Acer Aspire 5738G totally dead - power adapter LED turns off when connecting

Hi there,

I can't take photos right now, but will upload some later, when I get to it.

Anyway, I got this Acer Aspire 5738G - won't boot at all. When I connect the power adapter to the Laptop, the LED of the power adapter turns off - it will come back a little later when after having it disconnected again.

I disassembled the laptop down to the last bit - everything that is removable from the board (by loosening screws) is removed - even CPU.

Still, if I connect the power adapter, the LED goes off, immediately again. Obviously, the "laptop" (i.e. the bare board) does not start.

I found a small part (capacitor, resistor ... sorry, I am not familiar with that part), that looks burned/blown (I will add a photo later).

1. I do not have much hope I can fully repair that thing, but any hope I can get it back to partly working, without replacing the board?

2. How high are the chances anything connected to the board is still working (the CPu does work, verified)? Anyone got a clue if the power adapter is broken, or is it "noticing" a short circuit, and turning itself of !?!?!?!

Any insight is very much welcome!

Thanks in advance
Cheers

 

Definitely sounds like a short. Measure resistance across the power jack's terminals - chances are you will find something interesting.

 

Here is what I found - this one looks burned badly.

Any idea how I could resolve that? Scrap it off and hope it works "a bit" - sounds stupid, but I once haqd an Acer 6530G with similar burns - started sometimes, didn't start other times ...

Thanks in advance for any insights!
Cheers

 

Hi,

I also found this ... translated automatically from polish.

-> pj8n9 lv ... with the EXACT same problem.

Cheers

 

thrash can - or thrash can't (i.e. fixable, if so, any pointers how to?)

Thanks in advance

Cheers

 

<s>That's a tantalum capacitor; likely a counterfeit one. Replace it with one from a trusted source. (Counterfeit tantalum caps tend to fail with a short circuit, like this.)</s>I was wrong - it's apparently a diode. But most likely it is shorted out (conducting in reverse).

 

Thanks for your reply!

Guess what - the laptop works again!

What I did you ask? First off ...

!!! DO NOT THINK I KNEW WHAT I WAS DOING !!! TRY THAT ON YOUR OWN RISK !!!

Well, i took my pliers, and fiddling around it a bit on this diode - removed the burned plastic cover, and raised the metal beneath it a bit - I thought it was maybe shorting, so I thought, getting some space in between might help.

It sure did, it boots again!

The board is trash, but I at least could test the other stuff like RAM, power adapter, battery, display, and dump them on ebay now.

I will upload a photo later, which perhaps gives more insight in what I actually did (which was not much, at all!).

Cheers

 

Actually, replacing that one diode should make the board fully work again. (Presumably by removing the cover, you converted the diode's short fault into an open fault, meaning that the board is operational, but without over-voltage protection.)

 

Yes, that's what I thought - but repairing it is out of question. I dump it on ebay as it is, and let someone repair it who knows what he is doing.

As promised, here's a picture of how the diode looks now.

Maybe, someone else has a similar problem ... this is a half-baked solution.

And just for helping google to digg this one out. The board had a short before - plugging in the power cord into the laptops power jack made the LED of the power adapter turn off immediately. This was gone after spreading the diode a bit, and the laptop worked great - ran Ubuntu from a stick for several hours, tested RAM with memtest also for over an hour.

If anyone stumbles across this, don't only post here, but also drop me a private message - obviously, I won't look into here, as this chapter is closed for me.

Thanks for your insights!

Cheers