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    Acer Aspire 5535 - Won't Start

    Discussion in 'Acer' started by ScottishAcer, Feb 28, 2010.

  1. ScottishAcer

    ScottishAcer Newbie

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    Hi Everyone

    Your help and suggestions are required.

    My grandchildren have an Acer Aspire 5535 laptop bought at Christmas 2008. I've tried to look after it by virus and spyware checks, by clearing out temporary files using CCCleaner, and increasing the size of the 'C' volume at the expense of the 'D' volume as they've filled it up.

    The machine is still standard, so 2GB Ram, 250 GB HDD, ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics, running Vista Home Premium. I’m sure that the Bios is version 1.04.

    A couple of weeks ago, they reported that it wouldn't start up - the screen was black. I suggested that they remove the battery with the power unplugged, and this seemed to work as it started up but only lasted for a few hours.

    I got a hold of the machine and tried the following.

    Removed a lump of fluff from the fan.
    Reseated both RAM units.
    Reseated the HDD.
    Removed power and battery and pressed 'Power' button for 60 seconds.

    Nothing worked, all that happened on power up was the 2 power lights, the fan runs, the HDD makes a faint noise but no HDD activity light and no screen.

    I eventually got the laptop to start up after, I think, the following sequence.

    Remove power and battery.
    Press Ctrl, Esc, and Power buttons together.
    Replace power.
    Press Power and F10 buttons.
    Press F8.
    Start on Safe Mode.
    Restart normally.

    I had the machine running for hours at a time and restarting normally over a couple of days whilst I increased the size of the 'C' Volume, Defragged, Virus and Spyware checks, cleanup with CCCleaner.

    The children's Mum had been attempting to load printer software ( which might not have been suitable for Vista ) just before the lappy stopped working so that was all removed.

    The only outstanding issue was a warning which came during the start up - something along the lines of:
    Catalyst Control Center is not supported bt the installed drivers…….etc.
    I tried installing drivers from the ATI website, but didn’t get rid of the warning, but the LCD display appeared to work normally.

    I thought that I had everything sorted so left it switched off for a couple of days, but when I tried to switch it on to show the children, I find that it won’t start up and all the previous ‘tricks’ won’t work.

    I intend fitting the HDD in an external casing to try to recover irreplaceable pictures.

    All help and advice is welcomed, but remember that I’m not very ‘computer smart’ so treat me gently.

    TIA

    Ash
     
    ScottishAcer, Feb 28, 2010
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  2. ScottishAcer

    ScottishAcer Newbie

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    Update

    Removed the HDD from the laptop and fitted to an USB external enclosure. I find that I can read the users folders on my own laptop, which is a relief but still need help to fix the problem with the Acer.

    Anyone willing to point me the right direction?

    TIA

    Ash
     
    ScottishAcer, Mar 1, 2010
    #2