Blinking power led, blank screen, won't boot

Hi,

Yester night, i put my acer ferrari 3400 into hibernation mode. Today, when i try to start up, the hdd and fan comes on, but LCD is blank (black). The caps lock and numlock leds are on, and power led is blinking orange and green. The wifi led is also lit. I am also not able to turn off caps and num lock leds using the keyboard. Please advise.

Thanks,
Eric

 

Can you hook it up to an external monitor.

 

I hooked it up, but then i don't think the KB is responding, so i cannot switch to the moniter. Do you think an external usb KB would help? At this point, i don't even know if the laptop completed POST. Also, another point to note is that the laptop switches on by itself when supplied power, and holding power button for 5 sec turns it off. It seems to me that all the buttons on the laptop are being auto depressed or something. Please advise.

Thanks,
Eric

 

I have the same notebook and exactly the same problem.
Does anybody know a solution or at least what's the cause of the problem?

 

hey stap,

so is your laptop still sitting there broken? i am going to try laptoponcall.com

If anyone has any experience with that company, please post.

Thanks,
Eric

 

Hey ericwang,
so is it definitely the motherboard that is broken?

Thanks,
stap

 

Does your lights turn on like mine? Some website says that one of the MSOF power chips might be faulty. I am going to send mine back to acer and see what they say and quote for repair.

 

Yes, the caps lock and numlock leds are on, the hdd led isn't.
The first time the notebook didn't start the power led was blinking orange and green, since then it is green and doesn't blink anymore. The battery led and the WLAN led are both orange.

Please let me know what the Acer Support suggests to do.

Thanks,
stap

 

i had this exact same problem w/ my travelmate 4010. it happened when i left my external usb hdd (usb powered too) in and during the POST, it just would lock up.

anyway i had to send it back to acer. they replaced both sticks of ram and the mobo for me. took two weeks from fedex picking it up and them dropping it back off.

oh but that's not all! when i get it back, it work dandy.. for 2 min, then it just shut off. i was clueless for what was going on. i finally realized that hey, THEY DIDN'T APPLY THERMAL GREESE! i popped it open, added my own, and all was good from there.

 

Hy heov,
thanks for your answer. How much did you pay for that?

Thanks,
stap

 

i didn't pay anything. i'm still under warranty.

 

heov,

so you applied thermal grease to the cpu? isn't it soldered in place? also, was the grease the cause of the problem, or is it memory sticks or mobo?

 

Since this discussion last year, I sent in the notebook to a repair shop. They substituted the motherboard and all went fine again... until today! No I have the same problem again!!
Does anybody of you know what the exact problem is, and if it is really necessary to exchange the whole MB? Is there no way just to exchange the part that is broken?

Thanks in advance,
stap

PS: It's interesting to notice, that the error seams to occur every 1.5 years...

 

that doesn't surprise me, acer probably has it on a timer or something stupid like that...