the casing screws that I can see but still cannot remove the case.

Where am I going wrong?

I don't really want to re-partition the hard drive and start again if I can remove it to attempt to restore it.

Thanking you in advance.

 

Don't know if you worked it out. I seem to have missed the thread notifications.

Anyway, you don't need to unscrew the case to remove the hard disc. Just power off, take out the battery and you should see a plastic tab sticking out from a rectangular metal object. Just pull it hard and the drive will pop out.

Oh, and just an update. I got replacement memory from Crucial and all was fine. Until last week and it did it again! This time the memory is totally fried. Ran Memtest on it and it's just completely screwed. It's just one stick of memory, like last time.

Put in the original Acer supplied memory and works fine.

I wonder if it's a particular memory slot causing the problem, or an issue with overheating frying the memory. Although I'm using a laptop cooler now which I can see from temperature monitors it does lower the hard disc temp and I can feel underneath that it's cooling the memory area which gets very hot.