Travelmate 5720 problem

I have an Acer Travelmate 5720G laptop, approx 4 years old and running Vista. I was using it yesterday when the screen went black. When I tried to restart it the screen remained black and didn't even display the BIOS intro/memory-check text.

I tried running a Rescue from my Vista DVD but it said it was unable to rescue the OS.

I opened the laptop and carefully cleaned the fan and exhaust holes which had got a bit clogged with fluff, then confident that this was just an overheating problem I rebooted the PC and tried the rescue again - but the same thing happened.

I was keen to get some of my files off the hard drive, so I booted into Windows 7 which I had as an extra dual-boot on the laptop. It booted OK into Windows 7 and I started to copy a large folder onto a flash drive. But after a couple of minutes the screen started repainting itself every 10 secs or so and each time a status message said the ATI graphics driver had stopped responding and had been restarted. Windows 7 has always been rock solid in the past, so it seemed that the problem was now affecting Windows 7 - and after another couple of minutes it finally blue-screened and shut down.

I then began to suspect the memory so I tried to run the Memory diagnostic that was on the Vista DVD. It took a few attempts to get into it during which I noticed that the BIOS intro text would only appear if the laptop had been left switched off for about 10 mins - if you tried to reboot it without this rest-time the screen remained black although there did seem to be some hard drive and DVD disk activity.

Anyway, when I finally got into the memory diagnostic I choose the Extended test that ran to overall 10% complete and froze. The screen stayed on for a long time afterwards but it was still stuck at 10%.

I then tried running Memtest86+ from a bootable CD and this passed all of its memory tests, so I guess the problem is not with the RAM.

Am I right in assuming that it is definitely the ATI graphics hardware that is the culprit?

If so, where is the ATI hardware in this laptop? Can it be easily replaced or is it integrated into the motherboard? Would faulty ATI graphics mean a whole new motherboard was required (sounds expensive!)

 

Does anyone know if the ATI graphics hardware is built into the motherboard?

I just want to know if faulty ATI graphics will need a whole new motherboard replacement.

 

According to a service manual it does have an MXM unit.
You are only few screws away from confirming it yourself- just open the service hatch and check it.

Service manuals are usually OK but every once in a while they use older photos and something may be different.

 

Motherboard on Ebay is not that bad and looking at photos there it does appear it is MXM.

acer 5720 motherboard | eBay

 

Thanks. I didn't know anything about laptop innards so I've had to do some reading-up on MXM. It looks like this model is MXM, but a replacement video unit is going to cost best part of 100 pounds. I think the money would probably best go towards a new laptop. What a shame it only lasted about 4 years. I'll miss the firewire port - I can't find any current laptops that come with one.

 

Nah 100 pounds is too steep.
You should be able to get one for much less especially if you don't intend to game on it and would be content with any GPU that is working regardless of its 3D Mark score.