Aspire 3000 No Power (Multiple Problems)

Alright, here's the story... I've had my Acer Aspire 3002LCi for almost 2 years now... It's been great, up until about two weeks ago when I started having to play with the AC power cable to get power to it... Eventually it came to the point where I got no power except battery... I figured there was probably a burnt solder joint connecting the DC jack to the motherboard, so I opened the case (I couldn't find any public service manual or anything so I did it freestyle).... Anyway the DC jack didn't have any visually bad solder joints and I'm a soldering noob so I figured I'd take it to a repair place and have them do it... I put it back together and booted it up just to make sure it still worked before I took it to get repaired (my friend has the same exact laptop so I just borrowed his charged battery)...

Well what happened was nothing visibly, until I noticed the yellow/orange LED on the front blink for a second every time I hit the power button... This kinda scared me so I took it apart & reassembled it again... The same thing happened so I went online and looked up some stuff... Some people said they had to reseat the CPU or heatsink or whatever, so I disassembled again and reseated the CPU, Heatsink, and the Northbridge heatsink then threw it all back together just enough so that everything was connected to run... I hit the power button and what I got was the LED on the front blinked once, the LED on the power button blinked once and the fan appeared as though it tried to start (made about a 1/4 rotation)

Anyway, I've disassembled/reassembled multiple times now, with the same thing occurring each time so I'm not sure what to do... I can have the DC jack repaired but any idea why it's not even running off battery power?

Any help is much appreciated

-Thanks
-Ken

 

Have you taken volt meter to make sure it not power adapter that bad or wire on it

i had some come into my works place with laptop in peice want me to replace power plug on it i took look at board it was fine took look at power adapter check wires on it it had break in it

 

it sounds like a mainboard failure, however i've seen other problems caused by this before.

Also, is the northbridge heatsink a regular square shape or are there a few little pieces cut out of the edge of it, if its square you'll need to remove it and put some strips of insulating tape over the components aroun the edge of the chip to prevent the from shorting out on the heatsink.

 

I got a brand new power adapter too see if that was the problem, it wasn't it's the DC jack and the nortbridge heatsink is square, I'll check to see if it's contacting anything tomorrow (getting late now)

Thanks for the replies!

 

Alright I checked the northbridge heatsink... It wasn't making any contact, but just to be sure I booted the notebook in pieces on some plastic (to make sure nothing was shorting) and I got the same effect... I tried booting several times without either heatsink on (northbridge/cpu) and neither even got warm...

Any more ideas?

 

i does sound like that your mainboard has died sadly, that is the most obvious one though. Its quite possible that the CPU has failed.

 

Meh -_-... I checked laptop repair specialists near me and it seems pretty expensive... $65 diagnostic fee + $150-$345 for "Laptop System Board, Motherboard, Repair Component Level" and if the motherboard needs a full replacement it could possibly be $200 on top of that >_<

Here's a link... http://micronotebook.com/index.php?manufacturers_id=56 the site looks like a piece of crap too =/

I purchased the laptop about 2 years ago for $500 and I'm not even sure it'd be worth that when today I can get the upgraded/updated version for the same price...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115369

It just seems like such a waste... I sent an support email to acer just inquiring any information and any options I don't know about... Nothing back yet...

This sucks because the same day it broke down was the day my $100 Proxim 8470-WD wireless card arrived (with antenna), kinda killed the excitement

I'm going to go break the piggy bank (well it's an ice-cream carton I put change in, but hopefully there'll be some money in there)

Oh well, thanks for the help, if I ever get my laptop repaired/a new one I'll try to stop back here

EDIT: Oh yeah, and if I do just get a new laptop, anything I can do with the parts besides sell them on eBay?