Acer Aspire 1703sc Laptop won't switch on.

[drbtodd1971]

I recently purchased an Acer Aspire 1703sc laptop second hand. It has worked for a few weeks with no major problems but now won't turn on.

I have opened it up and if I remove and replace the battery I get some led's to light up green on the motherboard. If I press the power button without the external supply the button flashes several times orange, with the external supply it flashes several times green. After pressing the button several times the led's on the motherboard turn off and I get no life pressing the power until I remove and replace the battery..

I am trying to identify if this is the motherboard or the battery. I can't test the battery and a new one costs more than I paid for the laptop.

Will the laptop run without the battery in. Mine won't but there is power to the battery terminals from the external power supply. Is the battery required to complete the circuit?

Anyone seen anything similar?

 

[goombawaho]

Laptop should run fine without the battery. I'd remove it, disconnect the laptop from AC power and wait a few minutes. Then I'd press the power button for 15 seconds.

Then wait another 30 seconds and connect the AC power. If still nothing, then I'd say it's a laptop internal problem instead of a power problem.

Did you try wiggling the power supply input in case the jack is going bad??

Did you measure the output of the AC adapter with a voltmeter to verify current is flowing from the adapter??

 

[drbtodd1971]

Did you try wiggling the power supply input in case the jack is going bad??

No but see below

Did you measure the output of the AC adapter with a voltmeter to verify current is flowing from the adapter??

No but I did measure the battery terminals on the laptop without the battery connected but the ac power in and they were live. Cant comment on the current being good as I don’t know what it is supposed to be but it was too high to be anything risidual from capacitors on the motherboard.

I will try what you have suggested above tonight. If that dosent work then I am going to remove ram, disks etc and try then. I have tried running it from ac power with and without battery with no luck but I have not pressed and held the power button. I am suspecting it is the motherboard, I just don’t want to buy another and find it is something else.

 

[goombawaho]

My goal with my suggestion was to drain all power out of the mobo so it would "reset" everything short of the BIOS. I've seen weird things with laptops that are only resolved by the procedure I mentioned and they are perfectly functioning machines.

Next step might be to remove the BIOS batter too and do my procedure above. After trying that I think you're out of luck.

 

[drbtodd1971]

It looks like the mobo is dead, from trying the various things. Thanks for your help