My Travelmate 8204 Problems!!!!(HELP!)

Hello everyone,

I have been a user of Acer Travelmate 8204 WLMI for about 16 months now.
I had some problems with this laptop such as gray lines on LCD, overheating and many other problems that I am sure many users have experienced.

However, I was okay with using this machine despite many problems that I am going to describe below. But since last week it started to act very weird. When I push the power button, it would turn on as usual but I was not getting anything on the screen. I would hear the fan running and the hard drive starting up, but I had no screen display. However, when I pick up the laptop and tilit it foward little bit and press the power, the familiar ACER booting screen shows up and my computer works just fine.

Unfortunately, even with the little trick of picking up the laptop and pressing the power, it does not boot at all. I hear the fan running for about 10 seconds and it stops running and I barely hear any sounds from the hard drives( I usually heard somewhat loud noise) and no display what so ever!

I am college student and also a gamer who spends a lot of time with my laptop, and it is really a tough decision to send in the laptop to ACER for repair. I have initially purchased additional two years warranty so my warranty is still valid, but honestly, I would like to use this machine for little bit longer if it will boot up.

Right now, I have following problems with my Travelmate 8204 WLMI.

1. Does not boot at all (biggest problem!)

2. Overheating is insane! Cant use laptop without cooling pad!!
I have always used the Antec cooling pad ever since I got my laptop but the overheating gets worse and worse!

3. One keyboard keys missing!
My " ~ " key on my keyboard fell apart and I couldnt use this key for a while!

4. Speaker Broken
My left side speaker is broken and it makes harsh crashing noise whenever I play any music or video or any types of sound. I set my speaker to play only on the right side to use it.

5.Gray lines on LCD, and Very dim screen
I have tried manythings such as glossy film and other stuff but I was never really satisfied with my LCD screen. I also flashed the BIOS that was supposed to brighten up the screen but doesnt seems to help much! Also I see tape kind of thing on the bottom left (near the corner) of the LCD, it seems like it was not installed perfectly.

6. Memory (RAM?) error problem very often!
I get this memory error and it has been occuring ever since I got my laptop,
more details is on the previously thread I wrote ( http://www.notebookforums.com/thread149743.html)
Hoping to get a new ram, I got a reply from Acer support a while ago and the support guy believed it was a hardware problem..



After writing down these problems above, I realized that it is time for a repair.
I have few questions that I am concerned about and I would really appreciate if anyone could answer these questions as best as they can!

1. How long does it take for acer to send me the box to safetly ship the laptop to them?

2. How lond do I have to wait to get my laptop back hofully with all my problems resolved?

3. I actually formatted the initial setting of the hard drive and divided into three partitions(I did not erase the back up partition that was originally installed!) windows and I am using the different version of windows, will this void my warranty?


Thank you all for reading this long long thread, but as you may have noticed, I am very frustrated not being able to use my laptop It took me a while to finally deciding to send it in for a repair!

Please feel free to write any comments, tips, and thoughts! thanks!

 

I sent my laptop in for repair as I was constantly getting temps of over 80C. A day later, they replied saying that the laptop was fixed and was being shipped out. I questioned them about the temp issue and they said that they replaced the memory and the diagnostics were fine there after (I must admit that the ram chips were burning hot). Anyway in answer to your question:

1 - phone them up and if under warrenty or acer advantage, then they'll give you a case number and a telephone for dhl to pick your lappy up.

2 - it really depends on the fault and backlog. I guess I was lucky / unlucky depending how you see it. Personally I would've preferred them to have had it for a bit longer for my peace of mind.

3 - No it will not void your warranty but they do say that software faults are chargeable at 40 squids in the uk.

 

PS: i would be interested if you could send me an image of your backup partition as I formatted my computer and deleted the hidden partition with the recovery image. Will that be possible?