Averatec 2370 Major Problem! Please Help

I recently Upgraded to vista home premium and I also dropped in another GB of RAM. After doing this, I can no longer use the "close the lid and do nothing" function. So I resorted to "close the lid and sleep" function. (I have updated all drivers, including chipset) I then installed "vista battery saver" and now cannot use the "close the lid and sleep" function it does not work. The computer justs acts as if it is off, so this required me to hold the power button in order to power off the pc and then power the pc back on. Now... here is the major problem....

I recently held the power button down to restart the pc and now It will not boot back up. It just act like a lifeless paper weight that shines a pretty green "battery full" light whenever its plugged in.

PLEASE HELP...

 

I've had this happen on notebooks other than my 2370.

Unplug from AC, remove battery, hold down power button for 5-10 seconds.
Replace battery, restore AC, hold down power button for 5-10 seconds.

Press power button normally to start. Did it work? Great! If not repeat all steps a couple times before giving up.

 

Thanks for the advice.

Unfortunatly, the steps did not work. I repeated them 4 times. Do you have any other suggestions?

I am really open to try anything, because im pretty muchdead in the water here.

Thanks again

 

If the above did not help, you are now looking at paying a PC tech or shipping back to Averatec.

I am taking your information verbatim that other than the 'fully charged' LED when plugging in AC, NOTHING else happens when you push the power button. If my 1st advice didn't work, it opens up the whole layer of physical malfunction and there isn't much can be done via this formum.

e.g.: power switch not functioning, internal power supply crapped out, CPU blown, motherboard completely blown?

 

I contacted averatec and they gave same advice with the exception of 60 seconds, however... still no response. I expect to go meet with my neighborhood pc repair shop tomorrow.

If anyone else has any other information please let me know. Thanks serenityconsulting.

 

Here's and Update:

I now have found out that the laptop goes into its "vegetative state" only when I close the lid while it is plugged into AC. When on battery, it falls asleep (like it should).

Note: The laptop is set to fall asleep for both battery and AC.

Any help is appreciated! Thanks

 

Control Panel / Power Options (using Classic menu) - "Choose what closing the lid does" (left-hand panel on window)

Note: my notebook is set for 'Do Nothing' (both AC & battery) because I frequently use an external monitor and tuck the closed notebook underneath. I have found an issue that when I DON'T use an external monitor, the notebook will shut off the backlight when I close the top (appropriate), but fails to turn the light back on when I re-open it.

Hitting the 'switch display' function key has no affect. However, if I hit the 'sleep' function key, let the notebook go to sleep, then wake it back up, the display will relight.

I suspect this is a BIOS flaw.

 

i have this problem on a 7155, where when it's set to do nothing, the screen never comes back on when you open it back up. the way i've found to recover from this is to force it to sleep when you open the lid back up, and then recover it from sleep, and wa-la, you have your screen again. i suspect the issues is with the video driver for vista.

 

These problems sound very similar to mine, and yes the force sleep then wake up does work when im on battery power. (Its the only thing that is keeping my sanity) When Im on AC power then notebook is a total vegetable. Power light on, Wireless light on and Battery Light on, but absolutely no response. (The lights are on but no ones home)

So I just unplug AC, Put to sleep, Wake up, Plug AC in, then im good to go. This is a complete annoyance! but ohh well its all i can do.

 

I have a similar problem with my 7170, had to always sleep/unsleep after closing lid with ac. However now I can't get it back to life at all. blue light, battery light, etc., tried the hold power button down without battery/ac sequence many times, still cannot get it to boot. How did you finally get the 2370 back to life?

 

I had similar problems with my 2370 after iinstallig Vista and the chip set driver from the averatec web site. I took my 2370 apart and remove the Cmos battery which was soldered to the system board. I though that if I could reset the Cmos circuitry the 2370 would boot and then allow me to reconfigure the Cmos settings. This did not work. I now have a useless $700 piece of Junk purchased from www.averatec.com. I will never purchase another Averatec Pc. Their technical support is of no value to their Customers.

 

"I took my 2370 apart and remove the Cmos battery which was soldered to the system board. I though that if I could reset the Cmos circuitry the 2370 would boot and then allow me to reconfigure the Cmos settings. This did not work."

I'm sorry that you turned your lappy into an expensive paperweight. There's a reason, as I see you've discovered, why the battery is soldered into place. The CMOS/Bios is what tells the computer on startup, where and how to get the next startup instructions off of the boot sector of the harddrive. It also contains much of the configuration information for the CPU. Unfortunately, by removing it's power source you effectively erased all that info.

You now have a deaf, dumb and blind cpu. I personally don't know how you'd get the CMOS reflashed although I presume there must be a way. Maybe some of the major hardware gurus can lead you on that.

Rick

 

The averatec Bios firmware must be a unique design. Most Pcs use a battery to backup the cmos data and this batter will need to be replaced some time. I have removed and replaced the battery from many laptop and pcs and when the system boots there is always a prompt to reconfigure the CMOS.

 

That's true as a rule. Unfortunately, it sounds like Averatec had the works on the erasable part and now won't even go to the base BIOS setup instruction located in it's small hard coded memory.

Hope someone can help you. Might try getting ahold of Jim - User Name -"Serenityconsulting" here on the forum. Very knowledgeable guy.

Rick

 

Thanks for the kind words - only wish I could totally live up to them.

I have a mostly disassembled 2370 sitting in a drawer. It is there with the same symptoms detailed here and in similar threads. Some rainy Saturday morning I intend to reassemble this critter. I doubt the BIOS is all that different from any other PC. It would cost more to do something unconventional, and lets face it. These PCs were built with a sharp eye to cost.

I am not positive that battery has anything to do with the BIOS. The battery is located under the right palm rest, but the AC jack, the battery contacts, and the BIOS itself are all located in the left back quarter of the motherboard. You have to do very little disassembly to get to the BIOS. There is a screw under the Wi-Fi module to remove the keyboard, and once the keyboard is lifted there is a hole in the shield directly over the BIOS chip. Getting to the battery on the other hand is a real trick.

At any rate, my 2370 has now been sitting for several months with all power removed, including clipping one battery lead, just in case. Any residual energy should have been long bled off.

After reassembly, I am hoping the BIOS springs to life. If not, I will have a bootable CD in the optical drive. Some folks have had their notebook boot seemingly spontaneously after sitting for several hours with a bootable CD in the drive.

Apparently if you can jump start this notebook once, you have some chance of keeping it running for awhile. At any rate, I have nothing to lose by trying except some time. If it works, I will either use this unit as a spare, or give it to one of my kids.

 

Does anybody found a solution on booting problems with Averatec 2370?
I'm using the trick with the CD (when I press the power on switch, I put a CD in DVD-ROM wait for 15 minutes and then switch it off and on again).
Usually after booting fine, it was taking some time to have the blank screen problem again. But now everytime I switch it off, I have to do the trick. Two days ago, it took me two days to get it back to life.

 

Giannos, did you figure anything out with this? I'm almost tempted to go to a laptop repair shop, because this is getting ridiculous. Once it's on, it's fine - but i can't shut the lid (cause it'll go into standby mode and will never come back - I could change that and make it so that it never goes into standby mode, but even so - the problem will still remain everytime I shut down). I'm now afraid to shut my laptop down. I do love this model, and like I said, once it boots up, it's fine.

Any one with any thoughts?

I saw a previous post about a power button cable/connector being damaged...

 

Well, I've found out that using v1.04 bios doesn't crash so often now, the lid works for me but there are still problems. I used the current settings to flash the bios with winflash utility:
program all blocks and destroy cmos checksum.

 

Billymadison51, btw what bios version are you using? .