Acer Aspire 7520 wont power on, bad button board?

[ChrisBeach]

When I push the power button NOTHING happens, no lights, no flicker, no sound nothing. When it's plugged in the battery LED light does show, so it's definitely getting power, I even tried another AC adapter to be sure, it wont boot, but does show as charging the battery.

I figure it's either the button board, or the motherboard, the only problem is I'm not sure how I can try powering it on without the button board, I don't see any pins to bridge, or any obvious leads to try and check voltage on.

If I can confirm it is/isn't the button board then I can proceed to purchase the correct part.

Does anyone have any suggestions/ideas?

Thank you

 

[rclarke250]

It's just switches, hook an Ohm meter across the legs of the switch and push the button, should read close to 0, should read very high resistance in the open position. that will tell you if the switch is working or not.

 

[ChrisBeach]

rclarke250, thanks for the reply!

I attempted to do this, it's got 4 legs, and VERY small, but I picked two of the legs after some testing, and they give resistance when the button is open, and when i push it, it goes down to 0, seems the opposite of what you said, but maybe I'm testing wrong, either way it shows the button is registering being pushed (I tested another button on the board and it acted the same).

So it seems either the board/cable for the button board is messed up, or more likely the whole motherboard is kaput!

Thanks for the help

 

[rclarke250]

nope, closed is zero ohms, is what I said, and what you are reading.

 

[tlcscousin]

Assuming this is a laptop have you removed the battery and left it off power for about 20 minutes then plugged power in and tried booting?
Have run into quite a few Acer laptops that do this.

 

[ChrisBeach]

Apparently it's been sitting in a cupboard for 2 years, so it's been without power for a long time... and when I was working on it I had the battery out while disassembling everything, so I don't think that is the fix

Thanks for replying.

Thank you too rclarke250

I've gotten the data off the machine and onto DVD, at least the data is safe!

Thanks!

 

[FredWagner]

If it's been in the cupboard for two years, you might have a bad CMOS battery. Those are fun to change.

Fred Wagner

 

[kjv1611]

Yeah, my guess is the CMOS battery or bad/dried out capacitors on the motherboard... but it sounds more power based than anything, so #1 thought would be the CMOS battery.

 

[ChrisBeach]

The thing is, it was in the cupboard for 2 years because it stopped working and the user just went out and bought another laptop, if the CMOS battery was bad all of the sudden (2 years ago), would that really prevent it from showing any signs of life or powering on at all? (honest question, I'm curious).

 

[FredWagner]

Hard to say for sure, but one way to find out is to replace the CMOS battery. If that's not worth the trouble, the the recycling bin is the alternative.

Fred Wagner

 

[rclarke250]

From my experience, I've never seen a bad cmos battery keep a laptop from at least giving some indication of life, i.e. charge light come on when plugged into an outlet. Bad power supply, and dead battery, yes, but not the cmos battery alone, a bad cmos may keep it from completing post, but there should be at least a power light when plugged in. But I have not seen every model or even make of laptop on the market.

 

[flyboytim]

OTOH, you may need to plug in the charger and leave on for a while - the last boxed Acer I did, recommended something like 20-40 minutes, until a fully charged indicator lit up - I think this may trickle charge the cmos battery after being "on the shelf" for a while.

http://www.fxxxingcomputers.co.uk