First Acer warranty experience to cometh!

The irony here is just too thick I was looking for a new battery for my Acer 3680, wanted one with more capacity as the OEM one really sucks, no really it does. The ironic part of this is I was looking at batteries when it happened, and I have a duo-core 2 processor on its way to my house - had this happened later this week, I would have no warranty w/Acer because of upgrading the processor!

So Im sitting here, my laptop just shuts off (I had it on AC Power, battery sitting beside me so I could get the part #). Start playing around with the AC adapter to see why it shut off. When I push hard on the ac plug into the side of the laptop, it receives power, but the second I dont push it in hard, it loses power

Turns out the little "needle" thats in the middle of the AC adapter hole on the side of the laptop fell right out! It was stuck in the AC Adapter barrel...

Any which way I have a few questions:

1.) I upgraded my HD. This doesnt void my warranty does it? (I could always swap back in the old HD if this is the case).
2.) I upgraded my RAM. Does Acer get picky about this either?
3.) I bought the 3 year extended warranty from Acer, although I just bought this laptop in May. How do I initiate the warranty process?

and last but not least

4.) Running the laptop without the battery in for a few minutes didnt cause this to happen did it??

I did turn it off first before I removed the battery. Then I turned it back on, boot was normal, vista loaded, I was on IE7 and then maybe 4 minutes later it just shut off... I figured it was time to put the battery back in so I did. And it turned on but didnt report any A/C power even though it was plugged in. Thats when I discovered my little problem with the needle falling out. Either way, Ive had problems with my keyboard since the beginning..keys falling off and not going back on, etc. So Im going to kill a few birds with one stone here when I send it in.

 

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Thanks for the numbers. When I went to the Acer website, it told me to take it back to Best Buy. I'd prefer to avoid that if at all possible- I mean all Best Buy would be doing is sending it out anyways (I called and spoke to "the geek squad" at my local Best Buy).

Im not going to put in the old hard drive; the ac plug falling off has nothing to do with upgrading the HD, so I dont see a reason to do a pre-send in swap.

For the time being, if I plug in the ac adapter into the side, and lay the laptop on that side putting all of its weight on the plug, it will charge.

Was it just a coincidence that the plug needle broke when I had the battery removed?

 

Ugh. I just called Acer warranty support and they told me to bring it back to Best Buy.

 

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you'll get better support from Best Buy ... I actually have acer's number memorized, including address of the depot everything, even know a hand full of the CRS and escalators names.

//Yah, I've done it that many times, I won't by acer again.

hope you don't really rely on a work laptop, you going to be with out for a while.

 

A month??! If its that long, I'll just have a friend solder a new connector on for me. Thats ridiculous. Ive seen the connectors on Ebay. They are ~$5. Has anybody replaced one of these before and is it tricky?

Oh and when I called Acer (yes it is the Acer warranty), they said because I bought it at Best Buy, thats where I'd have to return it. I imagine they have some kind of shipping arrangement at Best Buy. I dunno.

 

Very tricky and will void your warranty. Let Acer take care of it.

Cheers,
Theo