Dead Acer Aspire 5102 (5100)

Hello everyone.

I got an Acer Aspire 5100 that shut it self off mid way through a restore session.
I turned it back on, and found myself look at a blank black screen, with the fan running and the cdrom spinning, however it did not beep atall, and did not show anythign but a black screen... 30 seconds later it automaticly shuts off..

A friend told me it could possibly be frmo a dead motherboard or bios..

So my question is, is there a way to reset the bios?

its a year and a half old exactly, but there is no warrenty left..
thanks in advance.

 

Also if i had a acer aspire 5050-3785 with a broken lcd and missing harddrive, would i be able to amke one working laptop?

 

This sounds more like an OS problem than a BIOS problem. Try getting someone else to try and boot up that hard drive since your other computer is dead. If it does boot up fine then your motherboard might very well be dead. But I'm willing to bet the failed restore messed up windows (which I'm assuming you're using). Try hitting f2 or f1 when you go to power it up and see if the BIOS menu pops up. If it does then your bios is definitely fine.

If the BIOS is fine then change the boot location to the cd/dvd drive. This means the computer will skip checking the hard drive for an OS and look to the optical drive. Then place a windows cd (any kind) or a recovery disc capable of wiping the hard drive clean. Format the hard drive and then install the OS you want. Problem should be solved.

And while you might be able to make a frankenstein out of those two laptops, I wouldn't reocmmend it. They're just Acers. In al honestly most Acers are just basic computers you can get on the cheap and something you won't have to cry over if it breaks or dies on you. You *could* try but really, why would you want to?

 

ok thanks ill try that. Cause it just so happens that my laptop decided to stop working within 2 days of my clutch going in my car so money is really really tight.

 

I also have (had?) a 5100 bought for $650 that stopped working two weeks ago, after 12 and a half months of use, therefore no warranty left. It just doesn't boot, the fan works and seconds later reduces speed, no sounds, nothing but a black screen. I got it checked and apparently the motherboard died for no reason. I contacted Acer and I was told I can get it fixed for a flat fee of $450. Considering I bought a new HP last month for $499, dual core and double the memory, triple the HD size, I guess people at Acer are completely out of their minds regarding customer service and quality of its products, built to last a year. I'm saving mine hoping a class action comes...

 

bloody hell you gotta be kidding..... this sucks... anyone know a place to get a new cheap laptop?

 

I was wondering, if some time ago laptops were expensive because they were built to last more, and today's "cheap" laptops need extended warranties as extra, not much has changed for the buyer. But what an incredible marketing strategy it is for the manufacturers... We're being induced to believe they are cheap, but cheap and dead is of no use!

 

This is why after my Ferrari I refuse to buy acer, I don't care how good of a deal they are. I played there support game, and it was horrible.

 

CrAzY! I'm have the identical laptop with the identical situation and stumbled upon the website researching the issue. I got mine last christmas and it stopped working about 12 and half months of use. Just out of warranty. It's almost like planned obsolescene. Man I hope there is a class action suit. I was warned to stay away from Acer by my brother in law who is in IT support. Shoulda listened! Wow I'm going to follow this, I hope someone from Acer reads this thread as it's a bit coincidental that we had identical laptops with identical failures in the identical time frame. WTF is up with that?

 

Thought I would add my story....
YOu want a good laugh...Here goes:
I just sent my Aspire 5100 in for the 5th ....count it....5th time and they cannot fix it. Initial problem was the DVD player went weeds, they replaced that. then the machine completely locked up so They replaced a bad mother board, then the DVD player failed, they replaced that again. Still didn't work. then it started freezing up again, like it did with the first issue I had...blue screen of death on microcrap media yes the same problem. THe bonus to acer repairs are that they give you an additional 90 day repair warranty, but they will not give out new machines....even after 5 repairs. This machine has been out of the year warranty for about 6 months. They pay for everything, shipping by fed-ex. Their Dime, but my Time. The best part is talking to the tech support. Once I asked to talk to a supervisor and they told me they didn't have a supervisor, my response was...what do you run Acer...your the main Acer top Boss....Wow. I even got so mad that one of them hung up on me. I have called so many times that I have talked to the same tech people a couple of times. Yesterday I called to check on it and they said they replaced the LCD screen. I said what, I didn't have a problem with that, but they found a problem with it...... I'm at they point where I laugh. Now when I get it back, I'm just going to call them and say I have a problem, so it costs them more money to have it sent back and have some tech work on it. My goal is to have this machine cost them 5 times the price of it.
I'm happy though today because I bought a dell.

My 2 cents on acer Tech support.

Bill

 

Ha 1.5 years of use and then it dies, sounds like mine.

I think I have found the trick though.... Remove all ACER software, since doing this I don't have any system entries in my Xp event log for about a week now. Before I was getting blue and black screen errors and dumps 4 to 5 times a day.

Anyone else find this miracle of improvement after throwing away acer software?

 

Update March 1, 2008:

here's an update and You said you want more funny stuff. Got the Acer back again, this is the 6th time I think. the repair notes said they replaced the LCD screen and the motherboard. this is the 3rd motherboard in this machine from them. They said the DVD works fine. I got it out of the box, turned it on and played a DVD.....yeah. Left the machine on for about 3 hours to see if it would lock up and yippeeeee it did. what a joke the Acer support is. Well off it goes again back to Acer. i love the 90 day warranty period. Maybe the dumb sh*ts will finally give me a new one. Although that would take an intelligent decision and I don't think they can manage that. Got my new Dell in the mail and I'm feeling a little better that i spent another $1000.

Bill

 

Two weeks ago my 5102WLMi attempted to commit suicide. I was in a shopping mall checking out the DVD movies on sale, with my laptop safely aboard my backpack (or so I thought) when I suddenly realized my back was getting hotter. I had been walking for a while so it was somewhat normal but then I realized the heat was increasing further and I knew for a second what was happening. I rushed out of the store and took the laptop out of the backpack ASAP: it was ON and really hot (obviously it didn't have proper ventilation inside the backpack). It was in a frozen state and I had to hard reboot it but it didn't turn on back.

Really scared I rushed to my home thinking of the two possibilities: a dead MOBO, or a discharged battery. Fortunately it was the second one, and the next day the lappy got 2GB of RAM (not as a prize, but it was already ordered). Now, whenever I carry it around, I take out the battery.

Thanks.
Joe.

 

Hi,

I'm looking for a replacement RTC battery for an Acer 5102 laptop. As the battery is actually soldered to the board I can't just run out and buy one.
So if anyone has a mobo thats faulty ( not a battery fault obviously) I would be interested in buying it.

cheers

 

I have a Aspire 5102 that I bought in Aug of 2006. It is now going back for the 4th time. I keep getting error messages with the bsod stating that I have a hd error and a cdrom error. I send it back after getting the runaround from acers tech line and when it comes back they haven't fixed the damn thing properly. One time the case came back with the keyboard tabs exposed, It came back today and it went immediantely to the BSOD!! They also broke the jack plastic surround. All I can say is I am VERY glad I have a good Gateway desktop that works all the time and I bought the 2 year extended warranty on the Acer. When the warranty expires I will just throw the piece of Crap in the wastecan and buy a quality laptop (if there is one being made at the time, although I am not sure that quality laptop isn't an oxymoron)
Last comment, some upset lawyer should file a class action agains't ACER as I have had 2 new motherboards installed and they don't seem to be able to make one that works!!!!

 

Please repost in a month or so and let everyone know it dumping the Acer software really fixes the problem. I think the product is just inherently a bad product that Acer released and sold figuring that they only have to get your money once. They back up a poor quality product with even worse technical support.

 

i just want you all to know that my acer 5100 also died after 1 year and 8 months. i got myself the dell in my sig below, and an equivalent cost to the acer.

 

my old 5101 (got stolen) used to turn itself on with no reason. You can really damage your lap if its inside a bag turned on. Yet, it was a good lap. Never gave me up

 

I hate doing the "Me Too" but here I am.

I updated my BIOS recently to 3.13 and everything seemed fine for ~2wks.

Upon casual inspection of my setup I noticed the video ram allocation had bumped itself to 256M. The help note said it defaults to 256M w/ >2GB of RAM (I had upgraded to 4GB awhile back.) Since I don't do anything fancy w/ the notebook I reset it to 64MB.

After a save and reboot I now have the same symptoms others have posted, quick flash of display, solid HD light, full fan then low speed, and the DVD continually seeks to boot. I've tried a recover CD but it doesn't read.

I haven't seen an answer to the question regarding a BIOS/CMOS/Flash "hard" or "factory" reset. I've had the back covers and keyboard off, but nothing is obvious and I am hesitant to dig further.

Helf.

 

SUCCESS!

After reading some posts about things similar, I decided to check the RAM. I pulled one of the 2GB sticks and it booted! I <F2>'d, reset the video memory to 256MB, and reinstalled the second 2GB and it booted! I <F2>'d again and reduced the video memory to 128MB with 4GB of RAM and NO GO?! Lather, rinse, repeat and leave it the F alone. Lesson learned.